UN special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences Reem Alsalem visited Mongolia from November 29 to December 8 to review the implementation of international commitments and legal frameworks put in place to prevent and eliminate violence against women, as well as examine the response to specific manifestations of violence against women, such as trafficking of women and girls, violence against refugee and migrant women, women and girls at risk of statelessness, and femicide. During her visit, she met members of Parliament, Cabinet, the Supreme Court, independent state institutions, international organizations, donors, financial institutions and civil society organizations and victims to get acquainted with the current situation of women’s rights in Mongolia.

Alsalem presented her preliminary findings and recommendations last Friday. A full, in-depth analysis is expected to come out in June 2022 for the 50th session of the Human Rights Council. The UB Post sat down for an exclusive interview with the special rapporteur, delving into results of her visit.

You mentioned at the press conference that you are visiting Mongolia to conduct an overall assessment of the situation of violence against women in the country, as well as the institutional, legal and policy framework to address issues in accordance with international human rights norms and standards. What was the most important achievement of your visit?

The most important achievement of this visit was the ability to contribute to the improvement of the Mongolian system to identify and respond to gender-based violence. It means that, in principle, there is a readiness for the government of Mongolia and related officials to receive recommendations and findings. But they are not forced to accept them. I would like to thank the government for its openness and express my sincere appreciation for constructive dialogue throughout the visit. Based on the assessment and constructive dialogue with government, civil society and other stakeholders, I provided recommendations to implement Mongolia’s international human rights obligations and adopt measures to prevent and eliminate gender-based violence against women.

Do you think that Mongolia has taken sufficient measures to protect the rights of girls and women?

I think that a lot of good progress has been made. In the last decade, several pieces of legislation have been passed to combat gender-based violence. In particular, there are laws on gender equality, combatting domestic violence, combatting trafficking in persons, child protection, and victim and witness protection. However, while the passing of these laws represents significant and much-needed progress, some important gaps and inconsistencies remain. For instance, there is a need to harmonize the Law on Domestic Violence and its definition of the four types of domestic violence (physical, sexual, psychological and economic) with the Criminal Code and the Law on Infringements – both of which still only recognize physical and sexual violence. Furthermore, the Law on Domestic Violence does not apply to non-cohabitating intimate partners.

Moreover, there are no laws or regulations that allow for the identification and response to obstetric violence. There is a need to elevate and delineate the issue of gender-based violence against women from the general policy framework. Of course, this is a work in progress. It’s not a sudden thing, it takes time. The country is working on it. They need to continue making legislative reforms and improve the laws.

I commend the current work that is being carried out to harmonize domestic provisions with international human rights treaties. My extensive review of legislation, in light of international obligations, is an important step to effectively integrate human rights law into the domestic framework. I call upon the government to take into consideration the results of this review and use them to propose and pass additional amendments or new bills that are still necessary to advance on this harmonization. Moreover, I call on the National Human Rights Commission to continue strengthening its work on gender-based violence against women and call on the government and Parliament to continue to engage constructively with it.

As deeply-seated stereotypes play a large role in perpetuating these forms of violence, they have to be tackled from an early age. Therefore, I recommend that the government include in the national curricula of schools, human rights education, including gender equality, diversity and gender-based violence. The Ministry of Education is well placed to take a more leading role in promoting campaigns and awareness-raising initiatives in educational settings, from early schooling to universities. These should be complemented by other campaigns and awareness-raising efforts targeting the wider public.

During your visit, you visited Umnugovi Province to work at the One Stop Service Center and speak to victims of domestic violence, beneficiaries of youth programs and migrant women and young people. Does the center operate in accordance with international standards and norms?

It is welcome that services for victims like shelters, one-stop service centers and multidisciplinary teams, have been progressively expanded, including at the provincial level. Unfortunately, some of the planned activities were not carried out due to constraints related to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, my request to visit the detention facilities in Mongolia was not feasible reportedly on the account of COVID-19. So I visited only the one stop shelter and met with a couple of victims.

Given the multidisciplinary services that shelters provide, their management should in principle not be delegated to law enforcement. In addition, shelters should not be the only available tool to prevent perpetrators from contacting victims and they should never be used as a form of protective custody, resulting in the de facto confinement of the victim. Protection should be available to victims including during transport to and from shelters.

I am concerned about the low use of protection orders in the country and the imposition of excessive requirements that restrict access to them. Prosecutors rarely seek restraining or deterrent measures for protectors. The use of protection orders should be expanded and should not depend on the victim being able to produce evidence of physical harm, but rather rely on an objective risk assessment based on the victim’s statement. Protection orders should order a perpetrator to vacate the residence of the victim for a sufficient period of time and prohibit the perpetrator from entering the residence or contacting the victim.

There has been a significant expansion of the number of shelters and one stop service centers in the country, totaling now 38 units between government and civil society facilities and 323 beds. I encourage the government to continue strengthening these centers and ensuring that they can provide, additionally to emergency accommodations, the multidisciplinary services they are designed to offer, as well as referral mechanisms for other important specialized services such as legal support, particularly in the countryside.

For adult women and women of diverse sexual orientation and gender identities, NGOs seem to be the lead provider of gender-sensitive services. However, they should not be the sole service providers in any geographical area or for any group. I encourage the government to support civil society organizations, continue and expand dialogue with them, and further involve them in the design, implementation and monitoring of programs aimed at combatting violence against women. 

Victims need to have more resources. The center provides good psychological services. However, it is not mandatory for a victim to receive legal aid, so this should be addressed. There is also a need to promote a gender-sensitive approach by these services, especially those designed to target women victims of domestic violence.

Do you think that multidisciplinary services shelters have an adequate environment to ensure victims’ rights?

From what I saw, these centers try to meet the immediate needs of the victims. One of them is to isolate victims from perpetrators and keep them safe. I understood that some shelters are run by the police. Of course, I do not support it. More needs to be done to ensure their availability and viability, particularly for women in remote or rural areas.

You are an independent rapporteur on gender issues, rights of refugees and migrants, transitional justice and humanitarian response. What is missing in Mongolia to ensure gender equality?

In general, gender equality is achieved when a country has laws that do not discriminate between men and women and allow them equal opportunities. In some ways, the state seeks to ensure human rights. In Parliament, it is good to have a quota for the number of parliamentarians that should be women. Once that gets normalized, women will compete equally as men.

How do you think media outlets can contribute to the protection of women’s rights?

In the last few years, we’ve seen a proliferation of online violence. A lot of media outlets have social platforms, but they don’t have stringent rules on how to deal with online violence. So this has to be rectified. Some journalists and media outlets are not aware of equality issues and the rights of women, so they can contribute to spreading harmful stereotypes. They have a big responsibility to report gender-based violence but also prevent the continuation of harmful stereotypes. 

The revised Law on Labor will come into force on January 1, 2022. The law includes new provisions related to violence and sexual harassment in the workplace. If you have read the law, do you think this issue is well addressed in the law?

We have not yet gotten acquainted with it but we will definitely look at it because sexual abuse and harassment at the workplace is obviously a form of violence. The workplace is a place where violence can happen.

This year, some campaigns and programs aim to involve men in the protection of violence against women. Do you think this is due to the weak participation of men in this issue? What’s your position on this?

I think it’s really good that everybody is thinking about this and recognizing the importance of men’s participation. This is because not everyone has the same sense of the importance of including men and boys. We have to consider how we can build healthy masculinity. So we need to work with them. If this kind of involvement is to be large-scale, it must be made into a national strategy.