Global Campus of Human Rights Magazine n 9 (March 2023)

Abstract

This year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 30th anniversary of the 2nd World Conference of Human Rights, which took place in Vienna in June 1993. The two most memorable slogans from Vienna were “All Human Rights for All”, the motto of the NGO Forum underlining the universality, equality, interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights, as well as “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”, one of the most influential demands of NGOs. In retrospective, this might seem surprising, as the equality of women had been strongly rooted from the outset in the legal UN human rights framework, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 and having entered into force in 1981, had become a milestone in the advancement of women’s rights and the fight against gender-based discrimination. However, while discrimination against women had been gradually eliminated from domestic laws and women had increasingly gained access to all human rights, including the rights to vote, to education, to marry and to justice, the most egregious violations of women’s rights continued to be practiced in the “private” sphere, be it in the family, the work place or in society at large. In the UN system, rights of women were dealt with in the Commission on the Status of Women rather than in the Human Rights Commission, and the monitoring of CEDAW by the CEDAW Committee was strictly separated from the activities of other UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies. The Vienna World Conference on Human Rights 1993 and the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995 symbolized a paradigm shi! in the protection of human rights of women in the “private” sphere, above all against domestic violence, all forms of sexual harassment and gender based violence, traditional practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), forced marriage, honour killings, sati, the gender pay gap in business etc. In December 1993, only half a year a!er Vienna, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, and in March 1994 the Human Rights Commission created the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, which had a major impact on the advancement of women’s rights and led to the adoption of domestic laws on domestic and other forms of violence against women and girls. Much has been achieved in making women’s rights more equal to men’s rights, but much more needs to be done in fighting for the full equality of women and against male dominance in governments and politics, business, religion, the family and society at large. That’s why this 9th edition of the Global Campus Magazine and the Global Campus Human Rights Conversation on 8 March, marking the International Women’s Day, is dedicated to strengthening the human rights of women. _______________________________________________________________________ This issue includes interviews to: Domenica Bumma, Laure De Dilectis, Ermelinda Damiano, Mahsa Kayyal.