Rashida Manjoo


Rashida Manjoo is a professor of Public Law in Durban and a social activist involved in the eradication of violence against women and gender-based violence. Manjoo was the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women from June 2009 to July 2015.

Early life

Rashida Manjoo grew up in Durban, South Africa. Manjoo learned of the injustices towards women from a young age. Raised by two strong female influences, her grandmother and mother, she saw their strength in times of poverty in Apartheid South Africa. Living in apartheid South Africa allowed Manjoo to view the violence against women and lack of accountability from a young age. Through Manjoo’s parent's importance on education was expressed upon Manjoo and her five sister, Manjoo’s personal history with the apartheid and her higher education guided her into many civil society positions, advocating for improved human rights standards.
Manjoo grew of age in South Africa during a time that extenuated the history of colonization, and a system that did not consider women equal, but inferior. Naturally, becoming interested in challenging oppression and discrimination in its many forms, she started working as a women’s liberation campaigner in anti-apartheid groups across South Africa.

Career

Manjoo is a professor in the Department of Public Law at the University of Cape Town. She previously served as the Parliamentary Commissioner on South Africa's Commission on Gender Equality, the Des Lee Distinguished Visiting Professor at Webster University, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow with Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program. Manjoo also taught at the University of Natal, Durban.
Manjoo was an educator for not only her university students but lawyers and judges as well. Manjoo established and taught social context training for judges and lawyers, designing content and methodology intended to improve experiences within the judicial system. As an educator, Manjoo has held numerous visiting professorships around the globe; including the Des Lee Distinguished Visiting Professor at Webster University in the United States. At Webster University, she has taught courses on human rights, with a particular focus on women's human rights and transitional justice. Manjoo also was a clinical instructor for the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School in 2005 and 2006 and the Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow at Harvard Law School in 2006-07.

Social work

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Manjoo and many other feminist activists added focus to the intersectional perspective, by including race and gender in the discussion of inequality and discrimination. Manjoo and other intersectional feminists began forming coalitions or networks for women in South Africa, such as the Women’s Charter which Manjoo created in her province in South Africa.
The different coalitions for women would reflect the desires and demands of the women in South Africa, especially in reaction to the treatment of women during the apartheid. During the time of apartheid and the following transition period towards democracy, there was rampant state-sponsored violence against women and other minority groups such as student protesters. The Women’s Charter and other groups focused their efforts on increasing awareness of the violence towards women and generating support for those women.
Manjoo’s work for human rights for women led to her involvement in regional and international discussions on justice for women, including work on the Protocol on Women in Africa, the African Court on Human Rights, and the Rome Treaty. Manjoo worked internationally with these groups to recognize how violence against women is manifested and translated those manifestations into categories of crime under international criminal law.
Through the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice and the Coalition on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Manjoo worked to link women’s local knowledge and presence in global initiatives to support women, and to illuminate the existence of gendered violence and strengthen international criminal law to prevent and prosecute. Manjoo worked to expose the negative effects of violence against women, and the interplay between different individual, family, community, and social factors on violence and the perpetuation of violence against women.
Manjoo worked as a human rights lawyer throughout her career, including for the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to create shadow reports— which are disclosed reports that can be submitted by Non-governmental Organizations to articulate and advocate for certain needs of citizens which are currently being unsupported or mismanaged by national governments. Manjoo spent time with CEDAW and other activists, drafting a submission on violence against women in both local and global communities, in theory, and practice. Manjoo subsequently served for five years as Parliamentary Commissioner in the Commission on Gender Equality to hold governments accountable to national constitutions; again, using various independent organizations to regulate the accountability of national governments. This position gave Manjoo the ability to work within a state structure while emphasizing the national need for support of women in the discussion of human rights. Manjoo also used her position on the Commission on Gender Equality to reject the theory of solely analyzing civil and political rights independently, but rather urging for a holistic approach to human rights including intersectional experiences.
During Manjoo’s lifelong career advocating for activism against oppression and discrimination, Manjoo dedicated much of her efforts to educate students across the globe.

United Nations Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women (UNSPVAW)

Manjoo’s dedication to action on issues of social justice within her many capacities, compounded with her strife for personal and community education and equal opportunities, made her widely known within the international women’s movement. Due in part to her notoriety, Manjoo was nominated and appointed to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences, in 2009, by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan with the support of the UN Human Rights Council Manjoo’s local and national work for gender and race equality logically culminated in her appointment to the UNHRC. As the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women, Manjoo continually worked to display the gap between government promises and the action taken to support women afflicted by violence. Manjoo has done so by prioritizing many issues of violence against women as thematic mandates submitted to the UNHRC.
Manjoo provided a range of thematic reports to the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. These thematic mandates report on the research collected by the UN Special Rapporteur and their recommended procedures. Manjoo has continually provided thematic mandates on a variety of issues regarding violence against women.
These thematic mandates include:
The thematic mandates exposed the gap in international criminal law between human rights standards and the treatment and violence against women. She has attempted to influence more accountability on the part of national governments globally, stating states are not being held responsible for their role in violence against women; calling for responsibility “necessary” to for countries to be intolerant to violence against women properly. This call for accountability is clear in Manjoo’s final two thematic reports which claimed, under international law, there are no provisions that impose legally binding obligations on member states to eliminate violence against women. Manjoo is also notable for exposing governments or organizations that are or complacent in the harm of women, which occasionally has led to criticism.
Most notably, Manjoo gained national media coverage when, after a 16-day investigation of the UK, Manjoo expressed that the UK had a more visible presence of sexism and sexist portrayals of women, claiming that the British media was to blame for its responsibility in the “negative and over-sexualized portrayals of women” and the “marketization of their bodies.” Many people were upset by this characterization of the UK and criticized Manjoo for her opinions, deeming them an unfair interpretation and representation of the UK In 2014, Manjoo submitted a report on violence and sex crimes in India believing the violence to be widespread and systematic. Referencing her many discussions with women and experts in India as evidence of deep-rooted physical, sexual, and psychological abuse of women occurring in the private sphere and accepted by the State. Officials from India denied that violence against women is systematic, and criticized Manjoo’s statements for being simplistic and an over generalization.
She was succeeded by Dr. Dubravka Šimonović in July 2015.

Awards and honors