Protecting Women Against Violence in the Light of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women

The Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention), adopted in 1994, is the first specific instrument on prohibition of violence against women (VAW) in the world. In fact, the oldest human rights system of the world -e.g. Inter-American human rights system- has secured the oldest specialized binding instrument on VAW to itself. The Belém do Pará Convention is a pioneer in placing VAW on the international agenda and in recognizing it as a violation of human rights in the political, judicial, social, economic, and cultural spheres. The Convention has established pervasive obligations for State parties to prevent, sanction, and eradicate VAW, and has served as an inspiration and reference for the modernization of the related legislative framework in the Americas. Furthermore, this instrument is considered the only human rights treaty directed solely toward eradicating violence against women that includes an individual complaint mechanism. I t appears that the Belém do Pará Convention, despite being restricted to Americas, has notably contributed to the development of international system on prohibition of VAW and has reduced the normative gap existing in this area. The authors of this article, through a descriptive-analytic method, attempt to study the protections afforded to women against violence, the duties of states in this regard, and the related monitoring mechanisms under Belém do Pará Convention.