Control Arms

There are around 639 million small arms and light weapons in the world today. Eight million more are produced every year.

Without strict control, such weapons will continue to fuel violent conflict, state repression, crime, and domestic abuse. Unless governments act to stop the spread of arms, more lives will be lost, more human rights violations will take place, and more people will be denied the chance to escape poverty.

For many years, in our work around the world, Oxfam, Amnesty International, and IANSA have witnessed the human cost of arms abuses and campaigned for tougher arms controls. But now the situation is critical.

Urgent measures are needed immediately. Governments need to take action at every level, from communities to the international arena, to stop this suffering.

Stop Violence Against Women

Violence against women is never normal, legal or acceptable and should never be tolerated or justified. Everyone – individuals, communities, governments, and international bodies – has a responsibility to put a stop to it and to redress the suffering it causes.

Change must come at international, national and local levels. It must be brought about by governments as well as private actors, by institutions as well as individuals. International treaties must be respected, laws must be adopted or abolished, support systems must be put in place, and above all, attitudes, prejudices and social beliefs that foster and reinforce violence against women must change.

Amnesty International's Campaign

Amnesty International’s campaign to stop violence against women, launched in March 2004, is intended as a contribution to the efforts of women’s rights movements around the world.

We will collaborate with women’s rights activists and groups who are already working to expose and redress forms of violence. Amnesty International will investigate and expose acts of violence against women and demand that these violations are acknowledged, publicly condemned and redressed.

AI’s campaign is designed to mobilise both men and women in organising to counter violence and to use the power and persuasion of the human rights framework in the efforts to stop violence against women

AIUK Campaign Goals

AIUK aims to realise the following goals:

To hold Governments to account for violence against women occurring within their territories, either by State actors or non-State actors, through local, national, and international mechanisms.
To challenge the attitudes that provoke and sustain the normalisation and acceptance of violence against women in the UK.
To profile the work of women Human Rights Defenders at the forefront of the struggle to end violence against women.

All of our campaigning to achieve the above objectives will be based around the themes of violence against women in the family and violence against women in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Turkey

The government introduced further legal and other reforms with the aim of bringing Turkish law into line with international standards. However, implementation of these reforms was patchy and broad restrictions on the exercise of fundamental rights remained in law. Despite positive changes to detention regulations, torture and ill-treatment by security forces continued. The use of excessive force against demonstrators remained a serious concern. Those responsible for such violations were rarely brought to justice. Those who attempted to exercise their right to demonstrate peacefully or express dissent on certain issues continued to face criminal prosecution or other sanctions. State officials failed to take adequate steps to prevent and punish violence against women.

AI Work on North America (USCAN) in 2005

United States of America

Justice Sector

Use of tasers and stun weapons by police and in prisons
Police brutality against LGBT people
Cruel and inhuman conditions in Supermax and other prisons
Life sentences without parole for juveniles
Sexual abuse in prisons

The Death Penalty

Ongoing DP cases, UAs etc
Execution of mentally disabled

War on Terror

Torture and accountability
Guantánamo campaigning project

Refugees and migrants

Deportation and detention of immigrants and refugees

Economic, Social, Cultural

Including violence against Native American women

CANADA

§ Police use of tasers

Violence against Indigenous women (“stolen sisters”)