Presentation to the Equality and Justice Alliance on TrackGBV

1. Gender Stereotyping in Judicial
Decisions in Violence Against
Women Cases Across the Pacific
Island Region

3. Inadequate Responses to GBV

5. Why is GBV a pandemic?
Discriminatory Systems:
● Patriarchy
● Culture / Tradition
● Marriage as control
● History
● Early limitations of freedom
● “The Natural Order”

6. Outcomes of Structural Discrimination
● restriction of women’s sexuality and reproductive freedom;
● uncompensated exploitation and control of women’s productive
and creative capacities, talents, and skills;
● cultural practices that entrench a false narrative of women’s
inferiority by limiting educational, earning, and entrepreneurial
activities as well as property ownership;
● laws and legal institutions that formalise and perpetuate
women’s inferiority; and
● enforcement through individually and socially accepted
subjugation (limited freedom of movement) and violence against
women in the home and in the community.

7. Tracking the Links Between
Discrimination & GBV
Gender Discrimination is deeply embedded in networks of cause
and effect within societal systems, and therefore require an
intentional process designed to fundamentally alter the
components and structures of the system.

8. Evolution of International Law Linking
Gender Stereotyping and Violence
● CEDAW General Recommendation 19 (1992): the Committee
refers to gender stereotypes and perceptions of women as
subordinate to men as an underlying cause of gender-based
violence. Focusing on rural areas, the Committee has identified
how specific attitudes and customs perpetuate GBVAW.
● CEDAW General Recommendation 35 (2017): State obligation to
eradicate prejudices and stereotypes that constitute the root
causes of GBVAW.

9. Evolution of International Law Linking
Gender Stereotyping and Violence
● Landmark CEDAW Case (Vertido v. Philippines, 2010):
Committee found that the Court had relied on stereotypes in its
rational by expecting that women must physically resist for the
attack to be considered an unwanted sexual attack.
● In Women Victims of Sexual Torture in Atenco v Mexico (2018),
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that violence
by state security forces were motivated by stereotypes that
women should be home cooking and caring for children. The
Court found that the state had a positive duty to address
gender stereotyping.

10. PICs Have Some of the Highest Prevalence Rates of GBV Globally
UNFPA, 2016 Regional Snapshot: Intimate partner violence among ever-partnered women and non-partner violence among all women.

11. Barriers to Justice: Inadequate Responses in Law & Practice

13. Fiji Sentencing Decisions Reviewed

14. Inclusion of Medical Reports

15. Victim Age Spectrum: Cases Involving Domestic & Sexual Violence

16. Victim Age Spectrum: Cases Involving Sexual Violence

17. Victim Age Spectrum: Cases Involving Domestic Violence

18. Anonymity of Victims

19. Contentious Factors Raised by the Judicial Officer

20. Regional Trends Emerging from the Data
● Reconciliation practices (formal or informal) are the most
significant contentious factor leading to sentence reductions
and suspended sentences
● Average sentence lengths for GBV cases are becoming more
proportional to the gravity of offenses (esp. in SV cases)
● Greatest concentration of victims of GBV cases are girls
● Limited reliance on medical evidence in sentencing decisions
● Limited confidentiality of victims

21. Case Law Review: Contentious Factors
● Reconciliation (formal or informal)
● First time offender status (evidence of prior violence exists)
● Alcohol (as a cause)
● Provocation (e.g. infidelity as a cause)
● Rape Myths (e.g. sex is consensual if the victim did not struggle)

23. Q&A