Working to end domestic violence can feel like an uphill battle. The violence is entrenched in society and it is not easy to effect change or improvement. The work can be strengthened by using the international human rights standards that States have agreed to uphold. Your government cannot make promises on the international stage and then try to forget them at home. Relying on human right standards will enable you to hold your government accountable if they do not practice what they promise.  

Addressing domestic violence as a human rights violation empowers women and other victims/survivors of domestic violence. As active rights-holders, they can claim the rights to which their governments and States have committed themselves. The State is obliged to prevent, eradicate and punish domestic violence and is accountable if it fails to comply or uphold human rights.

DOVA  

DOVA, the Human Rights Assessment Instrument on Domestic Violence provides a step-by-step method which helps you to assess if your country is complying with its human rights and other international obligations.  

How does it work?  

The DOVA assessment process is divided in seven steps. Each step contains questions, examples and checklists to guide the data collection and analysis. The analysis results in a concrete set of recommendations for more effective laws or policies that protect and respect human rights. This information will be used to develop an action plan to lobby for policy reform and to raise awareness about the findings of the assessment. A full assessment process can take between four and six months.    

Why use DOVA?  

Using DOVA to analyse a problem helps to:  

• Gain a better understanding of the situation;
• Make a direct link between a problem and relevant human rights issues;
• Assess the impact of the problem on the rights of all groups affected;
• Build alliances with other stakeholders;
• Draw evidence-based conclusions about what the government can do to improve the situation and meet its human rights obligations;
• Make an advocacy action plan;
• Increase the capacity of your organisation to use a human rights framework.  

Where to find DOVA?  

DOVA was published December 2011 and can be downloaded free of charge here. DOVA is available in English.  

You can also access DOVA from our HRIRC tools database.

The DOVA summary sheet is available for download here.

Support to users  

DOVA can be used independently. However, people and NGOs may find doing a human rights assessment challenging. A range of workshops and other forms of support are available. Please contact us to discuss the possibilities.

Contact

For a printed copy of DOVA and/or information about support to users, please do not hesitate to contact Rights4Change.

E-mail: l.droesen(at)rights4change(dot)org or info(at)humanrightsimpact(dot)org.

DOVA was developed with support from:  

The project partners:

• Rights for Change,
• the Netherlands Center for Legal Civic Initiatives,
• Albania Masimanyane Women's Support Centre,
• South Africa Mosaic, Training, Service and Healing Centre for Women, South Africa
• WILDAF, Women in Law and Development, Ghana
• ZWLA, Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association, Zimbabwe
• Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristan, Peru
• Independent consultant Anara Moldasheva, Kyrgyzstan
• WOREC, Women's Rehabilitation Centre, Nepal
• The Network/Research Center for Combating Domestic Violence (CDVN), China
• Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• HIVOS
• PSO

The results of this mapping can be used for several purposes. These include writing NGO-reports (for example CEDAW shadow reports), strategic planning within an organisation and with stakeholders, and advocacy. Organisations can also use the results to make strategic choices on what topics and what strategies to focus on as an organisation (or as a group of organisations).

 Download the Tool

Tool Steps

The tool consists of a number of steps as follows:

• In the first step users are asked to make an inventory of the information that is available. The tool guides them along several possible sources of information.
• In the second step users will make an overview of the prevalence of the various forms of VAW, and evaluate whether specific groups are in particular affected by it. The questions in the tool make sure no forms or groups will be overseen.
• In the next step, both existing and missing strategies and interventions to address the various forms of VAW are mapped. The UN standards on which interventions should be in place are used in this step.
• The last mapping part is an analysis of the stakeholders: who is working on which topic, for which groups and with what interventions?

After the mapping, users will have a rather good overview of both the situation with regard to the various forms of Violence Aganinst Women in their country / region, and which interventions are in place. The mapping will also show what are the blind spots: forms of VAW that are not being addressed; groups that are not being reached, interventions that are lacking or insufficiently implemented.

The mapping tool also gives some suggestions as how to use the results for reporting, for strategic planning and for advocacy.

How can R4C help you to use the Mapping tool?

Experts of Rights4Change can provide training and workshops, both on violence against women in general and on using the tool Mapping Violence Against Women. They also offer support to users of the tool.

R4C have developed standard workshops, but of course the training can be adapted to the specific needs of an organisation.

Please contact Rights4Change to discuss the possibilities and the costs of the workshops and support.

Feedback and sharing experiences

Mapping Violence Against Women is a new tool. The tool has been discussed with potential users, but it has not been tested yet. R4C invite the users of the tool to give them feedback: does it work in practice; what improvements can be made. They also would like to hear about the results of using the tool. To give your feedback and share your experiences, you can e-mail R4C.

You can also join the linkedIn group Mapping VAW Network / Rights4Change, and share not only with R4C but with other users as well.

Full Call for Papers available here.

Important Dates

Submission deadline of full paper: 30 June 2012.

Please send an intention to submit paper (EoI) by 30 October 2011 specifying author(s), affiliation, email, draft title and brief (150 word) summary of intended paper.  

Contact Details

Name: Dr Deanna Kemp & Prof Frank Vanclay

Email: d.kemp(at)smi.uq.edu(dot)au

In paragraph 34 of its resolution 13/4, the Human Rights Council encouraged the Special Rapporteur to explore, in consultation with Member States and relevant stakeholders, ways and means of raising the capacity of countries, particularly developing countries, including least developed and net food-importing countries, to ensure the realization and protection of the right to adequate food for their populations, and to report his findings to the Council. Moreover, the work undertaken by the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food has been increasingly addressing issues related to trade and investment agreements and the right to food.

This document is also in response to a key recommendation of the international expert seminar held under the auspices of the mandate in Geneva from 23 to 24 June 2010. The seminar, at which a variety of stakeholders from all regions were represented, underlined the need for a set of principles for conducting human rights impact assessments of trade and investment agreements. This set of principles is intended to provide a methodology. It would also maximize the effectiveness of such assessments and ensure that they are not undermined by actors who misappropriate the term “human rights impact assessment.” The report of the seminar is available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/other_documents.htm.

The present draft has been prepared in consultation with the experts who participated in the June 2010 seminar, as well as other special procedures mandate holders, human rights treaty bodies and the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council.

The draft guiding principles can be accessed here. Please submit contributions electronically to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights through srfood(at)ohchr(dot)org at your earliest convenience and no later than 1 November 2011.

Several Kyrgyz organisations were involved in the testing phase of DOVA and are keen to continue working with the new instrument. Participants at the launch identified some of the steps that need to be taken. They agreed they want to fundraise in order to be able to translate the instrument into Russian and to start up the first full DOVA assessment in Kyrgyzstan in the near future. In order to achieve these goals a number of Kyrgyz NGO's are in the process of creating a local DOVA network which will have its first meeting in the middle of May 2011.

In the workshop, the participants identified the problem they want to assess with HeRWAI and started the assessment process. This was done with the facilitation of a trainer from Rights for Change. The outcomes of the HeRWAI assessments will be used in local advocacy and in the shadow report to the committee of the Convention on the Eliminination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Some of the participants also attended the three day training on the Optional Protocol on Convention on the Eliminination of Discrimination Against Women that took place from the 25th to the 27th of April. During this workshop participants increased their knowledge of CEDAW and learnt how to make strategic decisions linked to the possibilities provided by the Optional Protocol.  

Both the workshop and the Optional Protocol training events were covered by the Kyrgyz press. See

• http://kg.akipress.org/news:362051
• http://www.24.kg/community/98929-v-stolice-kyrgyzstana-vpervye-predstavlen.html
• http://www.zpress.kg/news/news_only/3/30694/745.py

This online dialogue will be a space for practitioners and stakeholders to share their experiences developing and using human rights compliance assessment tools. They will discuss the challenges faced by practitioners and also their success stories. New Tactics hopes that this dialogue will serve as a resource for businesses, human rights practitioners and other stakeholders in the active protection of human rights.

More information.

The RighT Guide helps NGOs to assess the human rights impact of anti-trafficking measures. This strengthens their advocacy for more effective, rights-based policies against trafficking. This new HRIA tool was launched on 9 December 2010.

Workshops
After lunch, there will be workshops on the three Human Rights Impact Assessment tools. Organisations that used the RighT Guide, DOVA, the human rights compliance instrument on Domestic Violence and HeRWAI, the Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument, will present their experiences and best practices in using these tools. There will be room for questions and debate.

More information about this Conference.

Based on this analysis you make recommendations to a government to improve their policies or the implementations of their policy.

Click here for more information about HeRWAI.

Click here for all the available translations.