Jackie Jones, Jeanne Sarson, and Linda MacDonald 47 Canada knows that it exists, persists, and is acquiescing in it, Canada is thereby perpetuating legal discrimination that marginalizes, stigmatizes, devalues, minimizes, dismisses, and invisibilizes the worth, dignity, and equality of women so tortured. Canada, therefore, can no longer consider itself to be a human rights leader. Sadly, Canada is not unique in this regard. There are countries all over the world that are failing in their international-national legal obligations towards women and girls to take responsibility to prevent, investigate, and prosecute all forms of torture, to protect women from perpetrators of torture, and hold perpetrators to account. That includes non-State actors. As Chinkin wrote in 1996, the Torture Convention was intended for “protecting men from the harms men commit against each other, not to those that are committed against women” (p. 562). The prohibition against tor­ ture is a jus cogens norm of international law, applicable to all States. Canada’s resistance tells the story of an unwillingness to read gender into international-national laws (Charlesworth, & Chinkin, 2000; Edwards, 2011; Randall, 2006), which is no longer sustainable. If States are unwilling to respect, protect and fulfil their obligations at a national level, it is time to pass an international legal instrument that is gender specific and includes a provision against non-State torture. There is a normative gap in international law that requires filling. A new Convention to Eliminate all forms of Violence against Women and Girls (CEVAWG) that names and addresses non-State torture, as well as other forms of violence, would fill this gap—a role that CEDAW is not fulfill­ ing. CEDAW’s main goal, as interpreted by the CEDAW Committee, is to eradicate discrimination (Reddy, chapter 11), not violence. Its strength, therefore, is not only legal, but also social, and is best served if it concentrates its efforts on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. However, its original intent is yet to be realized. CEDAW (1979) is the most wide-ranging gender-specific international treaty to date. It focuses on the myriad forms of discrimination women suffer in society, including in the family. As the Preamble clearly enunciates, despite numerous resolutions, declarations and recommendations that have been adopted by the United Nations, there is concern that “extensive discrimination against women continues to exist.” It has a cultural and educative role (Merry, 2006, pp. 89-98) and incorporates rights in the private sphere (Charlesworth & Chinkin, 2000, p. 217), for instance in the family, as a site of discrimination (Article 16). It mentions violence only once explicitly: Article 6 requires States to take all appropriate measures (including passing legislation) to suppress traffick­ ing and the prostitution of women. So potentially, Article 6 of the CEDAW might address certain types of violence, which are the subject of this chapter. However, the CEDAW is not comprehen­ sive or wide enough in scope to address the serious human rights violations perpetuated against women across the globe. Indeed, in terms of torture, the CEDAW Committee failed to gender tor­ ture when it had the opportunity to do so in its (otherwise) very strong Ciudad Juarez Report. At paragraph 67 it interpreted Article 1 of the UNCAT: As far as [the Committee] know[s], the method of these sexual crimes begins with the victims’ abduction through deception or by force. [The women] are held captive and subjected to sexual abuse, including rape, and in some cases, torture, until they are mur­ dered. Their bodies are then abandoned in some deserted spot. (CEDAW, 2005, cited in Edwards, 2011, p. 256). One function of the CEDAW Committee is to issue judgments, which it has done on several occa­ sions. In the CEDAW Committee decision A.T. v Hungary, the Committee used the legal requirement of non-discrimination in the Convention to hold the State liable for the violence perpetrated by a