Jackie Jones, Jeanne Sarson, and Linda MacDonald 49 an in-depth study by the Secretary-General on Violence against Women in 2003; the reports of the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on violence against women (since 1994); the Millennium Development Goals; and the new Sustainable Development Goals, violence against women per­ sists. These instruments and their provisions are simply not strong enough. The only problem with the vast majority of these examples (apart from CEDAW itself, although Merry has said the “CEDAW operates as quasi-law” and influences rather than coerces, 2007, p. 162) is that they are ‘soft’ law, not ‘hard’ law instruments. They are non-obligatory, meaning that they only impose a moral obligation on member States (on ‘soft’ law see generally, Boyle, 2014, chapter 5). This is not enough; women and girls need and deserve more. There are examples of regional legally binding violence against women treaties (‘hard’ law); however, their coverage is not universal. Examples include the 1994 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará); the 2003 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol); and the 2014 Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). Several States within these regions either do not fulfill their obligations under their respective regional instru­ ment or have not ratified the treaties. The UK, for example, has signed the Istanbul Convention but has not ratified it, and in the current climate, it is not beyond imagination that the UK will never ratify it. It is clear that the normative instruments cover some of the globe, but not the entire globe. The absence of specific regional instruments in other parts of the world (e.g. Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East, among others) strengthens the need for a global instrument. Equally, no instru­ ment at present covers all modern manifestations of violence that have become prevalent in the 21st century. Cyber crimes are at the frontier of acts of private violence that the international commu­ nity must come to terms with in order to protect, not only, but mainly, the younger generation of women who are in real danger of serious long-lasting mental and bodily harm. The fact remains that there is no single global normative instrument to outlaw the most preva­ lent form of human rights violations in the world today (UN CSW57 Agreed Conclusions, 2013). A new Treaty, or possibly an Optional Protocol to the CEDAW, would focus exclusively on violence against women and girls and would include non-State actors explicitly. Unequivocally incorpo­ rating non-State actors into the international legal instrument would address naming and eradi­ cating the pervasive forms of violence that take place in the ‘private’ sphere, including the family (Chinkin, 2012). It could also hold contractors accountable for facilitating violence committed through their social media platforms. Another reason it is vitally important to explicitly include non-State actors in any new legally binding international instrument is the changing nature of the relationship of the State to its people. For instance, since 9/11 there has been an exponential expansion in the work traditionally viewed as governmental being contracted out to private companies, including security firms (Afghanistan, Iraq; Crawford & Olleson, 2014; Porter, 2009; Strawson, 2002; True, 2012). This privatization of the State governance function has adversely impacted the social contract between citizen and State, and “global structural conditions” that are “responsible for exacerbating endemic violence against women” (True, 2012, p. 54). The social contract between citizen and State requires that State pro­ vide the means for individuals to flourish and for the State not to rescind its obligations vis-à-vis its people (Boerefjin & Naezer, 2008; Reilly, 2009; Rousseau, Book 3; True, 2012, p. 60). For the State to fulfill its duties under this social contract, it must take responsibility for actions by private companies acting on its behalf, and for individuals when they perpetrate or facilitate