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Understanding the Issue of Gender Discrimination As a ‘Crime’ of Gender Apartheid and Placing Violence Against Women at the Centre of This Matrix

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Understanding the Issue of Gender Discrimination As a ‘Crime’ of Gender Apartheid and Placing Violence Against Women at the Centre of This Matrix South Asian Studies A Research Journal of South Asian Studies Vol. 29, No.1, January – July 2014, pp. 91-101 Understanding the Issue of Gender Discrimination as a ‘Crime’ of Gender Apartheid and Placing Violence against Women at the Centre of this Matrix Shazia Naureen Qureshi. University of the Punjab, Lahore. Abstract This paper using the model of Racial Apartheid, once prevalent in South Africa, attempts to ask whether some of the severe forms of gender discrimination can be treated and termed as Gender Apartheid. It argues that class domination/segregation regime does not always have to follow the exact South African model in order to qualify for the crime of apartheid, the proof that discriminatory acts are severe, systematic and institutionalized are enough to establish the crime. The article notes that despite many commonalities between the two types of crimes, the degree of condemnation that practices of Racial Apartheid receive is far greater than the comparable acts of gender apartheid. It recommends that Apartheid, whether racial or gender, should be treated equally, and gender apartheid should accordingly be considered ‘crime against humanity’. Key Words Apartheid, Gender, Racial, Discrimination, Violence. Introduction This article recognises that violence against women is a part of a larger system of structural gender inequality; therefore, in order to combat violence against women it is necessary to address the deep-seated patterns of gender inequality and discrimination within the family and society (Goldfrab, 2003). The present article argues that the powerful framework of a human rights system is capable of bringing lasting solutions to the violations of women’s human rights including violence against women. As a necessary first step, a gender sensitive reading of the key human rights law documents is required. This article uses broad strokes to sketch out the main features of the crime of apartheid as described in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid 1973. Thereafter, it situates gender in the apartheid debate by exploring some of the commonalities between the racial and gender apartheid. The system of racial discrimination and segregation that prevailed in South Africa from 1948 until its abolition in the early 1990s has been termed as Apartheid (Ratner). It refers to the set of government policies and social practices in South Africa, (Tangelder) which sought to regulate the legal and social relationship between white and black, colonizers and colonized (Beinart, William, 91 South Asian Studies 29 (1) Dubow, & Saul, 1995: 01). Social divisions in the South African society increasingly took on a rigid racial character. As part of its decades-long efforts to eliminate the discriminatory practices, the United Nations adopted a legal framework in the form of International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid in 1973. (the Convention hereinafter) In its article II the Convention refers to crime of apartheid as ‘crime against humanity’ and defined it as [I]nhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them. (Article II of the International Convention on the Suppression and the Punishment of Crime of Apartheid , 1973). Article II of the Convention then goes on to list various types of racial apartheid such as denial of the right to life and liberty of person, murder, infliction of serious bodily or mental harm, violation of dignity, subjection to torture, cruel inhuman and degrading treatment, deliberate imposition of living conditions meant to cause physical destruction entirely or partially, legislative or policy measures aimed to prevent from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development by denying human rights and freedoms of a racial group.1 The crime of apartheid is also defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) 2002 as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity [C]ommitted in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime (Article 7 (j) Rome Statue of ICC 2002). Apartheid differs from other forms of racial discrimination not only because it was aggravated form of racism but also ‘in that it was the official policy of a State member of the United Nations’ (Keane, 2007: 190). Its practical manifestations included ineligibility from voting, demarcation of social spheres, restrictions on the freedom of movement by issuing internal travel passes for blacks, limited rights of citizenship, monopoly on the country’s resources via control over the legal system ((Ratner, http://www.crimesofwar.org/a-z-guide/apartheid/). The Convention establishes universal jurisdiction which enables the prosecution of individuals, members of organizations and agents of the state, who can be held criminally liable regardless of their location and their motive, and whether they encourage, cooperate with, or directly commit actions or omissions as part of the crime of apartheid (Article III of the Convention).While the crime of apartheid is most often associated with the racist policies of South Africa, the term more generally refers to racially based policies in any state (Morton, 2000: 27) (Dugard, 2013). The wording of the Convention suggest that the list of ‘inhuman acts’ described in Article II as comprising the ‘crime of apartheid’ are intended ‘as 92 Shazia Naureen Qureshi. Understanding the Issue illustrative and inclusive, not as exhaustive or exclusive’ (Plessis, 2011). A broader potential range of policies is implied by the qualifier of ‘similar policies and practices […] as practiced in Southern Africa’. It is, therefore, arguable that the existence of general structure of apartheid is sufficient to constitute the crime, all acts listed in article II or their practice in the same precise manner need not to be established, nor do they need to be committed in South Africa2. The notion of racial apartheid and discrimination presupposes the superiority of white European race and ethnicity (Tangelder, 2003: 242).Such assumptions provide a pretext to the ‘superior’ race or ethnicity to believe that they are entitled to govern and enslave inferior races (Mayer, 2000: 242). From the above discussion two core elements of racial apartheid can be discerned, institutionalized domination of one racial group over another, which is central to the definition of apartheid, and the support of such practices by law and policy of a state. Similarities between racial apartheid and certain forms of gender discrimination have been pointed out by some feminists (Mayer, 2000: 2000). Arguably, many states maintain gender discriminatory policies that might well meet the definition of apartheid, even if those practices lack some of the legal specificities of the South African model. Gender apartheid takes many forms including gender based violence (GBV), which is widespread in many parts of the world including Pakistan (Copelon, 1994: 117) (Jensen, 2001) (Afkhami, 2001) (Copelon, International Human Rights Dimensions of Intimate Violence: Another Stand in the Dialectic of Feminist Lawmaking, 2003: 871) (Charlesworth, Hilary, Chinkin, & Christine, 1993: 71) . It encompasses a wide range of women’s human rights violations, such as threat to life, security and dignity of the victim. Some of its overt manifestations include rape, honour related crimes, forced prostitution, intimate partner violence, female genital mutilation and so on. According to the World Bank’s estimates, rape and domestic violence against women accounts for 5 percent of the healthy years of the life lost to women aged 15-44 years in the developing countries ((Khan, n.d.). Moreover, women are maimed or killed through many other practices that are not very noticeable to the state, yet equally pervasive and harmful. For instance a woman’s right to life is threatened even before her birth (Coomaraswamy, 1999: 39-42) (Coomaraswamy, 2002: 22) (Mathur, 2007: 07). The age old practice of female foeticide and infanticide in India and China accounts for millions of gender-selective killings3. Pre-natal diagnostic techniques are frequently utilized in these countries for sex-selective abortions (Zeng, 1993: 297). The ‘missing girls’ phenomenon is quite common in developed East Asian societies, such as South Korea and Taiwan (Guntupalli, Gender and Development). Dowry related deaths and acid attacks on girls persist in India and Bangladesh despite advocacy campaigns (Coomaraswamy, Cultural Practices in the Family that are Violent Towards Women E/CN.4/2002/83, 2002: 12). All the aforementioned types of violence are specifically directed against 93 South Asian Studies 29 (1) women. These violations of women’s human rights are systematic and discriminatory enough to form a case for gender apartheid. State’s inaction in most of these cases is tantamount to defacto approval of these practices. In many states women enjoy only limited legal personhood due to unequal legal entitlements (Fukudda-Parr, 2002: 22). For instance in some countries women do not have a right to pass on their nationality to their children or spouse, this hampers the full enjoyment of their citizenship
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