Background

In her 2004 report to the Human Rights Commission (E/CN.4/2004/66), which preceded the Human Rights Council, the former Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Yakin Ertürk, acknowledged that “numerous international and regional mechanisms are in place to guide efforts to eliminate violence against women”. She also added that “she intends to continue and develop the collaboration with intergovernmental bodies” including regional intergovernmental organizations and their mechanisms engaged in the promotion of human rights of women.

In its first report to the Human Rights Council in 2012, the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls stressed its intention to explore cooperation with regional human rights mechanisms, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in particular its Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Council of Europe, as well as global women’s rights mechanisms (A/HRC20/28).

In her 2016 report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/32/42), the former Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Dubravka Šimonović, highlighted the need for stronger cooperation between independent global and regional mechanisms dealing with women’s rights and violence against women. She then led an initiative to develop institutional links and thematic cooperation among mechanisms, with a view to improving implementation of the existing international legal and policy framework on violence against women. In that context, she presented an initiative to the UN Secretary-General in October 2017.

The EDVAW Platform was formally launched within the auspices of the sixty-second session of the Commission on the Status of Women, in March 2018 (see the concept note).

The EDVAW Platform was presided over by Ms. Šimonović from its establishment in 2018 until the end of her tenure as mandate holder in July 2021. Thereafter, the current Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, assumed the role as Chairperson of the EDVAW platform in August 2021 and exercised that role until January 2022, when she proposed rotating the role between the various mechanisms in order to inject a fresh dynamic into the leadership of the Platform and also to increase ownership amongst members. GREVIO took over as Chair for a one-year mandate starting on 1 February 2022 and ending on 31 January 2023. WGDAWG took over as Chair for slightly over a one-year mandate starting on 1 February 2023 and ending on 29 February 2024. The Platform is currently under the co-Chairship of the CEDAW Committee and MESECVI until the end of February 2025.