A Review of the Prohibition of Violence against Women in the UN World Conferences regarding Women Issues: The Narration of Fears and Hopes

UN world conferences on women issues since mid-1980s, both are the demonstration of the international community's seriousness toward rights and status of women and its significance for a better world and a ground for improving the status and promotion of women's human rights. The Documents of these conferences, despite their non-binding legal nature, are the manifestation of international consensus as to their subjects and at least in the general remarks. The main organizer of these conferences has been the Commission on the Status of Women. This Commission, in addition to its other activities in the framework of its mandate e.g. gender equality and progress of women, has organized the world conferences. These conferences, have provided the base and circle for the discussions of policy-makers and other beneficiaries in women issues as to current challenges, determining the objectives and designing the plans of action and examining the progress made in the implementation of the previous conferences' programs. In this article, through a descriptive-analytic method, we seek to review the prohibition of violence against women in the UN world conferences on women issues. It appears that despite the fact that there are many fears in the realization of wishes and programs of these conferences in preventing and combating VAW, we can and should be hopeful in progress of human being toward the recognition and enforcements of women's human rights and preservation of equal human dignity of women and men in a world free from VAW.