Amnesty International welcomes the Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice’s report on the issue of women’s health and safety. The report acknowledges that health and safety are interlinked, and that women’s safety is an integral part of their health, as recognised by the World Health Organization’s definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Women’s and girls’ health and safety are undermined by pervasive gender-based discrimination and violence, and by the instrumentalisation of women’s bodies for cultural, political and economic purposes rooted in patriarchal traditions and harmful gender stereotypes.
