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(This document has been posted online by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). We thank them for their encouragement of reproduction and dissemination of the document.)

ACTION FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Some suggestions:

• Organise educational activities around the UN Decade for Human Rights Education, started in 1995, to provide members of the local community with a clearer understanding of women`s human rights.

• Use the confidential "Violence against Women Form", distributed by the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, to document violations of women`s human rights.

• This form can be obtained from:
  Radhika Coomaraswamy,
  Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, UN
  Centre for Human Rights, United Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
  Fax: 41- 22-917-0212.

• Use the Platform for Action to mobilise communities to take action against governments who have not implemented their commitments from the UN World Conferences.

• Launch a domestic campaign to pressure governments to ratify and/or remove reservations to the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

• Show your support of the Optional Protocol to the Convention, which would include both
  
  1. A procedure authorising the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to receive complaints by individuals, groups and organisations alleging violations of the Convention.
  
  2. A procedure authorising it to initiate inquiries into serious or systematic violations of the Convention.

• Use the Vienna Tribunal: Women`s Rights are Human Rights video and discussion guide to initiate discussions around the UN World Conferences and governments` recognition of women`s human rights.

• Use circulars, posters, electronic mail, interviews, editorials, articles and so on to publicise the gains made in getting violence against women addressed in international forums and how to use them.