OHCHR, International Labour Organization, UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNODC, UN Women, World Food Programme, World Health Organization, UNAIDS
Joint Agency Statement
United Nations entities call on States to act urgently to end violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) adults, adolescents and children.
All people have an equal right to live free from violence, persecution, discrimination and stigma. International human rights law establishes legal obligations on States to ensure that every person, without distinction, can enjoy these rights. While welcoming increasing efforts in many countries to protect the rights of LGBTI people, we remain seriously concerned that around the world, millions of LGBTI individuals, those perceived as LGBTI and their families face widespread human rights violations. This is cause for alarm – and action.
Report of the United Nations Secretary General
The Secretary-General’s in-depth study on violence against women, mandated by General Assembly resolution 58/185, was prepared by the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat.
UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Thematic Report
The Secretariat has the honour to transmit to the Human Rights Council the report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, prepared pursuant to Council resolution 25/13. In the report, the Special Rapporteur assesses the applicability of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in international law to the unique experiences of women, girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons.
Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights
Thematic Report
UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief
Interim Report
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, provides an overview of his mandated activities since the submission of the previous report to the General Assembly (A/67/303), including his country visits, communications and other activities.
In the face of complicated conflicts in the interplay of freedom of religion or belief and equality between men and women, the Special Rapporteur has decided to focus the present report on the relationship between those two human rights, with the purpose of contributing to a systematic clarification. Existing conflicts in this area should always be addressed with empirical and normative precision. Without in any sense denying the reality of conflicting human rights concerns in the intersection of freedom of religion or belief and equality between men and women, the Special Rapporteur would like to point out that it remains important not to turn concrete conflicts between human rights issues into an abstract antagonism on the normative level itself.
Unfortunately, the impression that freedom of religion or belief and equality between men and women allegedly constitute two essentially contradictory human rights norms seems to be widely shared. This can cause serious protection gaps. For instance, efforts to explore and create synergies between freedom of religion or belief and gender equality are sometimes ignored or even openly discouraged. Moreover, the abstractly antagonistic misconstruction of the relationship between freedom of religion or belief and equality between men and women fails to do justice to the life situation of many millions of individuals whose specific needs, wishes, claims, experiences and vulnerabilities fall into the intersection of both human rights, a problem disproportionately affecting women from religious minorities.
The Special Rapporteur therefore emphasizes the significance of upholding a holistic perspective in conformity with the formula coined at the World Conference on Human Rights that “[a]ll human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated”. Based on this holistic perspective, which deserves to be defended even in complicated and tense situations, he formulates a number of practical recommendations addressed to States and other stakeholders.
UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief
Thematic Report
Violence committed “in the name of religion”, that is, on the basis of or arrogated to religious tenets of the perpetrator, can lead to massive violations of human rights, including freedom of religion or belief.
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| In the present report, the Special Rapporteur first provides a typological description of various forms of violence carried out in the name of religion. He subsequently explores root causes and relevant factors that underlie such violence. The main message is that violence in the name of religion should not be misperceived as a “natural” outbreak of collective acts of aggression that supposedly reflect sectarian hostilities existing since time immemorial. Rather, it typically originates from contemporary factors and actors, including political circumstances.
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The Special Rapporteur also recommends concerted actions by all relevant stakeholders, including States, religious communities, interreligious dialogue initiatives, civil society organizations and media representatives, in order to contain and eventually eliminate the scourge of violence committed in the name of religion.
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UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
Thematic Report
In follow-up to her previous reports on violence against women in the family and in the community, the present report analyses various forms of violence against women as perpetrated and/or condoned by the State. The first chapter addresses violence against women in armed conflict. In chapter II, the Special Rapporteur looks at custodial violence against women. In chapter III, she examines violence against refugee and internally displaced women.
UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
Thematic Report
The present report focuses on all forms of violence against women in the family.
Chapter I outlines the working methods of the Special Rapporteur and reports on the activities undertaken by the Special Rapporteur in the exercise of her mandate since the fifty-first session of the Commission. Chapter II is an introduction to the problem of violence in the family. Chapter III examines domestic violence as a violation of international human rights law. Chapter IV addresses the question of domestic violence and other forms of violence against women in the family, based essentially on the analysis of information received by the Special Rapporteur in reply to a note verbale of 29 July 1994, sent to Governments, United Nations organs, bodies and specialized agencies, as well as non-governmental organizations and women’s groups. In Chapter V, the Special Rapporteur lists existing national legislation on domestic violence. In chapter VI she analyses the legal mechanisms available in various countries in connection with which a framework for model legislation on domestic violence has been prepared (E/CN.4/1996/53/Add.2). Finally, chapter VII contains recommendations on ways and means to eliminate violence against women in the family, along with its causes, and to remedy its consequences.
UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
Thematic Report
The Commission on Human Rights, at its fifty-second session, in its resolution 1996/49 of 19 April 1996, welcomed the work of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, and commended the Special Rapporteur for her analysis of violence against women in the family (E/CN.4/1996/53 and Add.2).
As already indicated in her previous report, the present report focuses on all forms of violence against women in the community.
UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
Thematic Report
The present report focuses on States’ compliance with their international obligations with respect to domestic violence, specifically in terms of the 1996 report of the Special Rapporteur on violence in the family (E/CN.4/1996/53). In that report, the Special Rapporteur set forth 10 general and 23 specific recommendations to guide State action with respect to violence against women in the family.
