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KUALA LUMPUR: Women human rights defenders need to be specially recognised, not just for their contribution to the human rights movement but also to counter the increasing attacks on them.

According to International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific programme director Lisa Pusey, women human rights defenders were susceptible to greater risks just for being female.

Speaking on the first of the three-day NGO Meeting on Engagement with National Human Rights Institutions here, Pusey said recognition and visibility of their work was a first step towards protection.

While recognition was important to raise awareness, the documentation of gender-specific abuse allows for the setting up of a mechanism to protect them and the prosecution of the violators, she said.

Jyotsna Maskay of Nepal told of the murder of Lakshmi Bohara by her husband in June because he could not stand her going out and meeting people.

“Her husband and mother-in-law physically abused her and made her drink poison and tried to make it look like it was suicide,” said the executive director of the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre there.

Maskay said women activists who had fought for Bohara’s case received threatening phone calls, were pelted with stones, hit by motorcycles and one was threatened she would be burnt alive.

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