Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais Wilson. 52 rue des Pâquis. CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland
Background
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), guided by the mandate provided by General Assembly resolution 48/141, OHCHR represents the world’s commitment to the promotion, protection and realization of the full range of rights and freedoms set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
OHCHR has a central role in safeguarding the integrity of the three pillars of the United Nations: peace and security, human rights and development. For the four year period from 2018-2021, the Office has identified six thematic pillars, four major shifts, with person centered spotlighting particularly women, young people and persons living with disabilities. The six thematic pillars that
from the continued solid base on which the work of the Office stands include (1) Support to the United Nations human rights system; (2) Mainstreaming human rights within the United Nations other pillars, namely development and (3) peace and security; (4) Advancing the core human rights principles of non-discrimination, (5) accountability, (6) participation. The Four major ‘Shifts’ in OHCHR mandate focus on key threats to rights and key opportunities for leveraging support to better protect and promote rights. This means that across our six thematic pillars, OHCHR will also work to take steps to help prevent conflict, violence and insecurity; Help protect and expand civic space; Support and further develop a global constituency for human rights; Deliver human rights in the context of emerging concerns (‘frontier issues’).
All the six areas have a strong focus on women’s human rights and gender issues, including in line with OHCHR internal policies on gender equality and the Secretary General System Wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
Institutionally, OHCHR is committed to strengthening the United Nations human rights programme and to providing it with the highest quality support. OHCHR is committed to working closely with its United Nations partners to ensure that human rights are at the center of the work of the United Nations.
Policy framework
See gender-related resolutions and decisions of the General Assembly, Security Council and Human Rights Council, and relevant subsidiary bodies.
Areas of Focus
The mission of OHCHR is to work for the protection and promotion of all human rights for all people; to help empower people to realize their rights; and to assist those responsible for upholding such rights in ensuring that they are implemented. In carrying out its mission with respect to violence against women, and within the overarching strategies to ensure country engagement, leadership, partnership, and support and strengthening of the Office and the human rights machinery, OHCHR is focusing on:
*Gender sensitive administration of justice, through the provision of expert legal analysis of international (and, where appropriate, regional and national) jurisprudence with commentary, relating to the effective prosecution of gender-based violence as well as legal analysis of obligations in relation to social and economic rights and the impact of the enjoyment of such rights for women on access to justice for victims of sexual violence.
*Piloting of integrated and thematic gender strategies for country engagement, including on violence against women.
*Mainstreaming gender and women’s human rights in OHCHR and with UN system partners.
OHCHR is an active member of UN Action against sexual violence in conflict. Since August 2008, the Coordinator for UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, previously based with UNIFEM in New York, is hosted on OHCHR premises in Geneva. Since 2009, OHCHR has chaired the Resource Management Committee of the UN-Action Multi-Donor Trust Fund.
Human rights monitoring and investigations, including in relation to sexual violence, are also key features of the field presences of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), particularly country offices and human rights components of UN peace operations.
Monitoring of the human rights situation, including advocacy and public reporting, is a fundamental tool for OHCHR to assess human rights problems, support the identification of adequate solutions, promote accountability and deter further violations. In particularly serious human rights violations including collective rape cases, the Office also conducts human rights investigations, by conducting detailed interviews with victims and witnesses, when possible visiting the location of the violations, and undertaking circumstantial analysis of facts, mapping of perpetrators to promote accountability through follow up with judiciary authorities.
OHCHR supportsthe Human Rights Council and its special procedures, including the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice, and the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children, as well as human rights treaty bodies, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
In its’ work, the Committee on the Elimination on the Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) urges States parties to give priority attention to eliminating all forms of violence against women and to adopt comprehensive measures to address it in accordance with the Committee’s general recommendation No. 35.
Resources
Report on laws discriminatory to women, prepared by Dr. Fareda Banda, 2009
Commentary on the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking
OHCHR provided technical assistance and capacity-development to states and civil society groups on using a human rights-based approach to address trafficking in persons in Belarus, Thailand and other countries in South East Asia.
OHCHR assisted CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) and the CRC (Committee on the Rights of the Child) in elaborating joint General Recommendation No. 31/General Comment No. 18 on harmful practices and the update of General Recommendation 19 on violence against women.
OHCHR supported the Special Rapporteur on violence against women in producing legal and policy recommendations through the country visit reports: United Kingdom—2014 (A/HRC/29/27/Add.2); Honduras—2014 (A/HRC/29/27/Add.1); Afghanistan—2014 (A/HRC/29/27/Add.3) ; Sudan—2015; South Africa—2015; (6) Georgia—2016.
In 2014-2015, OHCHR continued supporting the mandate of the Rapporteur on violence against women, in its active engagement with civil society organizations, including through participation in regional consultations. She participated in three regional consultations, held in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, on the topic of “closing the normative gap” in addressing violence against women at the international level.
OHCHR commissioned several studies on violence against women. Following the kidnapping of over 200 girls in Nigeria, OHCHR commissioned a study on attacks on girls seeking to access education. OHCHR also produced a study which addressed the human rights situation of women in detention in Senegal as well as a study on "honour" killings in Palestine. In June 2014, OHCHR published a study on gender-based and sexual violence in relation to transitional justice (A/HRC/27/21). Also in June 2014, OHCHR published a study on wrongful gender stereotyping by the judiciary in cases of sexual and gender-based violence in Guatemala and West Africa. As part of the Team of Experts on the Rule of Law on Sexual Violence in Conflict, OHCHR with DPKO, and UNDP, published an annual report on 2014 on sexual-violence in conflict. OHCHR also supported fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry which looked into violence against women, including sexual violence in Mali and the Central African Republic.
UNODC was involved in the work of the global focal point for police, justice and corrections in post-conflict and other crisis situations, in relation to joint field missions, planning and programming, and in strategic and operational discussions at headquarters. Led by UNDP and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, in partnership with Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN-Women and UNODC, the global focal point supports UN country presences in mission and non-mission settings.
OHCHR supported the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in producing thematic policy recommendations through her reports to the Human Rights Council (HRC) on 20 years of United Nations developments regarding VAW (A/HRC/26/38) and on closing the gap in international human rights law (A/HRC/29/27). Also her reports to the General Assembly on VAW as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights (A/69/368) and on closing the gap in international human rights law (A/70/209).
In March 2014, during the 25th session of the Human Rights Council, OHCHR partnered with UNFPA, UNICEF and others to bring the award winning exhibition, “Too Young to Wed” to the Palais des Nations in Geneva on the issue of child marriage.
OHCHR continued strengthening national capacities to investigate sexual gender-based violence in Afghanistan, the DRC, Liberia, and Sudan.