Security for women human rights defenders

Women human rights defenders are paying a heavy price for their work in protecting and promoting other people’s human rights. Women defenders have to confront risks which are specific to their gender, and their security therefore requires a specific approach. Here’s a list of causes for this:

Women may attract unwanted attention:

Women defenders may provoke hostility because being both a woman and a human rights defender could defy local cultural, religious or social norms about femininity and women’s role. Women defenders could therefore face human rights violations not just because of their work, but simply because being a working woman, or a defender, can challenge a society’s stereotypes about women’s submissive nature and ideas about their status.

Women defenders may have to break patriarchal laws and social taboos:

In some countries, defending women’s right to life and liberty has resulted in the life and liberty of women defenders themselves being violated. Similarly, protesting against discriminatory practices has led to a prominent women’s rights defender being prosecuted on charges of apostasy. In many cultures, the requirement that women should defer to men in public can be an obstacle to women publicly questioning human rights violations carried out by men. Certain discriminatory or sexist interpretations of religious texts are also often used to maintain or establish laws or practices which have a major influence on women’s rights.

There are specific forms of attack against women defenders:

The hostility, harassment and repression women defenders face may be gender specific, ranging from verbal abuse directed exclusively at them to sexual harassment and rape. The consequences of such attacks can also be gender-specific, such as pregnancy and social rejection.

Women defenders may come under pressure to “prove” their integrity:

Women’s professionalism and standing in society can be threatened and discredited in ways that are specific to them, such as their integrity being called into question.

Male colleagues may not understand, or could even reject, women defenders’ work:

Male colleagues of women human rights defenders can have the same social prejudices as outsiders who attack women defenders. Men could also feel threatened by professional competition from a woman. This can result in attempts to marginalise or undermine women human rights defenders and can sometimes result in harassment and violence against women defenders by their colleagues.

Women defenders could experience domestic violence:

Domestic violence can result from changing power structures within a family. A woman defender’s growing professional role and empowerment could make her husband, partner or other family members feel threatened and lead him/her to try to stop her activities or become violent. Domestic violence against women includes all physical, sexual and psychological harm which occurs within the family, such as battering, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices which are harmful to women (see below).

Additional family obligations:

Many women defenders have to take care of children and other relatives, in addition to their other work. Such responsibilities, especially if involving young children, will influence many of the security decisions a woman defender may have to make in a high risk situation.

All these pressures place an additional burden of work and stress on women defenders.