UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OHCHR/Special Procedures - Press conference: UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us at this press briefing today.

Our speaker today is Miss Reem Asalem, who is the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, it's causes and consequences.

She will brief us today on her report to the 59th session of the Human Rights Council on forms of sex based violence against women and girls and the concept of consent in relation to violence against women and girls.

We'll begin with brief opening remarks from the Special Rapporteur and then move to questions.

Special Rapporteur, you have the floor.

Thank you very much and good afternoon and good morning to you.

Thank you for joining to the session.

As was mentioned, I presented in fact 4 reports to the Human Rights Council yesterday.

The first report was on sex based violence against women and girls, new frontiers and emerging issues.

The second was an abridged version of a longer report I intend to present later on this year, but an abridged version on the challenges and limitations of using the concept of consent in relation to violence against women and girls.

And I also presented the reports of 2 country visits I carried out in carried out last year.

One was to the United Arab Emirates in December 2024 and it was preceded by another visit to the United Kingdom in February 2024 with regards to their report on sex based violence, new frontiers and emerging issues.

That report addressed both entrenched, ongoing and emerging forms of violence against women and girls based on their sex so based on the fact that they are female, emphasising the critical need to recognise biological sex as a central factor in understanding and analysing the experience of discrimination and violence that women and girls have.

And the reason why I focused on this report is because I submit that for too long sex understood in its ordinary meaning as biological sex has been de prioritised and therefore it has Hanford our ability to address the specific vulnerabilities that women and girls face.

So this report therefore tries to make an invitation to refocus and recenter on sex based discrimination.

So to bring back sex into the fold of the many elements and grounds that we have to take into consideration when we try to understand the experience of discrimination and violence that women and girls have.

That is because it's central to their experience.

Of course, that does not mean that we are going to dismiss or ignore gender or gender based or or stop speaking about gender based violence.

However, what I'm saying in this report is that sex and gender are two different terms that are often conflated, leading to a lot of confusion and actually to wrong analysis.

As we know, gender is the social meaning given to biological sex differences and gender often comprises also gender identity.

So if a person has a gender identity or professes to have a gender identity and often it might be different from the the sex they were born into, then it is included within that concept.

So the the analysis looking at how sex influences the experiences of discrimination and violence and how gender influences that are not exclusive, they are actually complementary and a gender based analysis builds on sex considerations.

So by conflating these issues, I am submitting in this report that we are actually undermining the protection of women and girls.

We it leads also to services that do not respond to the needs that women and girls that are victims of violence have.

And it leads also to policies that are not tailored to the needs of women and girls.

It also fundamentally destroys how we continue to understand the phenomenon of violence against women and girls.

As you know, violence against women and girls is violence where the perpetrator is predominantly male, so men and boys, and the victim is predominantly if not always a female, so women and girls.

And that is why also continuing to factor in sex related considerations, continuing to collect sex related data is really crucial to continue to have a correct understanding of this phenomena.

We have to continue to be able to tell the sex of the perpetrator and we have to continue to tell the sex of the victim.

And that information has to then feed into the design and implementation of policies not only of protecting and assisting the victim who is a female, but also of preventing further violence.

So therefore, working to prevent further crimes perpetrated by males, but also working with them, working with men and boys in order to change social norms, in order to reduce the occurrence of crimes and so on and so forth.

Now I mentioned also in the report a number of emerging or new manifestations of violence against women and girls that I think are at their centre based on the fact that the victims are female.

And these are, for example, in times of conflict and crisis, I have noted the use of femicide, so the killing of women and girls because they are female, as a tool of inflicting genocide.

And I mentioned specifically 2 examples that I feel are very striking in this regard.

One is the occupied Palestinian territories and in particular Gaza, and how the killing of Palestinian women, because they are Palestinian and because they are women and therefore represent the continuity of Palestinian life, has become an indispensable tool of the Israeli genocidal machine.

We have heard over the 19 months or so of this unfolding genocide how the rhetoric by Israeli officials, but also members of the Israeli society have dehumanised not just Palestinians in general, but very specifically also attacked, demonised and dehumanised Palestinian women and their children.

There have been many declarations also that they should not be spared, that they're all affiliated with Hamas and therefore deserve to to die.

And this therefore they have been subjected to indiscriminate, not just indiscriminate killing, but also targeted killing.

And we see that by the, the, the sheer number of women and newborn infants that have been killed or where their parents had to abandon them, where medical staff had to abandon them in, in, in the case of newborn children.

So, so that is 1 case where I, I see that very clearly.

The other context where I think this is applicable is Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is slightly different from Gaza in the sense that the policies by the Taliban that seek to subjugate but also marginalise and exclude Afghan women, so half of Afghan society from Afghan public life and seeks to really exclude them or prevent them from education.

Accessing education, from working, from moving freely in some places, even from speaking, has caused such tremendous psychological suffering, has caused such a tremendous psychological suffering and has had as a reason for it, misogyny and sexism and the desire really to destroy women and eliminate them from public life.

And so it I am arguing that the treatment of Afghan women can be seen as a genocidal act.

The Convention on the Prevention of Genocide says that the genocidal act occurs when there is an intent to destroy in whole or impart a group.

And women, Afghan women in this context, are a group.

I know I'm stretching a little bit the definition.

It was perhaps not foreseen when in the trouble prepared to unnecessarily that we would have a situation like this.

But I am arguing that the the situation in Afghanistan would rise to that level.

I also talk about other emerging forms of violence.

There is a number of suicides that happen connected to domestic violence experienced by women, particularly those women that may lose their children within custody battles.

And again, it's because of this immeasurable suffering they go to through when they lose their children, when their children are taken away from them, or when the domestic violence they have endured is so immense that they can no longer go on.

We do not have enough data on this there, but the information I've been receiving from families of victims, from women's organisation points to this phenomena.

It's very specific to women and I think it requires further examination.

I also talk about the use of reproductive violence in times of war, also as a tool of genocide.

Again here once again, Gaza comes to mind, very much so for reasons you all are aware of.

And I add to that two other examples, which are Sudan and also the Rohingya in Myanmar, Again, a very deliberate infliction of violence on women in order to destroy the reproductive capacity, undermine them because they are seen as holding the promise of life of the enemy.

And therefore access to reproductive and sexual Healthcare is deliberately eliminated.

Also in part through destroying hospitals, healthcare systems, killing of medical staff, but also through rape and through not allowing them to be able to feed their newborns.

They themselves might and often do not have access to.

Also nutrition that a pregnant or lactating woman requires.

So there's a lot more details on this.

Also in the report.

I also talk about an issue that has been on the agenda for a while, but that in my view, has not received sufficient attention and we need to put it back on the table.

And it's very, very much related to biological sex and that is the sex selection before birth.

So in in a couple of countries in particular, this is a phenomena in my report, I mentioned India where couples that you know, want to conceive or the the woman might already be pregnant, do a test with the intention to determine if it is a girl or it is a boy.

And in the case, yeah, if because they want a boy, so therefore if it's they want to avoid delivering a girl.

And.

And so this is really also a form of discrimination against girls even before they are born.

So, and then yeah, I also talk about digitally digital technology and how digital technology is also very much used as a tool and as a platform in order to perpetrate sexual violence against girls and, and against women who continue to be the main victims.

And how it's how we are failing really in addressing the consequences of that.

For example, the the deep fakes, but, but also other manifestations.

So, so, so that's there.

There are other forms of violence that I mentioned, but I perhaps will not go into too much details into them at the moment.

I also talk about the issue of stereotypes and I'm just trying to find my notes And that an approach that tries to deal with sexist stereotypes and harmful stereotypes without taking into consideration that we need to continue to recognise sex as a material reality, actually fails in addressing stereotypes.

Because what is happening right now is we are in a number of countries actually cementing harmful stereotypes.

[Other language spoken]

Because we have now in some places we consider that first of all, being materially male or female is in itself an outdated stereotype.

So we don't think of it as a material reality and we think more of being a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, more as an idea or as a feeling that is confirmed depending on what you wear, if you wear sort of feminine clothes or masculine clothes.

And, and so it's a very superficial approach to stereotypes and to addressing stereotypes.

As as was mentioned.

Also, I presented a short report on consent.

And the reason I decided to do that is because a number of jurisdiction, a number of countries are now adjusting their laws to make sure that it, it, it focuses on consent.

So you have a crime of sexual violence if the victim did not consent to to an A sexual act, let's say.

And so my report examines how consent is interpreted and applied in the different legal frameworks addressing sexual violence, particularly rape.

And, and so I provide also a little a short analysis that is focused on international human rights laws.

So for example, I do mention the report that consent in international law isn't considered valid under coercive circumstances or cases of exploitation.

So like trafficking or in fact I I also do not think it's meaningful in situations of prostitution.

And the burden of proof according to international law, in any case, must rest on the perpetrator and not on the victim, because otherwise we actually re victimise the victim.

And there are many different national approaches ranging from no means no to yes means yes models.

And I have the intentions also of examining in more details the, let's say, the advantages and drawbacks of each of these models, some of which also fail to take account of the systemic power imbalances that exist between women and men.

And therefore the concern that I have actually that it risks weaponizing the concept of consent, perhaps without intending against the victims in criminal procedures.

So that happens in particular, for example, when courts, even if they have a sort of consent specific model, focus too much on the victim's behaviour rather on the perpetrator's actions.

Or actually failed to even look at whether we had a coercive context in the 1st place that perpetuates impunity and a context that ignored, for example, the complex trauma that may have resulted.

So I, I look at that also in the report and emerging forms of and how it relates to emerging forms of exploitation that are facilitated by newer forms of technology.

It's very valid for things like, for example, industries like surrogacy, like obviously prostitution, *********** but also it arises in the, in the sex reassignment, not sex reassignment in the gender sort of transition surgeries and procedure.

[Other language spoken]

And then finally, and I'm not going to go into details on this here you have the 2 reports, but I presented the 2 reports on my visits.

I was very pleased to see that they were very well received.

I will be meeting with both the Mission of the United Arab Emirates and the Mission of the United Kingdom in order also to see how I can give continuity to the work I started in the course of the visits and how I can help also in implementing the recommendations.

So, so I will stop here and thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

The special rapporteur is now happy to take questions.

We already have a hand up online.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, thank you very much.

Thank you special reporter for the for the press conference.

I have a bunch of questions so I don't know if you want me to ask them one by one or all at the same time.

[Other language spoken]

So the first one is on Gaza.

I just want to be sure that I understood well.

What you said is that Israeli militaries are targeting women because they are trying to stop the reproduction of Palestinians in Gaza.

Is it exactly what you said?

My second question is about gaols in Israel, because we know that thousands of Palestinians are still gaoled in the Israel young prisons.

Do you have any idea of the situation with the woman's from Gaza there?

Are they mistreated?

Do do you have any information on that?

And especially in the same politic, as you say, to limit the number of Palestinians.

Do you know if Israel is using the same health weapon as it was used, for example, in Greenland by Denmark against Inuit, by medical with medical tools to stop the reduction of women?

Do you know if it is something that exists or not?

And my last question is about intelligence artificial because there is a new trend that I'm seeing, for example, in France, I don't know if it's the case everywhere, but in, for example, the social media, a lot of young people are using intelligence, artificial intelligence and photography, generative photography by artificial intelligence to send, for example, the photo of a normal girl and artificial intelligence will send back a nude of this girl or without clothes.

[Other language spoken]

It is really scaring to to be fair to see that this is something that already exists.

Do you, are you working on that?

And are you talking with countries on that?

Because I think it is really one of the main problem that we will meet in the future.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for all these interesting questions.

So with regards to Palestinian women, as I said, I believe Israel is inflicting, and I've said this before, by the way.

So this is not the first time that I say this is inflicting reproductive violence as a genocidal tool with the purpose of preventing births within the Palestinian population and therefore forcing the alteration of demographic composition.

And the reason this is not just, you know, let's say any war crime, but actually I'm saying is a tool of genocide is because it meets the genocide conventions definition.

It's carried out with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

So in in this case Palestinians and in Gaza, well, as I said, we know that the hospital and medical infrastructure has been obliterated.

That's an infrastructure has provided sexual reproductive healthcare, even the only fertility clinic was destroyed.

It has also systematically targeted and and not spared patients, including female patients.

We have all witnessed how newborn babies were abandoned, forcefully abandoned based on the orders of the Israeli occupation forces.

Several have, several 10s of them had died.

And we also heard throughout the last 19 months from the UN about the immense suffering of pregnant women, the estimated 50,000 pregnant women that also give birth in really inhumane, dangerous situations, no basic care bombs dropping on their heads and really inhumane conditions.

And then once and if children are born malnutritioned newborns experiencing severe malnutrition, dehydration.

And we also know that because of all this unfolding genocide and the situation which women find themselves in the rate of loss of pregnancy, the word I always miss it.

[Other language spoken]

So so I do therefore believe that it's, it's deliberate and add to that, of course, the, the new not so new anymore, but the, the, the forced starvation by Israel, which has LED also to many deaths among children.

So, so that is 1.

Now with regards to the Femis, the Femis side or Femi genocide as as I call it.

So we have a situation where we already know that there's a very high civilian casualty ratio, which I think you are all aware of.

The the conservative estimate was that 54,000 Palestinians had been killed by the end of May 2025.

Although as you know, many experts and other human rights investigators estimate that this is a gross misrepresentation as in like under representation actually that the numbers are, are much higher.

We heard, for example, from The Lancet that back in July 2024, they had put the number at 186,000.

And I think a few days ago we even heard about a figure, I think if I recall correctly, ranging in the 300,000 plus of Palestinians that had been forcefully disappeared.

So, yeah, I mean we're talking, yeah, at least we're talking anything between 200,000 to half a million there.

But even within this horrific number of of people killed, the percentage of women and children killed is is really, really high.

And again, there we have ranges from between 40 to 70%.

So as I said, and as many human rights defenders and organisations have said and the UN has said, the attacks have failed to distinguish between civilians and combatants.

But when you add to it also the calls not to spare anyone and that everybody is complicit, you really see also a very intentional decision to, to, to ****.

And the, the, the narrative, the, the narrative that also targeted particularly women shows that there is a, an understanding on behalf of the Israeli government and Israel's war machinery and genocidal machinery that Palestinian women not only are, are part of Palestinian society, but hold the promise of the continuity of Palestinian life.

You asked me a very specific question about the situation of Palestinian women detainees.

The Commission of Enquiry had, of course, addressed that in one of its recent reports.

As you remember, my mandate was one of the first to have spoken or expressed alarm at reports of rape and sexual violence being perpetrated against Palestinian women in detention.

Obviously we also have other very gruesome reports and crimes being of sexual nature also being committed against Palestinian men.

But that I do have indeed information that this has continued.

There has been also reports which and a few reports that I had received from women that they were while in in detention injected with something that they don't know what it is.

I have not been able to get further details on this, but I, I hope that perhaps answers your question.

And some of them were concerned that this may, may be related to or may may have been done with the intention to harm their physical health, but also perhaps the reproductive capacity.

But in all fairness, I do not have more details other than those reports with regards to you asked me a question about digital technologies.

As I said, first of all, there's a very clear sex specific issue in that really the overwhelming majority of the the victims of violence that is currently being perpetrated online and through digital technologies are women and are girls.

They can be, they can take a sexual nature, They can they often take a sexual nature.

They often involve sexual exploitation.

But we have to also remember that the, the reason they are even used in a sexual way is often in order to either force a woman or a girl to desist from being public, from having an opinion, from working on a in a specific way, from perhaps continuing to criticise a certain actor.

So it's used as a, as a tool of persecution against women.

And of course, there are times where it achieves its objectives in the sense that it's meant to set an example for other women.

So if you are a journalist and you you find that there's been deep fakes that have been disseminated, the the intention is not just to punish you for being a prominent journalist.

It's also to make an example out of you to other women journalists or other women human rights defenders that think about it twice if you continue to work in this area or write on this subject.

So it's meant to shame the woman, to also intimidate and also to destroy her standing in in society.

So there are new tools that are emerging that are very concerning and I and that I think the world has not.

The international community states even if they say they are concerned, but the efforts on this issue are moving way too slow and they are not as robust and as quick and as a comprehensive as we need.

So we see new tools such as generative artificial intelligence for the creation of manipulated videos, images or audios and that as I said are used for malicious purposes.

They're used also to blackmail girls, so to force them to carry out sexual acts or to also self harm.

And I'm very sad to say that in some countries we increasingly see boys as perpetrators.

So it's, it's not just just men immense trauma as a result of, of this that doesn't affect only the immediate victim, but also her family.

Some of the trauma is so immense that it leads also to suicide.

And we've heard about cases like that and, and these deep fakes that I, you know, that I think you, you were asking about, they're commonly known as deep fakes.

I'm arguing in my report that we should use other terms that actually portray that what is happening is a crime rather than just just any sort of editorial image processing.

So the, the 99% really of the victims of deep fake are, are, are, are females and, and then of course, there's the issue of revenge **** and they are used as tools of grooming and also pushing children particularly into traffic and exploitation rings.

So they're, they're becoming more common.

They cross borders.

And as I said, my concern within the ongoing efforts is also that we are still too dependent on models that try to enlist the goodwill of platform providers and digital technology providers.

Whereas what we need really is also more enforcement and more mandatory regulations, including also on things like age verification for using online platforms.

And the use or the proliferation of use of digital technologies to inflict violence, in my view, is also linked to the proliferation of *********** and the consumption of *********** as I said in my report last year, because it normalises this violence.

It gives the impression that that this is OK, that you can first of all sexualize and commodify women and girls, but you can also inflict these type of crimes on them.

And you know that you are going to get away with it.

So I hope that answers your questions.

Are there any further questions?

[Other language spoken]

Do you have any closing remarks?

[Other language spoken]

Perhaps, just just perhaps one, one thing is as, as I said in in my presentation to the Council yesterday, that when I took on this function as special rapporteur, I never thought the day would come that I would be writing a report in which I would have to assert that women and girls as, as groups are real.

That being a woman is, is, is a, is a material reality.

It's, it's not a feeling, it's not a dress that you can put on or put off.

Of course there are males who may identify as women, but being a woman and identifying as a woman is not the same thing.

And this push to therefore erase women in law and in practise and also erase women's specific language, so to convert terminology from women specific to generic and sometimes even also demeaning and dehumanising is, is very concerning.

Not only because, as I said, it hampers us.

Well from the violence aspect, it doesn't allow us to understand what violence against women means and what should be done in order to assist the victims that are female.

But also it's it constitutes a very serious regression.

So if there is a very clear obligation on all parties, not just states, to respect women, not to discriminate against women and girls because of their sex, what do we call the act of erasing women all together as a class?

And This is why I said that.

To my mind, that is one of the most severe forms of violence to tell half of society that they don't really materially exist.

I would argue is is is a very is a very grave form of violence negate their existence.

I, I think we understand that if we think about groups, for example, indigenous groups, racial groups, if we also deny that women by virtue of being female, have experienced discrimination, violence, and that being female is so central to their experience and we deny them that that belief and that that, that assessment, then yes, that that is violence and it constitutes regression in the sense that.

States and and others are failing, therefore, in their obligations towards half of society.

They are failing and preventing discrimination and violence.

They are failing and taking measures, including at times they need to take even positive measures, so specific positive measures in order to ensure equality and ensure the advancement of women and girls.

And so it's really with a heavy heart that I realised that the way things are going in, in some parts of the world, it was necessary to actually reassert the obvious and to restate the obvious.

And to those who might say, well, that is relevant to only parts of the world, I will say, well, you know, as we know, whatever becomes a policy priority will be exported through development assistance, through humanitarian assistance, through bilateral cooperation.

So, so it, it, it does become relevant to the entire world.

And also we live in an increasingly interconnected world where we are also consuming all the same media or the same messaging.

And so it it was important to basically, you know, put a put a stop and and say a few words about this.

[Other language spoken]

If there are no further questions for the Special Rapporteur, then we will wrap up this press conference now.

Thank you to all of you who join, and thank you very much to the Special Rapporteur.

[Other language spoken]

OHCHR/Special Procedures - Press conference: UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls - 26 June 2025