Contesting the universality of human rights for women An examination of violence against women in the Global South and the Global North

Abstract

Despite the purported universality of human rights, the human rights of women are not universal. The human rights of women are systematically violated across both the Global North and Global South in the form of pervasive violence against women. Using postcolonial feminism and intersectionality and two case studies of honour killings in India and domestic violence against women in the United States, this paper makes two arguments. First, this paper argues that irrespective of whether you are ‘wealthy, white and from the west’ in the Global North or the converse in the Global South, the human rights of women are systematically violated. Second, this paper argues that human rights violations against women in the Global North are ignored by a focus on violence against ‘other’ women in the Global South and minority communities in the Global North. This paper advocates the adoption of an intersectional approach to recognise that human rights are not universal for all women who are vulnerable to violence because of their gender.