The concept of Human Rights and Violence Against Women

The concept of human rights has been rearticulated and reformulated throughout the ages and is continually evolving to deal with all attacks on human dignity and self esteem, no matter how these attacks are justified. Legal systems in most countries recognize that it is the duty of the State to enforce criminal law. Since the State clearly has a duty to enforce this law, there should be no debate about whether violence against women is a criminal offence and therefore within the jurisdiction of the State to intervene. Violence against women is always a crime, but some legal systems either fail to recognize this or fail to adequately deal with it. Such failures are violations of women’s human rights.