Organization Profile

Could a New Global Treaty End Violence Against Women and Girls?

By Joanne Lu

What would happen if every country in the world were legally bound by a comprehensive international treaty against all forms of violence against women and girls? The Every Woman Treaty intends to find out.

The project was launched in 2013 under the name “Everywoman Everywhere” by a global group of women’s rights activists, who determined that there is a large gap in international law regarding the protection of women and girls.

Certainly, the United Nations’ (UN) 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and 2000 Convention against Transnational Organized Crime have all pushed the conversation forward in important and significant ways. But amid the limitations of those existing declarations and conventions, the group saw the urgent need for a legally binding global treaty that holds countries accountable for all forms of violence against women.

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Goalmaker

Veronica Fynn Bruey, Affiliated Faculty Member at Seattle University School of Law

By Amber Cortes

Photo provided by Veronica Fynn Bruey.

“Freedom,” Jean-Paul Satre once wrote, “is what we do with what is done to us.” Professor, lecturer, and award-winning scholar, Veronica Fynn Bruey, has faced some of the most challenging hardships one can imagine: poverty, war, displacement, racism, and violence. Through it all, she found the strength—through her mother, her own personal motivation, her community, and her work, to not only achieve success for herself, but also to help others—specifically victims of human trafficking—find the freedom and protection they deserve.

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