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The book explores the relationship between violence against women on one hand, and the rights to health and reproductive health on the other. It argues that violation of the right to health is a consequence of violence, and that (state) health policies might be a cause of – or create the conditions for – violence against women. It significantly contributes to feminist and international human rights legal scholarship by conceptualising a new ground-breaking idea, violence against women’s health (VAWH), using the Hippocratic paradigm as the backbone of the analysis. The two dimensions of violence at the core of the book – the horizontal, ‘interpersonal’ dimension and the vertical ‘state policies’ dimension – are investigated through around 70 decisions of domestic, regional and international judicial or quasi-judicial bodies (the anamnesis). The concept of VAWH, drawn from the anamnesis, enriches the traditional concept of violence against women with a human rights-based approach to autonomy and a reflection on the pervasiveness of patterns of discrimination (diagnosis). VAWH as theorised in the book allows the reconceptualisation of states’ obligations in an innovative way, by identifying for both dimensions obligations of result, due diligence obligations, and obligations to progressively take steps (treatment). The book eventually asks whether it is not international law itself that is the ultimate cause of VAWH (prognosis).
‘appropriate, reasonable and contextual’ to define marital rape as a criminal offence.145 Nonetheless, it quashed the petition because the definition of rape was not per se inconsistent with the Constitution. It rather recommended that the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs introduce a bill bringing the necessary amendments to identified gaps in the legislation, namely the prohibition of marital rape.146 The High Court in Gujarat at Ahmedabad followed a similar reasoning, by arguing that ‘the total statutory abolition of the marital rape exemption [still in
society. Nonetheless, as I will discuss further, courts themselves, while condemning FGM/C, and while accepting requests for refugee status, perpetuate stereotypes. If we look at the language used by the courts, this argument is crystal-clear. The Constitutional Court of Uganda, in the pivotal case Law and Advocacy for Women in Uganda v. Attorney-General, condemned FGM/C by also referring to Article 33(1) and (3) of the Ugandan Constitution, which states that ‘women shall be accorded full and equal dignity of the person with men,’ and that ‘the state shall protect women
to health. The right to health is a human right and so is the right to reproductive health; despite being ‘latecomers’ among the human rights, that is economic, social, and cultural rights, these rights are human rights,17 which create legal obligations on states that ratified the international treaty in which the same rights are enshrined. Furthermore, at the domestic level, the right to health has found wide recognition; more than two-thirds of the world’s constitutions make some reference to the right to health, and ‘health-related litigation is now commonly