Slavery

The 1926 Slavery Convention defines slavery as “the state or condition of an individual in relation to which the attributes of property rights or some of them are exercised.” This concept was broadened in 1956 by the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. Based on a modern approach, slavery and similar practices are defined by institutions and/or customs where there are control and property elements to which victims of slavery are subjected by another human being usually by means of threat. These include some degree of restriction to freedom of movement and/or on personal belongings. The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children defines trafficking in persons as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Said exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

Violence against women, sexual diversities and/or for gender reasons

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979, is the first international instrument referring exclusively to women's rights. In 1992, through Recommendation 19, the CEDAW Committee included as part of the Convention the notion of violence against women as a derivation of the concept of discrimination, on the understanding that violence against women constitutes a form of gender-based discrimination and that discrimination is one of the main causes of such violence.

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted in 1993, states that "violence against women constitutes a violation of human rights", defining it as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life". The law also recognizes that this can be physical, sexual or psychological and committed by the family, the community or by state agents (or with their collaboration).

At the regional level, in 1994 the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women, also known as the "Belem Do Pará Convention" was passed, which expressly recognizes the right of women to live a life free of violence.

In 2003, the Maputo Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, annexed to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, was issued and in 2011 the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) was passed.

It is worth mentioning that in 2006 the United Nations approved the "Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity" (Yogyakarta Principles). This document is not a legally binding instrument, but it establishes legal standards to guide the actions of States and other agents in the prevention and eradication of violence, abuse and systematic discrimination suffered by LGBTI+ people.

Genocide and/or Mass Crimes

Genocide is defined in Article 6 of the Rome Statute and Article 2 of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Two elements must concur: the physical element (the acts committed) and the mental element (the intent). For genocide to exist, evidence must show that the party committing the act had the intent to physically destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. It must also be proved that victims were attacked deliberately based on the fact that they belonged or were presumed to belong to one of the four groups protected and not based on their individual characteristics. In certain situations, some of these elements appear but they do not constitute a genocide as we know it. Instead, said events are deemed mass crimes. They are used as a tool to spread fear, eliminate the identity of the oppressed group and impose that of the oppressor.

Serious Violations in the Context of Armed Conflicts

Serious offenses committed in the context of armed conflicts are concrete acts (listed in the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I) known as war crimes, a term that applies to both internal and international conflicts. In order to limit its effects, International Humanitarian Law seeks to, on the one hand, limit the right of the Parties in conflict to freely choose methods and means of combat and, on the other, protect the people that do not participate or have stopped participating in hostile acts.  War crimes include willful attacks against civilians, pillage, rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy and the use of children under 15 years old for their active participation in hostile acts.

Serious Violations in the Context of Political persecution

This is a state action committed in a systematic way that represses, abuses and subjects individuals or dissident groups to harassment based on the fact that they are considered a threat to existing power relations. Exercising violence also aims to discipline the rest of society, and therefore act as exemplary actions, for the purpose of letting society repress itself in the exercise of liberty. The use of political violence at the service of the elimination of political opponents and the intimidation of the entire population through several repressive mechanisms was a characteristic of dictatorships, totalitarianism and similar regimes that marked the international politics and history of the 20th century.