United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition. Estimates 2024.
Proportion of ever-married women aged 15-49 years experiencing intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. Source: Office National de la Statistique (ONS), Ministère de la Santé (MS), et ICF. 2021. Enquête Démographique et de Santé en Mauritanie 2019-2021. Nouakchott, Mauritanie et Rockville, Maryland, USA: ONS, MS, et ICF.
Proportion of ever-married women aged 15-49 years experiencing intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence in the last 12 months. Source: Office National de la Statistique (ONS), Ministère de la Santé (MS), et ICF. 2021. Enquête Démographique et de Santé en Mauritanie 2019-2021. Nouakchott, Mauritanie et Rockville, Maryland, USA: ONS, MS, et ICF.
(1) Urgently submit to the parliament for adoption the draft law on combating violence against women and girls in line with the commitment made by the State party's delegation during the constructive dialogue to do so in the first half of 2023, also echoed in the third cycle of its universal periodic review, and adopt targeted measures to protect Haratine women, refugee, stateless and migrant women, women with disabilities and rural women; (2) Criminalize all forms of gender-based violence against women, including domestic violence, marital rape and sexual harassment in the workplace, without exemptions, ensuring that the definition of rape is based on the lack of consent and takes into account all coercive circumstances, in line with international human rights standards; (3) Revise the Penal Code in order to abolish the death penalty and commute the sentences of women sentenced to death for killing a person who had perpetrated gender-based violence against them; (4) Immediately release any girls detained on charges of zina, discontinue the prosecution against them and urgently repeal articles 307 and 308 of the Penal Code, as well as the procedural requirement for women to produce four witnesses to establish a case of rape; (5) Adequately fund victim support services and shelters run by non governmental organizations and ensure their availability and accessibility in all regions of the State party; (6) Encourage reporting of gender-based violence against women, including by establishing special gender-responsive sections in police stations to receive and register women's complaints and by establishing a protection programme for victims and witnesses; (7) Support the establishment of sexual violence units for women and children in public hospitals and health centres, as well as digitized gender-based violence response and management systems; (8) Adopt forensic guidelines and protocols on gender-sensitive documentation of cases of sexual violence, in line with the guidelines established by the World Health Organization, use standard forms, prohibit so-called virginity tests and remove any requirement for a police requisition in order to receive medical assistance and forensic analysis; (9) Train doctors, nurses and midwives to provide both medical treatment and forensic examinations in a single consultation to enhance the access of women who are survivors to court-proof medical evidence; (10) Increase the number of women judges, prosecutors and police officers, provide capacity-building to the judiciary, the police and other law enforcement officers on the strict application of relevant criminal law provisions and on gender-sensitive investigation and interrogation methods; (11) Adopt harmonized protocols for the collection of data on incidents of gender-based violence against women, in coordination with relevant government departments and the National Statistics Office, ensuring that the data are disaggregated by the form of violence, age, region, disability and relationship between the victim and the perpetrator.
(1) Ensure the strict application and wide dissemination of the General Child Protection Code (2018), strengthen awareness-raising campaigns, in particular among religious and community leaders, health professionals, teachers, parents and girls, in cooperation with civil society, on the criminal nature of female genital mutilation, its adverse effects on the human rights, physical integrity, health and dignity of women and girls, its long-term physical and psychological consequences and the need to eradicate it and its underlying cultural justifications, in particular in the Hodh el Gharbi, Tagant and Guidimaka regions of the State party; (2) Ensure that perpetrators of female genital mutilation are prosecuted and adequately punished, including those who are involved in procuring, aiding or abetting this harmful practice, and provide alternative income opportunities for traditional circumcisers. Child marriage (1) Amend article 6 of the Personal Status Code to remove all exceptions to the minimum age of marriage of 18 years for both women and men, in line with the commitments that it made in the third cycle of the universal periodic review; (2) Criminalize child marriage, and prosecute and adequately punish adults married to children, as well as persons who facilitate child marriage and the marriage of girls deemed to lack capacity under article 6 of the Personal Status Code; (3) Allocate adequate human and financial resources to the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the national action plan to eradicate child marriage, including to raise public awareness of 18 years as the minimum age of marriage; (4) Establish support programmes aimed at providing rehabilitation, mentoring and support to victims of child and forced marriage, including by providing financial and technical support to civil society organizations delivering such services.
(1) Finalize the revision of the Personal Status Code to ensure that it is based on the principles of non-discrimination and the equality of women and men, repeal all discriminatory provisions regulating legal capacity, polygamy, divorce, custody, the guardianship system, division of property and inheritance, and raise awareness of women's equal rights in marriage and family relations among the general public, the judiciary, including qadis, and religious and community leaders; (2) Prohibit polygamy, in line with general recommendation No. 21 and joint general recommendation No. 31/general comment No. 18 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
In line with general recommendation No. 38 (2020) on trafficking in women and girls in the context of global migration, the Committee recommends that the State party integrate a gender perspective into its anti-trafficking framework, strengthen the early identification and referral of victims of trafficking to appropriate services, and protect and support disadvantaged groups of women and girls who are at higher risk of being trafficked, including migrant women, Haratine women, women in prostitution, women with disabilities and girls who are exploited in forced begging. It requests the State party to provide in its next periodic report information on the number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions and on the sentences imposed on perpetrators in trafficking cases, including all complicit actors, as well as on support services, compensation and temporary residence permits provided to victims.
The Constitution provides a foundation for gender equality and protection from violence. But it does no address violence against women and girls.
There have been multiple efforts to pass a law on gender based violence, but there is no specific legislation addressing violence against women and girls.