State Obligations to Address Sexual Violence Against Women

This book explores how multisector collaboration approaches in Kenya and South Africa contribute to the fulfilment of human rights state obligations to prevent and effectively respond to sexual violence against women. Applying a feminist human rights perspective, the author unpacks state obligations to exercise due diligence in prevention, protection, prosecution, punishment and provision of adequate remedies to victims. This perspective puts victims’ needs and rights at the forefront in assessing service integration models, while foregrounding the need for state accountability to establish sustainable and effective sexual violence interventions. Using a qualitative case-study approach and interview data, it analyses how sexual violence service integration centers operate in urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. It demonstrates how these multi-sector collaboration approaches can produce different service orientations that may eclipse and de-centre the needs and rights of sexual violence victims. The author concludes by discussing the parameters of what a victim-centred service integration approach would look like and highlights critical ways to shift deeply-rooted social, structural and institutional norms, which are the root causes of violence against women.