The term femicide and the scope of its use

The term femicide and the scope of its use8

Femicide is a relatively new term that depicts the homicide of women based on misogyny. However, the phenomenon it depicts is as old as patriarchy itself.9

Reference to the term “femicide” at a theoretical level

The term “femicide” started to circulate at a theoretical level in the 1970s, and it was proposed as an alternative to the gender-neutral term “homicide”. The circulation of this term was predicated on the fact that the definition of homicide did not capture the discriminatory, oppressive, unequal and systemic violence perpetrated against women.

In 1990, Diana Russell and Jane Caputi defined the term as “… the killing of women by men motivated by hatred, contempt, pleasure or sense of ownership of the woman.”10

Later, Diana Russel and Jill Radford proposed another definition, namely”…the misogynist killing of women by men”.11 By 2001, Diana Russel and Roberta Harns expanded the definition of femicide to “the killing of females by males because they are female,” in order to include all killings on the basis of both sexism and hatred.12

8 See more detailed “Silenced voices”: Femicide in Armenia 2016-2017 Report, available at: https://coalitionagainstviolence.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/femicide2018.pdf 9 See Jill Radford and Diana Russell, “Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing”, Macmillan Publishing Company, 2012, p. 25. 10 See Caputi J, Russell DEH. “Femicide: speaking the unspeakable”, pp. 34-37, Ms. 1990;1(2) 11 See Jill Radford and Diana Russell, “Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing”, Macmillan Publishing Company, 2012, p. 3. 12 See Russell DEH., AIDS as mass femicide: focus on South Africa, Femicide in Global

Reference to the term “femicide” at an international level

In 2012, the Vienna Declaration on Femicide13 was drafted during the summit on femicide in Vienna. According to the declaration, femicide is defined as the killing of women and girls because of their gender, which can take the following forms:

1) the murder of women as a result of intimate partner violence; 2) the torture and misogynist slaying of women; 3) the killing of women and girls in the name of “honor” ; 4) the deliberate killing of women and girls in the context of armed conflict; 5) dowry-related killings of women; 6) the killing of women and girls because of their sexual orientation and gender identity; 7) the killing of aboriginal and indigenous women and girls because of their gender; 8) deaths caused by the genital mutilation of women; 9) the killing of women accused of witchcraft or sorcery; 10) the killing of women and girls that is connected to organized crime, drug dealing, human trafficking and the proliferation of small arms. One year after the Vienna Declaration, in December 2013, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/191, which dealt with the homicide of women carried out by their current and former partners, among others. The resolution uses the term “gender-

Perspective, New York, Teacher’s College Press, 2001, pp 100-114. 13 See Vienna Declaration on Femicide, available at: http://www.dianarussell.com/viennadeclaration-.html.

related killing” of women; however, it also specifies that femicide is an acceptable term used in the legislation of several countries.14

Types of Femicide

Some theorists include any type of homicide of women in the category of femicide, including those that are non-premeditated such as cases when women die during childbirth and unsafe abortion as femicide,15 in an effort to re-establish the power exercised by the patriarchal system over the woman. This is meant to portray that the patriarchal system does not value the life of a woman as much as it values the life of a man. Thus, it doesn’t create appropriate conditions or creates barriers that impact a woman’s health and life.

Authors Radford and Russel argue that there are many patterns of femicide, such as racist femicide, when black women are killed by men becauseof their racial affiliation; homophobic femicide, when lesbian and bisexual women are killed because of their sexual orientation; marital femicide, when the woman is killed by her current or former partner; and femicide committed by a stranger.16

Besides homicide committed by a current or former partner, femicide can be committed by17

— other family members (father, son, father-in-law);

— close relatives, friends or neighbors; and

— strangers.

14 See Resolution on Taking action against gender-related killing of women and girls, UN General Assembly, 2014, available at: https://www.unodc.org/documents/commissions/ CCPCJ/Crime_Resolutions/2010-2019/2013/General_Assembly/A-RES-68-191.pdf. 15 See Strengthening understanding of femicide. Using research to galvanizeaction and accountability, Washington, p. 29, available at: https://path.azureedge.net/media/ documents/GVR_femicide_rpt.pdf. 16 See Jill Radford and Diana Russell, “Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing”, Macmillan Publishing Company, 2012, p. 7. 17 See Russell DEH, Harmes RA, eds. Femicide in Global Perspective, pp 8-12, New York, Teacher’s College Press, 2001.

The link between domestic violence and femicide

Violence against women is one of the most widespread forms of discrimination and is considered a violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms. Violence against women mainly takes place in the home and manifests as physical, psychological, sexual and economic violence. All over the world, the majority of victims of domestic violence are women and girls. Every third woman in the world is subjected to a form of violence by a current or former partner.18

Domestic violence is a serious issue faced by women in Armenia. According to a national survey19 conducted in all regions of Armenia, 22.4% of ever-male-partnered women were subjected to physical violence, 19.5% to economic violence and 45.9% to psychological violence at some point in their lives. The same survey also uncovered a high cultural acceptability of violence against women: one third of the surveyed population mentioned that women should tolerate violence for the sake of keeping their families together, while three quarters expressed a conviction that violence by a partner can be justified.

In the context of what has been said above, it should be noted that in no country do statistics give a full and realistic picture of domestic violence and violence against women. There are some cases, as in Armenia, where there is no unified record-keeping of domestic violence cases and, additionally, a great number of these abuses are concealed.20

The state’s obligations hold great significance in protecting women from possible risks of femicide. In this regard, it is imperative

18 See Violence against women. Key facts, WHO, 2017, available at:http://www.who.int/ news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women. 19 See Vladimir Osipov and Jina Sargizova, Men and Gender Equality Issues in Armenia, UNFPA, 2016. 20 Ibid, page 305.

that cases of femicide stop being viewed as only in the realm of responsibility of the abuser and instead as the responsibility of the public and state.

In the precedent set by the judgement of the European Human Rights Court over the “Opuz v. Turkey”21 case, the court recognized that the state is accountable in all those cases when it failed to protect women from domestic violence. “Opuz v. Turkey” and the subsequent “Kontrova v. Slovakia”22 rulings set a precedent for the European Human Rights Court to recognize violence against women as a systemic issue that reflects an unequal distribution of power.

In these cases, the court placed the responsibility of protecting women from domestic violence on the state.

21 See Opuz v. Turkey Ruling of ECHR, available at:https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/ conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=001-92945&filename=001-92945.pdf. 22 See Kontrova v. Slovakia ECHR Ruling, available at: https://www.coe.int/t/dg2/ equality/domesticviolencecampaign/resources/Kontrova%20v.%20Slovakia_en.asp .