The UN views violence against women as an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace. It considers violence against women as violating, nullifying or impairing the enjoyment by women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The UN recognises the impact of violence against women on the psychological and physical health of the victims and that on a global basis there is a significant gap between the needs of victims and the provision of specialist services. To this end, the World Health Organisation in collaboration with the Department of Gender and Health, has produced guidelines for the medico legal care for victims of sexual violence. First published in 2001, these guidelines are still being treated as a pilot subject to testing by practitioners.

The aim of the guidelines is to improve professional services to women who have been subjected to gender based violence and the guide comprehensively deals with examination of the victim as well as obtaining forensic evidence.

UNIFEM also conducted an assessment of progress made in eliminating violence against women in a report entitled Not a Minute More in essence spanning the years 2002 and 2003 although the report investigated the origins of violence awareness.

The report stresses the importance of three decades of advocacy, research, networking and awareness raising by non governmental activities which lay the foundations of progress in this area and which was propelled by international and regional standards and policy recommendations such as the Beijing Platform for Action, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. It stresses that the global recognition that violence against women is a violation of women's human rights as being the most significant achievement of these decades and that this recognition has stimulated governments to commit themselves formally to eradicating such violence.

The report also recognises that work in this field is hampered by often weak legislation globally, to prevent and address violence against women as well as chronic underfunding hence the reliance being placed on voluntary organisations to forward projects in this field. The measures taken by individual states do of course vary, however on balance the repot concluded that globally, women are not best protected by the law.

Not a minute More in recognises gender inequality as fuelling violence against women and recommends a multilateral approach to eradicate these inequalities and ultimately the violence arising from it, including public sector-private sector partnerships and campaigns to involve men in resolving these issues.

This is in recognition that no one government can effectively deal with the issue of violence against women either on a policy or on a legislative level. It has to deploy and integrate the use of other agencies, in many instances from the specialised voluntary sector as well as in the private sector, the assistance of otherwise profit making entities. In this way for example, countering violence against women could include employers drafting work based policies to identify violence at work or to allow victims of violence leave in order to litigate and enforce their rights in the court system.

Analysis provided by: Soraya Pascoe, Legal Expert on Gender.