Some of these practices are discussed in Chapter 6. .
In 2003, the US division of Amnesty International, one of the oldest and most established human rights organizations, initiated a major global campaign against violence against women, using a human rights framework (www.amnestyusa.org/stopviolence/about.html). As anthropologist Sheila Dauer, Director of Amnesty International USA's Women's Program says, "By providing the global human rights framework for the struggle, Amnesty International will show how international human rights standards cut across national boundaries, cultures and religions and how we can hold governments accountable to meet their obligations to protect women and girls from violence regardless of who commits it or where it is committed " 2. For an organization that had focused on political prisoners, this was a big change.
In 2003, the General Assembly of the UN asked the Secretary-General to prepare an in-depth study of global violence against women, which was presented to the General Assembly in 2006. This was the first time that the General Assembly had ever discussed this issue. The report asserts that violence against women is a pressing human rights issue and highlights the ongoing persistence of the problem, ways for governments to respond more effectively, and approaches to increase governmental and international accountability. While asserting the widespread prevalence of the problem, it argues that its particular manifestations are shaped by factors such as ethnicity, class, age, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, and religion. It argues that the roots of violence against women are gender inequality, discrimination against women in public and private spheres, patriarchal disparities of power, and economic inequalities. "Violence against women is one of the key means through which male control over women's agency and sexuality is maintained.
