The girl child, as a female child, experiences both gender-based and child-based discrimination, and is therefore especially vulnerable to many forms of violence that are specific to her, or that predominantly affect her. She nonetheless appears to be sufficiently protected against gender-based violence under international law. For example, as a female, she is covered in the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (1979), and as a child she is protected under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). This presentation, which stems from my recently published monograph The Status of the Girl Child under International Law (CUP 2025), examines whether the gender-based violence encountered by girl children is sufficiently tackled under the main treaty protecting children’s rights: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC 1989). The CRC is especially important because it is the most widely ratified treaty worldwide and provides a comprehensive set of rights that would be helpful to promote the rights of girl children. But does the CRC address several forms of gender-based violence that affect girls, such as female infanticide, child marriage, female genital mutilation, and femicidal violence committed in the name of honour? Does this treaty take into consideration the many obstacles that girls experience in the private and public spheres? This presentation examines weaknesses in the content of the CRC, and suggests amendments to better address gender-based violence experienced by the girl child globally.
About the speaker
Dr. Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati (DPhil Oxford) is an International Lawyer and Associate Professor of Law at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. She is the author of The Status of the Girl Child under International Law: A Semioethic Analysis (Cambridge University Press 2025) and Feminicides of Girl Children in the Family Context: An International Human Rights Law Approach (Brill 2018). Her forthcoming edited book, Girls’ Positionalities at the Intersection of Identity and Violence, covers gender-based violence from several disciplines across continents (Springer 2026). Clara applies legal semiotics to uncover the hidden meanings in international law, drawing from her work as Child Rights Specialist at the UNICEF Office of Research (Italy) and the International Criminal Court (The Netherlands). She currently conducts research on the sexual exploitation of girl performers, funded by the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council IDG and Explore Grants.
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This is Seminar 6 of the 2025/26 Centre for Gender and Violence Research Seminar Series. Please see the 2026 Events page for further events in this series.