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Culturally-Justified Violence Against Women

What is CVAW?

The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women 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."

Culturally–justified violence against women (CVAW) are those acts explicitly justified or condoned through a misuse of cultural, religious, or traditional beliefs in order to impose a patriarchal control over women and girls. This includes control over her body, her sexuality, who to love, who to marry, how to express herself, what to believe and her right to exercise her free will.

At its base, CVAW is an exercise in curtailing women’s fundamental rights to control their own bodies and make their own life choices on the basis of claims of cultural or religious authority and authenticity. Such claims must be rejected as no culture or religion can justify  stripping a woman—or any human being—of their fundamental human rights.

How do we understand CVAW?

WLUML is not against any culture, religion or faith. We recognise that culture and religion can be empowering and central to both individual and collective identities, and believe in promoting the positive, inclusive values and discourses that are part of our cultures. What we challenge and oppose is the legitimacy given to legal, religious and cultural systems that promote discrimination and violence against women and girls.

That is, the focus of WLUML’s activities is on the misuse and manipulation of culture and religion to control women and girls. By emphasizing power relations and justifications, we destabilize the myth of a static, ahistorical, homogenous, and autonomous "culture," and expressly disavow the misconception that gender-based violence is an essential characteristic of any culture or religion.

An engagement with CVAW is necessary because, unfortunately, both State and non-State actors are increasingly using "culture" to justify violence against women. When these acts are given legitimacy at either international or regional levels, they promote the idea that there is an inherent cultural right to execute violence amongst certain communities. This is patently unacceptable and must be rejected. When such conservative forces claim ownership over an "authentic" interpretation of culture, tradition and/or religion, women are not only told to accept violence, they are denied the fulfilment of their potential as equal and active contributors to the production of culture.

While we reject the notion that Muslim communities are particularly or uniquely misogynistic, WLUML’s work on CVAW is most active in Muslim contexts owing to our history as a network of women’s rights activists of Muslim heritage or living in Muslim contexts. WLUML’s campaigns on CVAW grew from a diversity of grassroots struggles in Afghanistan, Iran, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, Senegal and Pakistan, where movements opposing cruel and inhuman punishments against women and girls took on issues such as stoning, whippings, female genital mutilation and "honour" killings. At the same time, WLUML recognizes that CVAW exists in many forms across all societies. We  act as a platform for solidarity for those working to tackle CVAW across diverse religious and cultural contexts.


How are we working to tackle CVAW?

Our efforts against CVAW cumulated in the Violence is Not Our Culture campaign, which was launched in 2007. The Campaign serves as a knowledge base on CVAW, publishing original research papers on topics such as stoning and zina (adultery) laws that go in depth into the nuances of such practices as they relate to various interpretations of religion, culture, and tradition. The campaign has also linked the global and local struggles of partners in its strategic use of the human rights framework and its engagement with international and regional human rights mechanisms. Finally, the Violence is Not Our Culture Campaign has worked to increase the capacity of its partner groups, holding workshops on CVAW and digital campaigning/security, and supporting grassroots initiatives on CVAW in over 10 countries.

Subsequently, under the WELDD programme, we have taken forward our CVAW analysis into work with grassroots partners in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, and Sudan on projects to address early, child, and forced marriage, on stoning and discriminatory Penal Codes, and service provision for survivors of domestic violence.  We also progressed the CVAW concept by addressing how it relates to issues of peace and security.  This led to our delivery of regional workshops for activists on the front lines of resisting CVAW, which focused on building sustainable activism with a focus on self-care and integrated security.