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MADRE ADVOCACY AT WORK

Ensuring Global Accountability for Gender Persecution

Targeted abuse against women, girls, and LGBTQIA+ people of all genders is rarely documented when it happens. As a result, these acts are often excluded from consideration by international and domestic trials and, in effect, are left out of history.

Gender persecution has occurred in conflicts globally. Alleged perpetrators have, for example, attacked girls’ schools in Afghanistan, tortured women in Mali because they deemed their skirts too short, and committed sexual violence against those perceived to be LGBTQI+ in Colombia. In order to strengthen accountability for such crimes, MADRE and our grassroots partners are working together to increase understanding of the crime of gender persecution and pushing national and international authorities to hold perpetrators accountable.

The Principles on Gender Persecution – Join Us!

Join us as we create guiding principles on gender persecution, focusing on prevention, protection, survivor participation, and relief and recovery.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is developing a new set of Principles on the Crime of Gender Persecution, focusing on prevention, protection, survivor participation, and relief and recovery. Civil society groups are being asked to add their voice at the outset of the process to ensure that their communities and expertise are prioritized in the new Principles.

Thanks to a global grassroots movement, we have made major progress in raising greater awareness of the crime of gender persecution among key stakeholders. Now, the time has come to strengthen this work and expand this progress beyond accountability to other key areas of law and response to atrocities, including the pillars of prevention, protection, participation, and relief and recovery.

The Principles will develop a shared understanding of gender persecution and will strengthen recognition of and redress for gender-based crimes and discrimination before, during, and after conflict. This will create a shared community of practice and utilize multiple pillars of accountability to end cycles of violence and to help survivors access meaningful justice.

In December 2024, the results from global consultation into the Principles will be announced, and then the drafting of the Principles will commence in 2025. The end result will be the launch of the Principles  in October 2025 during the 25th anniversary of the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security.

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Civil Society Convenings on the Gender Persecution Principles

MADRE is working with activists around the world to hold a series of civil society consultations to develop recommendations for the Principles on the Crime of Gender Persecution. Activists and legal experts from across the Americas gathered for the first convening in Bogotá in April 2024. Participants represent groups confronting gender-based violence, protecting reproductive rights, and supporting Indigenous, Afro-descendent, and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Similar meetings in four other continents will bring together gender persecution survivors, legal experts, and other representatives of communities affected by conflict all over the world to provide input on the Principles for the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor.

This document — and the process of developing it — can help spread the term “gender persecution” beyond courtrooms and help transform society. As one of the participants in the Bogotá meeting put it, “Naming … the crime of gender persecution is definitely an opportunity to investigate the structures of power.” Indigenous women’s advocate Yormery Avendaño Pascual said she would like to see the gender persecution principles recognize the importance of a differentiated approach to working with victims and witnesses of different backgrounds so they can more easily participate in accountability processes.

Read more about recommendations that emerged from the Bogotá gathering in both Spanish and English!

Download the April 2024 Bogota Convening Report EN & SP

Policy Paper on Gender Persecution

In 2021, MADRE began its work as organizer of civil society engagement in the development of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Policy of the Crime of Gender Persecution.

In December of 2022, the ICC published the Policy Paper in a grounding breaking moment for gender justice. While gender persecution, as a crime against humanity, was included in the Rome Statute, its perpetrators went with impunity because of a lack of understanding of the gender discrimination and unequal treatment at the root of these crimes.

This Policy Paper strengthens recognition of gender persecution in investigations and legal proceedings, reaffirms the understanding of gender in international criminal law, and provides clarity on a topic overlooked for too long.

This moment reaffirms – once and for all – that targeting women and LGBTQIA+ persons in peacetime and conflict can amount to a crime against humanity, and that survivors of these crimes cannot be silenced.

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