From impunity to justice
Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau, Inc. (author)
Richa Kaul Padte (editor)
A summary
Introduction
The present report seeks to examine existing domestic legal remedies for survivors of technology-related
violence against women (VAW)1 to access justice.
The research was carried out across seven countries:
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan
and the Philippines.
The present research aims to (a) identify available
domestic remedies in cases of technology-related
VAW, (b) analyse the strengths and limitations of
available domestic legal remedies in relation to wom1 This report draws from the access to justice framework
previously developed by the Women’s Legal and Human
Rights Bureau (WLB) which posits that women’s access
to justice is influenced not only by the legal system, but
also by the interplay of politics, economics and culture.
The framework is intersectional in its approach to discrimination.
en’s experiences, (c) highlight the voices and experiences of survivors who have sought legal remedy
and to identify insights from their experiences, and
(d) develop recommendations for both ICT and VAW
policies based on the research findings. An examination of the remedies for technology-related VAW
focused on three elements: their adequacy and effectiveness, the culture of impunity, and survivors’
own agency and power.2
2 The UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of
Violence Against Women (DEVAW) defines violence
against women as: “any act of gender-based violence
that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or
psychological harm or suffering to women, including
threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of
liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (see
the full text at www.un.org/documents/ga/res/48/a48r104.
htm). Technology-related VAW encompasses acts of
gender-based violence that are committed, abetted or
aggravated, in part or fully, by the use of information
communication technologies (ICTs).
This is a summary of the research report “From impunity to justice: Domestic legal remedies for cases of technology-related violence
against women”, by the Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau. This summary was prepared by Richa Kaul Padte.
To read more on the research findings: www.genderit.org/VAWonline-research