A/HRC/41/42 I. Introduction 1. The present report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Dubravka Simonovic, is submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to its resolution 32/19. In the report, the Special Rapporteur takes stock of the current challenges facing the mandate as it celebrates 25 years since its creation and provides recommendations for the establishment of a system-wide approach to addressing violence against women and on how the role of the mandate can be strengthened to accelerate the prevention and elimination of violence against women in the future. 2. The present report complements the reports of the previous mandate holders (A/HRC/11/6/Add.5 and A/HRC/26/38), which provided a critical analysis of the substantive work of the mandate holder, 15 and 20 years respectively after the mandate was established. 3. The Special Rapporteur issued a call for submissions in January 2019 in preparation for the present report, and is sincerely grateful to all those who submitted a response.1 The Special Rapporteur is also very grateful to the London School of Economics for hosting an expert group meeting in January 2019, the discussions from which form the basis of the present report. II. Activities undertaken by the Special Rapporteur 4. In addition to performing her regular mandated activities, the Special Rapporteur continues to lead an initiative to institutionalize cooperation between independent international and regional mechanisms on women’s rights. In that regard, on 2 October 2018, the President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and its Rapporteur on the Rights of Women hosted a regional meeting of the Platform of independent international and regional mechanisms on violence against women and women’s rights. The meeting was held at the University of Colorado in Boulder, United States of America, in the margins of the session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.2 5. On 5 October 2018, the Special Rapporteur presented to the General Assembly her thematic report on violence against women in politics (A/73/301). In the margins of the seventy-third session of the Assembly, and as a means of presenting her report to relevant stakeholders, the Special Rapporteur also convened a side event on ending violence against women in politics.3 6. On 16 and 17 October 2018, the Special Rapporteur held meetings with representatives from various information and technology companies based in Silicon Valley, United States, and organized side events with academics from the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University to discuss the issue of online violence against women and girls, on which she focused her 2018 report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/38/47). 7. On 5 November 2018, the Special Rapporteur briefed the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its seventy-first session, held in Geneva. During the meeting, a framework for cooperation on combating violence against women was agreed between the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and the Committee.4 1 2 3 4 For the full list of submissions received, see www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/ Celebrating25yearsMandate.aspx. The report of the Platform at that session is available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/SR/ReportColorado2Oct2018.pdf. A video of the event is available at http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/watch/ending-violenceagainst-women-in-politics/5846158901001/?term. See www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/SR/SRVAW_CEDAW_FrameworkCooperation.pdf. 3