Promoting and Protecting the Human Rights of Women and Girls A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions Violence against women: The United Nations General Assembly and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) have both defined violence against women as violence that is perpetrated against women because they are women or that affects women disproportionately. Women are subjected to different forms of violence, including physical, sexual, psychological and economic violence. Perpetrators of such violence are often intimate partners and, in many regions, culture and tradition, often reflected in inadequate laws, prevent women from seeking or receiving protection from domestic violence. Women are also subjected to targeted violence in war, armed conflict and post-conflict situations. As noted by the United Nations Secretary-General, “[t]he use of rape as a tool of war and atrocities targeting women are the most systematic expression of violence against women in armed conflict”.21 Discrimination in employment: In most countries, formal discrimination in employment on the basis of sex is not lawful. However, on almost every indicator, women continue to suffer the effects of discrimination. Worldwide, women earn less than men for work of equal value. The wage gap between women and men is particularly marked in Asia. More women than men are employed informally and, as a result, lack job security and other safety nets. Women are still very rarely employed in jobs with status, power and authority. Maternity is a major source of discrimination in employment. Even where it is prohibited in law, many pregnant women are dismissed from their jobs. Discrimination in access to justice: Women are often denied access to justice, which means they cannot seek or receive redress for discrimination and violence committed against them. Examples include the failure of public authorities to investigate and prosecute cases of sexual assault and domestic violence and the failure to provide remedies to women who are discriminated against in employment. In some countries, access to justice is rendered impossible as women are explicitly denied equality before the law. More commonly, it is a combination of institutional and procedural obstacles, as well as discriminatory practices and attitudes that deny women access to justice. Discrimination in access to education and resources: While the situation is improving in many countries, girls are more likely than boys to be kept away from school and to finish school earlier. At the individual level, women’s lack of access to or control over resources limits their economic autonomy. This lack of access and control is often made possible through discriminatory laws and cultural practices relating to property ownership and inheritance rights. Reproductive health: In every part of the world, women and adolescent girls bear the brunt of sexual and reproductive ill-health. Globally, it is women and girls in developing countries who are at most risk of reproductive-related disease, disability and death. Many aspects of reproductive rights remain unsettled and controversial. As a result, reproductive rights have tended to occupy a marginalized position in international human rights law and practice. Participation in public life and decision-making: Women continue to be poorly represented in public life at all levels and in most spheres. While the figures are improving, women make up only a small percentage of the heads of States or Governments around the world. Similarly, women comprise more than 30 per cent in the lower or single house of their national parliament in only a handful of countries. A 2012 report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women found that, globally, women hold less than 20 per cent of seats in parliament. The figure in Asia is 17.9 per cent and in the Pacific it is 14.9 per cent, making women’s representation in the Asia-Pacific region one of the lowest in the world, second only to the Arab States. The countries of Asia and the Pacific have the lowest worldwide proportion of women government ministers.22 Links, overlaps and multiple discrimination: Identifying individual issues of special concern should not obscure the strong links between violations of women’s human rights. These links, which reflect the indivisibility and interrelatedness of all human rights, were recognized in the Amman Declaration in the specific context of economic and social rights: 6 21 In-depth study on all forms of violence against women: Report of the Secretary-General; A/61/122/Add.1; para. 94. 22 Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women; Women in Politics Map: 2014; available at www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/wmnmap14_ en.pdf.