Amnesty International and other organisations submit this memorandum to the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women for consideration in the upcoming thematic report on “rape as a grave and systematic human rights violation and gender-based violence against women”. This submission reaffirms states’ responsibility to address sexual and gender-based violence as a grave and systematic human rights violation, but recommends that the report use a broader analytical frame that situates penal reform within more comprehensive approaches to combat such violence, beyond prosecution and punishment and to explicitly link criminal law responses with other state due diligence obligations.
