Domestic Violence Lawmaking in Asia: Some Innovative Trends in Feminist Lawmaking

Domestic violence lawmaking intersects global human rights norms and domestic women's movements. Domestic violence is both a global and local phenomenon. The World Bank argues that domestic violence accounts for one in five lost years in women aged 15-44. The costs range from direct expenses such as medical care and social services to productivity and labor market costs to the psychological toll imposed by the intergenerational transmission of violence. The international women's movement and the international human rights conventions have confirmed that violence in the home is neither a private issue nor a cultural practice. Domestic violence was placed on the global agenda as a global epidemic largely due to an explosion of activism by women's rights activists. Bolstered by increasing pressure from international women's human rights advocates, domestic movements demanded the governments make domestic violence lawmaking central to good governance. The explosion of lawmaking around the world on domestic violence makes this clear by establishing state accountability for violence 1. Director of International Human Rights Policy and the Inaugural Susan McGee Bailey Scholar at Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College. The author will be assisting Burma in drafting its first domestic violence laws and this paper is to be translated into Burmese. This paper was first presented as a keynote address at the China Women's College, Faculty of Law Conference on Gender Equality and Domestic Violence Lawmaking, in May 2010. The author thanks Professor Sally Merry for her insightful comments and critique of the article and is grateful to Professor Savitri Goonesekere; Radhika Coomaraswamy, the first Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women; Asma Jahangir, the former Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial and Arbitrary Executions; and Hina Jilani, Former Representative of the Secretary General for Human Rights Defenders for their inspiration. This paper is dedicated to the Honorable Judge Nancy Gertner in celebration of the next chapter of her life and in honoring her work in defense of women's rights. The author acknowledges the invaluable support and encouragement of Ira Belkin of the Ford Foundation and Titi Liu, formerly of the Ford Foundation. The author thanks Emma Li and Vidya Dindiyal, fellows at the Wellesley Center for Women, for their research assistance.