Input to the addendum to the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls on the concept of consent in relation to violence against women and girls
- Document number
- 3593
- Date
- 30/01/2025
- Title
- Input to the addendum to the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls on the concept of consent in relation to violence against women and girls
- Author/publisher
- La Strada International & others
- Availability
- View/save PDF version of this document
- Document type(s)
- LSI publication,
- Keywords
- UN; UN Special Rapporteur; Gender-based Violence; Human Rights; Consent
- Summary
- This submission, developed by 18 organisations, lawyers and academics (see addendum) responds to the Special Rapporteur’s call for inputs on “The Concept of Consent in Relation to Violence Against Women and Girls.” We also link our concerns here to those raised in a separate submission to the simultaneous call for inputs to the report, “Forms of Sex-Based Violence Against Women and Girls: New Frontiers and Emerging Issues.” We believe that these two thematic initiatives are interconnected and likely to undermine existing human rights norms and standards essential to the global struggle to end gender-based violence against all women. Consent has become an integral part of international law and standards. It is the result of years of sustained advocacy. Examining it in such a limited context as the questions posed in the Special Rapporteur’s call for input risks the re-criminalisation of personal autonomy and agency, as well as retrogressing to protectionist approaches to gender-based violence that fail survivors and neglect root causes.