Welcome to the series Culture and Human Rights: Challenging Excuses for Gender-Based Violence!

Gender Across Borders in collaboration with Violence is Not Our Culture: the Global Campaign to End Violence Against Women in the Name of ‘Culture’  would like to welcome you to a series exploring the relationship between culture and violence against women.

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.” Webster’s dictionary defines culture as “the behaviours and beliefs characteristic to a particular group.”

Throughout the world culture is employed to justify discrimination and violence against women. ‘Culture’ is used to impose control over women’s bodies, sexuality, emotions, decisions and actions, preventing them from expressing their own free will and enjoying their fundamental freedoms and human rights.  Regardless, of who we are, where we are, we are all under the ‘control’ of ‘culture.’

Fortunately, culture is not homogenous or static; it evolves and changes over time. The personal narratives, journalistic articles, analytical pieces, critical essays and editorials that poured in from around the world on abusive and degrading practices towards women such as FGM, forced marriage, honour killings, polygamy, harmful menstruation rituals and much more demonstrate that cultural evolution and change starts with each one of us. We can break harmful practices upheld by ‘tradition,’ claims of religious authority or cultural authenticity.  I was, and remain, immensely moved and inspired by each contributor and I hope you will too!

Culture and Human Rights: Challenging Excuses for Gender-Based Violence

Parts I and II

edited by Tanya Castle

PART I:

Thursday, October 27, 2011

• Cultural Relativism and Universal Women’s Rights Doctrine by Elizabeth Crane
•  Violence Against Women and Culture: A Symbiotic Relationship by Danielle Prince
• The Culture That Is by Roshiko Deo
• Complete Silence is Not Absence by Mitzi Smith
• Pain for Beauty: the Dilemma of Facial Cutting in Sudan by Reem Abbas
• Acid Attack Survivor Heals Others by Biyojeta Das
• No Excuse: Cultural Makeover Time by Claire Varley
• Conquering Culture and Creating Change: A Grassroots Level View from Morocco by Stephanie Bordat
• Remembering Eudy by Natasha Segel
• The space between culture and women’s rights by Afaf Bataineh
• Street Culture by Elizabeth Walsh
• Stereotyped Ukraine by Olga Pakos

 Friday, October 28, 2011  

• Redefining Ourselves, Ou Bodies and Out Futures Through Culture by Donna Yang
• Breaking the ‘chain’ of culture in the mind of women and girls by Reem Mahmoud
• Female Circumcision: Comparing Muslim and Non-Muslim African Communities by AJ Morgen
• The Unbroken Curse by Wanjala Wafula
• At 3:30AM by Kathleen Fallon
• A Culture of Violence? by Miriam Vaswani
• Please Take My Hand: Stepping into the Reality of Non-State Actor Torture by Linda MacDonald and Jeanne Sarson
• Arab Spring to End Violence Against Women? by Vibeke Thomsen
• Scrape Her Head and Lay Her Bare- Widowhood Practices and Culture by Osai Ojigho
• Child Marriage: Ukuthwala in South Africa by Nicole Soucie

PART II:

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 – Friday, January 13, 2012

• Intro to the second part of the Culture and Human Rights series by Tanya Castle
• The Horror Show: Crimes Against Women Around the World by Madeline Mendoza
• My Life of Violence by Mindy Stokes
• Isn’t untouchability abolished? Why is the bleeding of the goddess sacred, while that of the mortals dirty? by Amrita Mukhopadhyay
• Redefining the Burqa: A Reflection from Afghanistan by Michelle Risinger
• Ethical Survival in an Unfair World: The Personal Challenges of Development Work in an Oppressive Culture by Allison Branstom
• Shakeable Barriers by Shelle Warton
• To the Death of My Own Family by David L. Meth
• A Woman’s Worth by Sadia Hussein
• Culturally Relative Rights? Female Foeticide as a Violation of Gender Equality by Amrita Kumar-Ratta
• Gender-based violence in a silent society by Melissa Kaminker
• Domestic Violence in Brazil by Leticia Zenevich
• Violence against women in South Africa: a cultural and socio-economic issue by Karin Björnberg
• Between culture and religion: the case of FGC by Anny Gaul
• Challenging ‘cultural’ excuses for gender-based violence in India by Anamaria Vargas
• Cultural excuses: What lies behind cultural justifications of gender-based violence? by Beata Zpevakova

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