A short history of women's rights law

Violence against women (VAW) was internationally recognised as a violation of women’s human rights and fundamental freedoms for the first time in the early 1990s.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1992) recognised that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination, which is illegal under international human rights law. In 1993, at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, all states recognised that: “The human rights of women and of the girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life, at the national, regional and international levels, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex are priority objectives of the international community. Gender-based violence and all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation, including those resulting from cultural prejudice and international trafficking, are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person, and must be eliminated.”

In its Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the General Assembly of the United Nations identified the various forms of violence against women and girls, in homes, in communities, and perpetrated by states, and called on states to take a variety of actions to remedy violence against women, including legal reform, gathering data, improving police and medical responses to gender-based violence, and recognising the importance of women’s civil society organisations working on the issue.

Recognition that violence against women is a human rights violation fundamentally changed the understanding of states’ responsibility to eradicate violence against women, and to prevent, investigate and punish crimes of violence against individual women. Human rights belong to every single person, without exceptions. States have a duty to respect, protect and fulfil each human right. ‘Respect’ prevents the state from interfering with or limiting the full enjoyment of human rights. ‘Protect’ requires the state take action to ensure private individuals do not interfere with or abuse the human rights of others. ‘Fulfil’ means the state take all appropriate measures to guarantee the full realisation of human rights for each individual. This means that states are in violation of their human rights obligations if they do not take adequate steps to end violence against women within their borders. Since the legal and political landmarks of the early 1990s, states’ specific obligations to tackle VAW continue to be outlined through case law at the national, regional and international levels. This page is dedicated to some of those landmark cases and the women’s stories behind them.