Dhaka: There is a tendency to downplay gender-based crimes of violence against women and minimise the grave consequences caused to women around the world, a group of United Nations human rights experts has warned.

Ahead of International Women's Day to be observed on Tuesday 8 March, the independent experts urged States ‘to look at gender-based crimes through the lens of torture.’

They reminded all governments around the world that they become complicit in torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment if they ignore their obligations to prohibit, prevent and redress the violence and harm inflicted on women and girls, according to a message received from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Geneva.

The experts are Eleonora Zielinska, Chairperson of the Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice, Juan E Méndez, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Dainius Pūras, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Dubravka Šimonović, Special Rapporteur on violence against Women, its causes and consequences, Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children; Felice Gaer, on behalf of The Committee against Torture, and the Board of Trustees of the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture.

They said no one should turn a blind eye or minimise the extent to which women and girls are discriminatorily subjected to pain and sufferings, both physical and mental, caused by gender-based violence in all regions of the world.

‘We call on the Human Rights Council and on States in all regions to wage an unremitting campaign against the intolerable torture of women and girls,’ they said.

‘Looking at systemic gender-based crimes of violence against women through the lens of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment reflects the full impact of this pervasive cruelty on women's physical integrity, mental health, and human dignity,’ they said in a statement.

The experts said gender-based crimes of violence are a result of rampant cultural misogyny, frequently and wrongly justified or tolerated in the name of tradition, culture or religion.

‘The sexual violence and mental torment to which girls and women are subjected both in private and public settings reinforce the subordinate status of women and give expression to patriarchal control over women's bodies and sexuality,’ the statement added.