The Legal Protection of Women From Violence

Violence against women remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world today, and it permeates every society, at every level. Such violence is considered a systemic, widespread and pervasive human rights violation, experienced largely by women because they are women. Yet at the international level, there is a gap in the legal protection of women from violence. There is currently no binding international convention that explicitly prohibits such violence; or calls for its elimination; or, mandates the criminalisation of all forms of violence against women.The book puts forward a strong case that there is a legal gap in international law for the protection of women and girls from violence and that this could be remedied through a new United Nations Convention or alternatively an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.