Ask Amnesty

From Jac:

Given that the mission of Amnesty International (AI) is to free prisoners of conscience, to end political killings and to end torture, among other points, what is AI's stance on domestic violence? Does domestic violence fit into the mission of AI considering that such violence can be seen as political killing and as torture?

AIUSA's Women Human Rights Program responds:

Amnesty International's mission is to end grave violations of human rights including, among other things, stopping torture. In March 2001, AI published a report about women and torture entitled, Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds: Torture and ill-treatment of Women, in which we emphasized that governments must be held accountable to prevent, investigate and punish all forms of violence against women, whether these acts are perpetrated by government actors or by private actors in the community and family. This reflects AI's support for ratification and implementation of the UN Convention to Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) which has been interpreted to include violence against women as a major obstacle to their ability to enjoy their fundamental freedoms and human rights, and for the UN Declaration to eliminate Violence Against Women (1993) which states that domestic violence is a form of violence against women in the home.

In our 2001 report, AI stated that "acts of violence against women in the home or the community constitute torture for which the state is accountable when they are of the natrue and severity envisaged by the concept of torture in international standards and the state has failed to fulfill its obligation to provide effective protection." When the state fails to take effective steps to prevent abuses like domestic violence, to investigate them when they occur, to prosecute the alleged perpetrators and bring them to justice in fair proceedings, and to ensure adequate reparation including compensation and redress, it has not fulfilled its internationally recognized protection obligations.

Amnesty International has issued reports to stop "honor" killings in Pakistan, Western Iraq and elsewhere, to call on the government of Kenya to pass a law criminalizing domestic violence and to prosecute perpetrators, and will be working in the near future on more issues of domestic violence in other countries. Here in the USA, the AIUSA Women's Program is colloborating with organizations working to end domestic violence to educate the public about domestic violence as a form of torture and to integrate a human rights framework into anti-domestic violence advocay. Some of our actions include training domestic violence service providers on using the human rights framework to describe the severity of domestic violence and the obligation of government at every level - federal, state, county, city - to take effective steps to stop it.