27 February 2008 Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences, Yakin Ertürk (A/HRC/7/6/Add. 1)

I. INTRODUCTION

1. The Commission on Human Rights, in its resolution 2005/41 entitled “Elimination of violence against women”, encouraged the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences (hereinafter “the Special Rapporteur”) to respond effectively to reliable information that comes before her and requested all Governments to cooperate with and assist the Special Rapporteur in the performance of her mandated tasks and duties, to supply all information requested, including with regard to implementation of her recommendations, and to respond to the Special Rapporteur’s visits and communications.

2. The present addendum to the Special Rapporteur’s annual report contains, on a country by country basis, summaries of individual allegations, as well as urgent appeals sent to Governments on individual cases and general situations of concern to her mandate. This report includes summaries of the communications sent from 1 January to 4 December 2007 (with respect to allegation letters), and to 4 January 2008 (with respect to urgent appeals). The report also contains summaries of government replies received until 21 January 2008.

3. The Special Rapporteur recalls that in issuing urgent appeals and transmitting allegations, she does not make any judgment concerning the merits of the respective cases, nor does she necessarily support the opinions and activities of the persons on behalf of whom she intervenes. In the original communications, the full names of victims and perpetrators have been provided to the Government concerned. In this report, the names of individual victims and alleged perpetrators have been replaced by initials in order to protect their privacy and to prevent further victimization as well as to avoid pre-judgement of the alleged perpetuators.