Zarizana Abdul Aziz
Due Diligence Project
About the author: Zarizana Abdul Aziz is a human rights lawyer and is the Director of the Due Diligence Project and co-developed the Due Diligence Framework on State Accountability for Eliminating Violence against Women.
Key words: due dilligence, online violence against women, consent, human rights, state, internet intermediaries, international law
Summary:
This paper explores what is online violence against women; what can be done to stem and ultimately eliminate it; and whose responsibility is it to do so. It does this by building upon and furthering the issues identified in two research projects, namely the research on State accountability to eliminate violence against women by the Due Diligence Project (DDP)[1]and the research on corporate and state remedies for dealing with online violence against women by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).[2]
Direct Link to Full 50-Page 2017 European Parliament Publication:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/583139/IPOL_STU(2017)583139_EN.pdf
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22237&LangID=E
From the above LINK article by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Philip Alston – Website: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/SRExtremePovertyIndex.aspx - on the International Day for Eradication of Poverty
“If you are a victim of torture, the chances are significant that you are also poor. The same applies if you are a woman or a child who is a victim of domestic abuse. As a poor individual, you are more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for crimes and, if you are, you are less likely to be able to afford a lawyer. The poor experience additional barriers when they want to vote and often have virtually no influence on political decision-making. In short, people in lower socio-economic classes are much more likely to get killed, tortured or experience an invasion of their privacy, and are far less likely to realize their right to vote, or otherwise participate in the political process. Development and human rights organizations, as well as Governments, mostly ignore violations of the civil and political rights of the poor, with terrible results.
A gendered understanding of poverty is crucial for exploring its differing impacts. Women, in particular, may be vulnerable to the effects of poverty and the causes of women’s poverty, and how poverty is experienced, may differ from men. Neither women nor men, however, are a homogenous group and how poverty is experienced depends on other intersecting issues such as age, class, ethnicity, disability etc. Issues which poverty alleviation research also needs to take into account in order to get a more nuanced picture of people’s lived experiences to help shape policy responses that are relevant and appropriate.
