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On March 7, 2011 the Violence is Not Our Culture Campaign organized an event parallel to the 16th UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in collaboration with AWID (Association for Women’s Rights and Development), and IWRAW (International Women’s Rights Action Watch). The event focused on “Cultures, Traditions and Violence Against Women” as a challenge to human rights. Panelists came together to discuss how notions of culture, tradition and religion continue to be used to justify the violation of women’s rights, minority rights, and the rights of the LGBT community, regardless of how much recognition the universality of human rights gains. AWID Executive Director Lydia Alpizar moderated the meetings and invited four panelists to speak. The panelists each shared their experiences and perspectives based on their varying backgrounds, which resulted in a rich dialogue that presented different approaches to exploring the issues.

UN Independent Expert on Cultural Rights Farida Shaheed was first to speak, and focused on culture and the different indications of this notion. She defined culture not as music, poetry, fine arts, and monuments, but as a way of life, a prism through which we perceive and respond to the world. She deduced, therefore, that whenever Violence Against Women (VAW) takes place, it indicates a degree of legitimization, usually coming from patriarchal cultures that tend to value and accept violence, while devaluing feminine attributes and, ultimately, women. When violence is transformed into a norm, it gains acceptance and an environment of impunity results. Shaheed further stated that this culture of violence needed to be replaced with a culture of peace.

Shaheed continued by setting forth two main assertions. The first is that no society ever has a singular culture. In every society, there is a dominant culture and other sub-alternate cultures that represent those who do not accept living according to the viewpoints of the mainstream, e.g. women, indigenous people, youth, and human rights defenders. Her second assertion was that culture is never static It is produced and reproduced through everyday interactions in social and political arenas, and is not just passed from one generation to the next but is constantly evolving from a sense of self. Shaheed stressed that the notion of culture is not synonymous with cultural relativism; there are common sets of values that are found across cultures belonging to humanity in its entirety and are inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This means that each person is entitled to rights and freedoms as recognized in the Declaration and that all States have the obligation to promote and protect human rights.

Shaheed expressed her belief that it is time for women to shift the dialog on culture from being an obstacle and use it to demand their rights. Women have rarely defined the dominant culture because they don’t have the means, so they need to be taken from the subculture to the dominant culture and be supported in shifting from the margins to the center. Shaheed thought the promotion of women’s cultural rights was integral to changing their position and commented on what little effort women’s right advocates had made in this regard. She highlighted that although CEDAW speaks about cultural rights, but did not believe that women’s rights activists or communities had picked up on this. Shaheed concluded by urging people to think about how women’s cultural rights can be promoted as a means for stopping VAW and to see what obligations devolve on States to ensure these rights.

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