The Government of the Bahamas in passing the Protection from Violence Bill has been criticized for not appreciating the term or scope of the definition of Gender Based Violence.
The Editors have decided to present the internationally accepted definitions from the relevant international organizations and to let the Bahamian people be the judge of the facts.
One issue is very clear and that is while women are proportionately by large scale the victims of GBV, the international definition also includes men.
The classification under the term “Gender” is designed to avoid the controversy or debate on sex assigned at birth which has become the convenient wedge of Evangelical groups and persons just opposed to the Human Rights of marginalized groups.
(1)
The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women defines violence against women as
Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.
In more recent legal documents, there are examples of the two terms being merged, and the term ‘gender-based violence against women’ is used. For example, in the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention), Article 3 offers the following definition:
gender-based violence against women shall mean violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately5.
Definitions such as these apply to instances where gender is the basis for violence carried out against a person. However, there is more to gender than being male or female: someone may be born with female sexual characteristics but identify as male, or as male and female at the same time, or sometimes as neither male nor female. LGBT+ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other people who do not fit the heterosexual norm or traditional gender binary categories) also suffer from violence which is based on their factual or perceived sexual orientation, and/or gender identity. For that reason, violence against such people falls within the scope of gender-based violence. Furthermore, men can also be targeted with gender-based violence: statistically, the number of such cases is much smaller, in comparison with women, but it should not be neglected.
(2) COUNCIL OF EUROPE
What is gender-based violence?
Gender-based violence is a phenomenon deeply rooted in gender inequality, and continues to be one of the most notable human rights violations within all societies. Gender-based violence is violence directed against a person because of their gender. Both women and men experience gender-based violence but the majority of victims are women and girls.
Gender-based violence and violence against women are terms that are often used interchangeably as it has been widely acknowledged that most gender-based violence is inflicted on women and girls, by men. However, using the ‘gender-based’ aspect is important as it highlights the fact that many forms of violence against women are rooted in power inequalities between women and men. The terms are used interchangeably throughout EIGE’s work, reflecting the disproportionate number of these particular crimes against women.
What forms of gender-based violence are there?
The Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe, Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence), as the benchmark for international legislation on tackling gender-based violence, frames gender-based violence and violence against women as a gendered act which is ‘a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women’. Under the Istanbul Convention acts of gender-based violence are emphasized as resulting in ‘physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.’
(3)
Gender-based violence (GBV) by definition
Gender-based violence is violence directed against a person because of that person's gender or violence that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately.
Violence against women is understood as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women and shall mean all acts of gender-based violence that result in, or are likely to result in
· physical harm,
· sexual harm,
· psychological,
· or economic harm
· or suffering to women.
It can include violence against women, domestic violence against women, men or children living in domestic situation.