The CEDAW Committee adopted General Recommendation No 19 on violence against women in 1992. According to this document, The definition of discrimination includes gender-based violence, that is, violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other deprivations of liberty.
Violence against women is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of women’s full advancement.
(The Beijing Platform for Action. The UN Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995)