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

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us at this press conference.

Our speaker today is Rim Al Salem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls.

She will review today on her latest report to the Human Rights Council.

We will begin with opening remarks by the Special Rapporteur before moving to questions.

Miss Al Salem, you have the floor.

Thank you very much and good afternoon to all of you.

As you may know, this week I presented my 5th report to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, which I dedicated to the issue of violence against mothers.

And the reason I chose to dedicate a full thematic report to this issue is that even though every human on this earth has a mother, we ever rarely speak of mothers as a distinct category of rights holders who have specific needs, who have specific rights and experiences that must be considered in law and in policy, and whose rights are also protected in international human rights law and humanitarian law specifically for being mothers.

The other reason I chose to dedicate this report to mothers is because I've noticed that the United Nations has until until then, not ever produced a report on mothers.

Yes, it has written reports on motherhood, on maternity health, on other related issues, but never on again.

The group of rights holders, as I said, and I in the report tried to come up with a definition of mothers because I believe that it's important, particularly in law, that we're very clear with terminology.

So based on the protections and references to mothers in international law, my report defines mothers as women and girls who have given birth, including through surrogacy, pregnant women and girls and adoptive mothers.

So in the report, I presented an overview of the elements that contribute to the violence against mothers 'cause it, and these include a number of factors.

There's an overall a concerning devaluation of motherhood by governments but also by the larger society.

It's felt that it is a sidekick, it's felt that if you are interested in becoming a mother then that that that's something that will will inhibit you, restrain you from advancing in life.

And the sacred mother child relationship is rarely ever recognised that it changes the two persons involved, the mother and the child, biologically, physically, psychologically in very profound ways.

And it changes also the the outlook and the priorities of the women and girls concerned.

The other cause is the existence of many overarching laws and policies that also de prioritise their specific needs.

And we see an increasing erasure of mother specific language and considerations in law and policy.

And that's an erasure that mirrors also what I've spoken about in other reports, the erasure of female specific language and needs.

You also have economic impoverishment and marginalisation as causes for increased violence against mothers and them being also particularly stuck in abusive and exploitative and violent settings, whether it's caused by family members, partners, former partners, but also criminal groups and and so on and so forth.

Of course, crisis and conflict affect mothers in very specific ways, has always affected them.

That's why also humanitarian law, for example, the Geneva Conventions, provide very specific protections for mothers in times of conflict.

But we're seeing also an erosion, a very serious erosion of these protections that they should be enjoying.

In my report, I say that in addition to this erosion, we are seeing actually a targeting, a very specific in intentful targeting of mothers as we have seen, for example, in Gaza.

And that is because mothers in a number of conflicts embody the continuity of life within a group.

So they are particularly targeted in order to end the potential for the continuity of a group or a community.

And finally, another sort of set of causes is negative.

The negative impact of unilateral coercive measures, which is the term we used to refer to sanctions, such as the ones that are imposed, for example, on Cuba, and the the harm they have done, in particular to the access of pregnant mothers, lactating mothers, but also the ability of women to deliver, to feed their children.

Given this brutal embargo, as a result of the elements I've described, mothers experience a range of forms of violence.

Physical violence, economic violence, often linked to the motherhood penalty or the denial of child support payments, but also reproductive violence such as inadequate mentality care or coerced abortions.

And also psychological violence, as we see in family courts, for example, in child custody proceedings, but primarily from being witness to immense harm done to their children and not being able to prevent it.

So whether it's children being abducted, killed, forcefully disappeared, tortured, starved or sexually abused, because of this sacred and fundamental link between mother and child, what happens to the child profoundly affects the mother.

I would say it's also the other way around because many legal systems actually don't sufficiently recognise that you cannot separate violence against a mother from therefore being violence against a child.

In some proceedings it is seen that, for example, if the mother experiences domestic violence or intimate partner violence by her husband, then the child is expected or thought to remain motionless or unaffected by this.

But in fact, the child always suffers by seeing a violence inflicted on their mother, also by family members.

Now, mothers also may experience violence because they're perceived as being responsible for, for example, the sex of the child.

In contexts, for example, that favour the birth of a boy rather than a girl, or if the child exhibits behaviour that may not be perceived as socially acceptable, then the mother is usually blamed.

The report also goes into detail on specific groups of mothers that I feel are particularly at risk of violence.

Of course, it's not a definite list, but I thought that these groups should be mentioned, such As for example indigenous mothers, migrant mothers, stateless ones, child mothers.

So below, below the age of 18 that become mothers, incarcerated single ones, lesbian ones and surrogate mothers as well as prostituted mothers which we often forget about.

In fact they are overly represented in prostitution mothers.

Mothers also who defy the application of harmful practises being applied to their children, whether it's female genital mutilation or the medical transitioning of their children or forced marriage.

So mothers that try to resist the infliction of this kind of behaviour on their children also are punished for it.

I also describe in in very quick terms the common perpetrators of violence against mothers.

And I end the report by making a set of recommendations to states.

I'll just mention the most important ones.

So one, as I said, is to recognise mothers as a distinct category of rights holders that have specific needs and really using female but also mother specific language in law and in policies and protecting and supporting mothers in law and in policy and respecting the protections that mothers enjoy in international human rights and humanitarian law.

Ensuring they have access to maternal health services, particularly, I would say during crisis and armed conflict and making sure that there is accountability for the violations that they suffer, not just by being human or by being female, but really also by being mothers.

We are seeing, as I said, emerging forms of violence against mothers being used in conflict, including reproductive violence.

So forced also.

I mean, they're killing, they're forced abortion, they're lack of access to maternal healthcare and their inability to also deliver in in safe circumstances.

And finally, which I consider really to be the most important conclusion, is that we have to promote the social significant of motherhood and we have to support mothers by addressing the societal perceptions of motherhood that are right now much more negatively connotated than before, including through education and awareness campaigns.

So, so that's with regards to the report.

And I also would like to take this opportunity of being with you today in order to also address the issue of my positions on the violence that was perpetrated against Israeli and 3rd nationals on October 7th.

And since then.

I want to refer you actually to a statement where I summarised all this and it's a publicly available statement.

But in a nutshell, I and my colleagues have been very clear since October the 8th, in fact, that all forms of violence, including sexual violence, that have been committed on October the 7th, but also since October the 7th against Israelis, against Palestinian and other nationals, is unacceptable.

That these crimes have to be investigated independently and impartially.

And I, as a matter of fact, have for the last close to three years requested to have contact with survivors of October 7th.

I have reached out to civil society organisations, whether it's in Palestine or Israel.

I have reached out also to the State of Israel.

In fact, I had a meeting with the then Ambassador of Israel where I expressed my condolences for the atrocities that were committed.

But I also wrote a letter to the State of Israel asking for me to be put in touch with survivors, their families or investigators on the Israeli side, civil society organisations.

[Other language spoken]

I've made the same request to the State of Palestine to put me in touch with also Palestinian women and girls that may have experienced violence and have asked for a visit to Palestine.

I've also asked for a visit to Gaza.

Of course, the borders are controlled by Israel.

The State of Palestine had positively responded to my request, which I could not carry out because, as I said, the borders are controlled by Israel and Israel did not authorise a visit either to Israel itself or the occupied territories, including Gaza.

However, I have remained very open to receive information to be contacted by survivors.

Until today I have not been requested to or contacted by first hand survivors or their families.

I have had, however, also ample contact and engagements with Israeli civil society organisations and Israeli victims of other types of violence across the five years of my mandate.

You will see that in my reports I cited submissions from Israeli or Israel based civil society organisations.

I have quoted them.

I have platformed Israeli experts in some of my events, such as, for example, the former SIDO member, committee member Ruth Kadari, who's an expert on parental alienation.

She was in one of my side events.

So just to say that a priority, I have no inhibitions or problems of engaging with Israeli actors, whether it's victims or survivors.

And On the contrary, I I have also written a letter on behalf of also Israeli mother and I'm currently also engaged with a group of Israeli mothers in order to address the state of Israel about their issues.

So I repeat my my call that if there are any survivors that wish to contact me and to provide testimonies, they have to do so directly.

We cannot rely on media statements or public statements only.

This is the way of working that I did not invent.

These are the ways that the the council and special procedures work.

We have to abide with these ways of working and these ways of working apply also to other situations.

In fact, what I'm what I'm just described applies also to situations of sexual and gender based violence that may have happened to women in other situations.

And there are situations that until now I have not communicated on precisely because also I have not received this first hand reports and have not been able to also to make my own independent and partial assessment of the information that I have received.

So with that, I will leave it here and happy to also receive any of your questions.

[Other language spoken]

The Special Rapporteur will now take questions.

We'll begin by journalists in the room and then move to those online.

Please state your name and organisation before asking a question.

Yes, good afternoon.

Thank you for for this briefing.

My name is Catherine Fiong Kombokonga and work for Franz Vancatra.

[Other language spoken]

So could you be more explicit about what you mean by that?

And it's true that now the last couple of years we speaking a lot about what happened October 7.

But as you know better than I do, I mean, this kind of violence and sexual violence against women and particularly mothers is used already for decades in many conflicts in the world.

So I'm, I'm thinking about Africa, Asia, Latin America.

So could you give us, I mean, explain a bit more detail a bit more what you, you mean by family genocide.

[Other language spoken]

So this is a term that I did not coin.

It was coined by a Brazilian feminist who used it to describe large scale systematic killing and destruction of women and girls because they are female with an intent to destroy them.

So it's it's an intentional killing and destruction of women and girls in the service of genocide as a tool of genocide.

So in my report to the council last year, I mentioned this as an example.

No, as a term that in my view adequately describes what happens to women and girls in 2 country situations.

The first is to describe what's happening to Afghan women and girls at the hands of the Taliban.

Because I, I'm not a big fan of the term that we're trying to coin or perhaps accept, which is gender apartheid.

I, I don't feel that term properly describes what is happening, but I think Femi genocide does because the, the systemic large scale oppression of Afghan women and girls, because they are female, they're exclusion from public life, them being robbed of every single human and fundamental rights that they have has resulted in such enormous suffering and psychological trauma that this is a way of destroying women and girls.

So the point I was trying to make with Afghanistan is that it's not, you know, genocides or destruction is not only physical, It's not only by killing.

You can kill someone psychologically.

And we know, actually, from some reports that life has been so unbearable for women and girls, particularly girls who cannot, you know, access education and whose futures have been destroyed, that some of them have committed suicide, in fact.

So that is one situation.

The other situation is the atrocities that have been committed against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza.

So the issue of course with genocide, as you know, it's not just, it's not a number issue.

[Other language spoken]

It doesn't actually matter or require that there's thousands of persons killed in order to say that a genocide happened.

It could be also a small group that what sets genocide apart from killing in, you know, a conflict or war or in in actually a situation is that there is an intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.

And it was very clear to me from the declarations made by Israel since the beginning that there was a targeting, that there was hate speech and incitement of hatred and violence made specifically, well, of course, against all Palestinians in Gaza, but also specifically against mothers and specifically against children, dehumanising them.

Also speaking to this issue that I've talked about, right, that they hold the promise of the continuity of the Palestinian people.

And then also describing how that was carried out.

So you had of course, the large scale killing when it comes to Palestinian mothers.

I don't have the statistics now in my head, but there's.

Many that have been killed every single hour you had the IVF clinic that was targeted.

So that also shows you that it was a very intentional reproductive form of violence.

So, and then also the the total destruction of conditions of life, of ability to deliver, of ability to nurture your children, to feed your children, of seeing your children killed, dismembered, buried under the rubble, not being even able to give them a good burial.

In addition to then also the as we know now, at the time we knew less, but now we know there's a systematic policy of also of sexual violence against not just women, but but also men and children.

[Other language spoken]

So this is this is basically why I use this term.

[Other language spoken]

I have a question about the situation of Palestinian women in in mothers, of course, in Gaza St after the ceasefire in October last last 25, something changed between before October and after October for especially for mothers and blinded women.

[Other language spoken]

Even though we formally may have a ceasefire, it's very clear that there is no ceasefire.

There is longer perhaps periods of or intervals of no killing, but the killing is still very much happening and we have over thousands that that have been killed since the ceasefire has come into place.

The concern of course is that it's dropped off the the international attention, it's become normalised and the blueprint also for the OR the modus operandi by Israel for what it did in Gaza, including against Palestinian mothers, is being exported to other situations.

So we have seen a deliberate targeting also of children in Iran and also in, in Lebanon.

And last week, the Israeli and Israeli official has also used the same language to incite hatred and violence against Lebanese mothers, saying that they have to be punished and they have to be also held responsible and, and, and pain has to be inflicted on them.

So I believe perhaps there's a little bit of improved access to services in Gaza to the civilian population, but it's nowhere near it needs to be.

We still have a a big problem in having maternal healthcare items and baby formula and shelter.

Shelter items enter enter Gaza and and also food.

So there's still an A big issue of nutrition which also effects mothers, especially the ones that are, I would say lactating or are pregnant.

[Other language spoken]

Do we have another question in the room?

Do we have a follow up question, if I may?

Something something different about the fact that you have that.

Which expression did you use?

The devaluation of motherhood?

It is also something that we witness in the system, in the UN system, that being a mother is something negative.

And particularly in this time where you have all these fund counts, women are the first the jobs of women and particularly mothers, single mothers and divorced mothers are the first targeted.

Do you have also a comment about what society is in fact the evaluation of motherhood coming from society globally?

So, so you know that 1st, I want to talk about a bit the way we speak about sexual reproductive health rights also in the UN, since you mentioned the UN and of course women have a right to sexual reproductive health rights.

But I would say that the, and I say this in my report, that the focus has been so much on the right to contraception and the right to abortion, but we rarely also talk about the right to keep a pregnancy and to become pregnant and to feel that you are able to also have children and become a mother because you're not supported either inside the family or by society or economically.

[Other language spoken]

And as you rightly said, because it is devalued.

And there are also specific groups of mothers where forced contraception, forced abortion and the forced separation of their newborns from them as mothers has happened.

So you're aware that in number, for example, of Western countries, the church, for example, had forcefully taken newborns away from their single mothers because they were not married, Ireland, for example.

And And so this is also a violation of the right to motherhood, right, and to to be united with your child.

Indigenous mothers have suffered this over centuries and it continues in a number of instances as well.

So, so I think there's this reflects this lack of focus or this, this view that if you have a desire to keep and have a child, it's less important than wanting to end a pregnancy.

But also the, the whole way the media talks about motherhood, the way we also address violence against mothers in courts.

And you may remember that I did a whole report on this, right?

The, the bias inside family courts against mothers that report violence happening against their children.

They're believed to be liars.

They're believed to be manipulative.

And so also within the justice system, law enforcement, but also wider society, there are all these biases, right, about motherhood and, and mothers.

So we have to, you know, we have to have a comprehensive, I would say package instead of interventions that goes beyond like quick fixes or beyond this tweaking here, tweaking there.

Or we have to really decide whether we're going to 1st treat these groups of women as women that require targeted interventions and recognise the very specificity of their situation.

And I told member states that I feel it's really important to do that because as you know, there's a fertility crisis, right?

And many states are super nervous about this.

And so my request to member states was please don't rush into quick fixes.

And one quick fix that I think is being pushed down the throats of societies is to legalise surrogacy.

For me, one of the reasons why we are pushing in some corners of the world to normalise and legalise surrogacy is because of this fertility issue.

So we want to find ways to have able bodied and fertile women carry children for for us for for our nationals.

So, so that's one issue that the second issue is this erasure in policies.

You know that in a number of countries, in one, at least one country there in there was an attempt to remove the word mother from its constitution.

It was put to a referendum.

[Other language spoken]

That was in Ireland.

But in other countries, particularly in in the European Union, there's now this push to replace the word mother with a parent because apparently the word mother is not inclusive enough, Although only as I said, females can get pregnant, deliver children, breastfeed.

And so so mother is actually also linked to reproductive and biological realities.

So, so this push to stop using mother, the word mother, and also to allow males who identify as mothers to use that word is a reflection also of this complete lack of appreciation, respect and understanding of motherhood and, and, and what it stands for and also the rights of mothers.

[Other language spoken]

Or another question in the room.

[Other language spoken]

If there are no further questions, we will now close this press conference.

Thank you for to everyone for joining us today.

Thank you, Mr Salim, for being with us.

[Other language spoken]