Articles 4(k) and 4(l) of the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/16
Article 4
States should condemn violence against women and should not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination. States should pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating violence against women and, to this end, should:
( k ) Promote research, collect data and compile statistics, especially concerning domestic violence, relating to the prevalence of different forms of violence against women and encourage research on the causes, nature, seriousness and consequences of violence against women and on the effectiveness of measures implemented to prevent and redress violence against women; those statistics and findings of the research will be made public;
( l ) Adopt measures directed towards the elimination of violence against women who are especially vulnerable to violence;
The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993) or the Declaration deals with the ways in which Violence Against Women or VAW can be dealt with and eventually eliminated from nations bound or taking seriously the Declaration.
Within the provisions of the Declaration, women have a greater opportunity to share in the equality of the nation. In terms of a utilitarian standard of evaluation – a la John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, the utility of peace through reduced and eliminated violence orients the global ethical qualitative metric to the higher good – akin to the Golden Rule or in direct isomorphism with the Nazarene’s ethical standards found in the New Testament of the collection of small religious books entitled The Bible.
Obviously, the move toward the elimination of violence against, approximately, half of the world’s population human population can produce greater well-being for the individual women undergoing the harms of abuse but also to the men at large with the inclusion of women in the economic, social, and political life of the nation; although, of course, many men will resent the equal status of women for a variety of reasons ranging from misogyny to fundamentalist religion, to extra competition in civic and economic life, to simple loss of control.
The last one may be a big factor for many men in the world who feel entitled to the bodies, minds,a dn reproductive organs of women. Now, Article 4(k), as we will discover today, speaks to the statistical analysis and data collection side of the work for gender equality; bearing in mind, of course, the Sustainable Development Goals and numerous documents with direct statements about a whole suite of topics and subject areas around the world and in societies for women’s equality with men.
However, in order to implement the greater equality of women with the men in the world or the nation, there should be some loose or even precise qualitative/quantitative data from which proper statistical analyses can be done, to identify areas to work for equality of the sexes.
Some areas will show regressions to less desirable states; other areas will represent progressions to more desirable states in specific metrics and areas of the world, and over specified periods of time, to mark greater or lesser progress towards higher utility or lesser utility for the human population at large: in this case, the move towards the ideal of elimination of VAW or away from elimination towards something approximating maximum VAW.
The ability to “research, collect data and compile statistics” provides a firmer foundation for giving concrete actionables on the issues of VAW, especially compared to not doing it. Data is a friend here. From this research set about by the national government or governmental organizations, the pathways to VAW can be examined in a systematic way.
Those systematic analyses can provide the bases for pragmatic solutions to the international crises of VAW. Not only this, the information and statistical analyses can be re-applied after the implementation of prior VAW preventative initiatives to look into their respectvie efficacy in reducing VAW, in moving the proverbial Golden Rule dial to the area of fewer incidents of VAW and/or, at least, lesser severity in the occurrences.
Then the final portion of this particular article relates to the transparency and honesty principles. That is, all data and findings are to be made public for examination, if so desired, by the general populace, by the citizens of the State.
Article 4(l) states the need for the adoption of measures for the elimination of VAW but, in particular, notes the vulnerable populations. As these focus on women, the vulnerable targets of violence would be various subpopulations of women and the means by which to provide additional resources and emphasis for the reduction and eventual elimination of violence against those women, or girls, in particular.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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