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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
The Women's Rights Project
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Human Rights Watch: Women's Rights Project
</hdr>
<body>
<p> The Women's Rights Project was established in 1990 to work
in conjunction with Human Rights Watch's five regional divisions
to monitor violence against women and discrimination on the
basis of gender worldwide. The Project grew out of Human Rights
Watch's recognition of the epidemic proportions of violence and
gender discrimination around the world and of the past failure
of human rights organizations to hold governments accountable
for abuse of women's basic human rights.
</p>
<p> The Project monitors the performance of specific countries
in securing women's human rights, highlights individual cases
with international significance, and serves as a link between
the women's rights and human rights communities at both a
domestic and international level.
</p>
<p> In 1991, the Women's Rights Project undertook investigations
in two countries. The first mission, in collaboration with
Americas Watch, documented violence against women in the home
in Brazil and the failure of the Brazilian government to
prosecute such abuse and guarantee its female citizens equal
protection of the law. The report of that mission, Criminal
Injustice: Violence Against Women in Brazil, was released in
November.
</p>
<p> The report found that it is still possible for a man to kill
his wife in Brazil and be acquitted by the courts on the
grounds of honor. It also found that while reports of domestic
violence greatly increased as a result of the creation of police
stations specifically designed to address crimes of violence
against women, efforts to impose criminal penalties for such
abuse remain woefully inadequate. Of over two thousand cases of
violence against women reported to the main women's police
station in Rio de Janeiro in 1991, none resulted in punishment
of the accused. The report called on the Brazilian government
to apply the law fully and fairly in Brazil, to disavow
publicly the honor defense, and to train both the police and
judges in the importance of applying criminal sanctions to
domestic abuse. (For more on the report, see the chapter on
Brazil.)
</p>
<p> In November, the Women's Rights Project, together with Asia
Watch, traveled to Pakistan to investigate violence against
women in police custody and the role of gender discrimination
in the incarceration of women. The delegation found that over
seventy percent of women in police custody report sexual abuse
by police officials. It investigated several cases of rape and
sexual torture of women by police officials and found no case
that had resulted in criminal penalties for the accused
officers. Basic protections--including requirements that all
detainees are charged with a specific crime and are produced
before a magistrate within twenty-four hours and that women
detainees are interrogated in the presence of a female officer
are routinely violated.
</p>
<p> The delegation found that over sixty percent of women in
Pakistani jails are there for offenses under the Hudood
Ordinances, which were introduced by General Zia ul-Haq in 1979
as part of an "Islamization" campaign designed to consolidate
his support from an increasingly powerful fundamentalist
minority. The ordinances enforce punishments for adultery,
fornication and rape; all three crimes are defined as "sexual
intercourse outside of marriage," with rape requiring the added
element of a lack of consent.
</p>
<p> Women are often imprisoned in Pakistan because they were
unable to prove a rape charge (lack of consent) and were thus
themselves charged with adultery or fornication. This bizarre
transformation occurs largely because evidentiary laws are
explicitly biased against women and, in the absence of evidence
other than the female victim's own testimony, male defendants
find it easy to deny the charge. In such cases medical reports
introduced by the victim in support of her rape charge
(pregnancy or signs of forced penetration) are often used
against her to prove that impermissible sex occurred. As no
such medical evidence exists regarding the accused rapist, he
is often released for lack of evidence while female rape
victims are charged with fornication or adultery and sent to
prison pending trial.
</p>
<p> The delegation also found increasing numbers of Bangladeshi
women in Pakistani jails. According to a recent nationwide
survey in Pakistan, some 150 to 200 Bengali women are brought
by traffickers each month from Bangladesh to Pakistan. These
women are often lured across the border by promises of work and
find themselves forcibly sold into prostitution or domestic
servitude. If discovered by the police, they are arrested as
illegal immigrants and imprisoned. The survey estimated that
1,400 Bangladeshi women are currently in Pakistani jails.
</p>
<p> The delegation's report on the mission to Pakistan is
scheduled for release in early 1992.
</p>
<p> In addition to these completed missions, the Women's Rights
Project is working with Helsinki Watch on two additional
reports on women's rights in Czechoslovakia and Poland and with
Middle East Watch on gender discrimination under the Family Code
in Algeria.
</p>
<p> The Women's Rights Project also has begun to investigate
individual cases of international significance. The Project's
first effort in this area involved a collaboration with Middle
East Watch to protest the closing by the Egyptian government of
the Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA). The Egyptian
authorities closed the Association, known in Egypt and
worldwide for its work on women's rights, without warning or
justification. The legality of the closing is being challenged
by AWSA in court. The Women's Rights Project together with
Middle East Watch and the Urban Morgan Institute for Human
Rights of the University of Cincinnati College of Law filed an
amicus curiae brief protesting the closing on the grounds that
it violated international guarantees of freedom of expression
and association.
</p>
<p> Another important objective of the Women's Rights Project's
is to build ties between domestic and international human
rights and women's rights groups to raise the visibility of
violence against women and discrimination on the basis of gender
as human rights violations, and to strengthen the mechanisms for
making governments accountable for such practices. In addition
to the Project's field work, which often involves linking
women's and human rights groups, the Project has participated
in and sponsored several meetings designed to bring the women's
rights and human rights communities together. For example, in
November 1991, the Women's Rights Project hosted a meeting
between international women's rights monitors and
representatives of several international human rights
organizations as a step toward improved collaboration in the
future. The report from this meeting was released in December.
</p>
<p> The Women's Rights Project is directed by Dorothy Thomas and
staffed by Dionne Morris. For the academic year 1991-1992,
Michele Beasley, having received a Women, Law and Public Policy
Fellowship from the Georgetown University Law Center, has
joined the Project as staff attorney. The Women's Rights Project
is based in Human Rights Watch's Washington office.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>