A LEADING EXPERT in law, gender and human rights issues, Zarizana Abdul Aziz is affiliated with the Due Diligence Project, a non-profit organisation committed to strengthening state accountability through research, analysis and policy reform. Zarizana has trained judges, prosecutors, lawyers, government officials and civil society advocates on gender-sensitive legal and constitutional framework.

In an interview with Penang Monthly, Zarizana discusses her work on gender equality, the challenges of addressing violence against women, and how the legal system is evolving to meet these critical issues.

Iylia De Silva (IDS): What motivated you to become a human rights lawyer?

Zarizana Abdul Aziz (ZAA): It all started when I was studying in Australia. I volunteered at community legal centres in the inner city of Sydney, providing legal advice. When I returned to Penang, I continued volunteering with the Women’s Crisis Centre—now the Women’s Centre for Change (WCC). There was a major sexual harassment case in Penang involving a foreign hotel manager and an employee. I provided emotional and legal support in court, and that experience made me realise I wanted to do something more holistic.

At the time, the Domestic Violence Act was being proposed. The Women’s Crisis Centre had many volunteer lawyers, and we pushed for gender equality legislation and stronger sexual harassment laws. Although we proposed a standalone Act, the sexual harassment law was passed as an amendment. It’s always a negotiation, you know, you don’t always get everything you ask for.

After practicing for many years, I realised I wanted to do more, so I applied for a Master’s in Human Rights Studies. I chose Columbia University because I wanted to work closely with the UN, whose headquarters is in New York.

IDS: How did the Due Diligence Project come about? How does the project contribute to the protection of women’s rights?

ZAA: I started the Due Diligence Project in the US right after completing my Master’s. Due diligence is a principle in international law that requires states to promote, protect and fulfil human rights. In the context of women’s rights and violence against women, we launched a global initiative, collaborating with governments, the UN and over 300 NGOs. We’ve worked with thousands of advocates and experts across various regions, assessing what states have done over a five-year period to prevent violence against women and protect them.

IDS: The Due Diligence Framework highlights five key areas: prevention, protection, prosecution, punishment and redress. In your experience, which of these do governments struggle with the most, and why?

ZAA: Redress and reparation is often overlooked. Beyond punishing the perpetrator, how do survivors rebuild their lives? For example, a rape survivor in a small village, what options does she have? Or victims of domestic violence who are blamed instead of supported. To the authorities, as long as the perpetrator is punished, that’s the end of it. But we must consider rehabilitation and long-term support for survivors.

So, we developed this framework—a multi-country, multi-year research project that took up to four years. It was widely distributed, cited in UN reports and referenced in various publications. It was ground-breaking, actually, because it not only crystallises state obligations and accountability, but also lays out exactly what states must do.

IDS: Was it challenging, especially in the early stages, to implement this framework?

ZAA: States were generally open to it, but of course, there were pushbacks. I remember presenting it at ASEAN, and a few foreign ministers pushed back. But overall, many states accepted it. State obligations aren’t absolute unless the state itself is the perpetrator, like in cases where soldiers commit rape or sexual harassment within the military or government offices. But when the perpetrators are non-state actors, the state still has an obligation to implement preventive measures.

IDS: And how do cultural and social norms impact prevention efforts?

ZAA: A woman had acid thrown on her face for rejecting a marriage proposal, or a bride is burned because her dowry wasn’t enough. Reasonable prevention isn’t just about telling men, “Don’t beat your wife,” but about looking into the underlying causes such as gender inequality—male entitlement, male privilege and gender discrimination. And when prevention efforts ignore cultural and socio-cultural norms, they fall short.

I’ve often heard the excuse, “But it’s their culture.” Yes, there’s multiculturalism, but culture cannot be used as a justification to violate someone else’s human rights. Some claim that Islam allows child marriage, but that is their interpretation. A lot of religious scholars, fatwas, even religious court decisions say it causes harm to the child. Apart from taking her out of school, there is early pregnancy, which is very dangerous for a child. And anything that causes harm is haram. And yet, there are still people who will use their own religious interpretations or underlying justification to defy the law.

Another woman told me that when her father died, all the inheritance went to her brothers; even though she had cared for him for years, she was only given a small sum. Traditionally, men receive a larger share in Islam because they are supposed to take care of their unmarried sisters. So today, the law should enforce this—that if males were to get a bigger share, they have to maintain their unmarried sisters—but this has not been done.

So, as society changes, traditional gender roles no longer align with contemporary realities and where women are right now. And yet, when the government talks about culture and religion, it only considers the interpretations of a certain group of people—who are predominantly male. So, that mindset has to change.

IDS: I heard that you train judges in different countries. Is it mostly on new legislation and recent developments on women’s rights?

ZAA: Yes, I’ve trained thousands of judges. In fact, just last month, I was in Pakistan, training judges on the gender perspective. I explain what gender is and how it is different from sex. Sex is biological, but gender expectation is cultural. For example, expecting women to have long hair, it’s a cultural perception. There was quite a hullabaloo some time ago when an actress, Sharifah Amani, shaved her head for a role in a film by the late Yasmin Ahmad—the director of Sepet and those Merdeka ads.

IDS: Perhaps we can talk about social media. Violence against women has escalated onto online platforms, and it’s difficult to address since identifying the perpetrators itself is a challenge. What are your thoughts on that?

ZAA: In 2013, we applied the Due Diligence Framework to what was then called online violence, now termed technology-facilitated violence (TFV). I produced a paper addressing key issues: the rapid spread of harmful content and the difficulty of identifying perpetrators.

Progress has been made in certain areas, like Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM). They used to call it child pornography, but we stopped using the word pornography because it denotes consent. There were not only deepfake images of girls, people were uploading and selling actual rape videos.

I raised this issue with online platforms, but they say it’s difficult to control, since they have millions of users. But that doesn’t discharge them of their obligation. It’s difficult, yes, but they profit from it. If I own a mall that is visited by millions of people, and someone slips on a wet floor, I’m still responsible.

IDS: But platforms do seem capable of regulating content to a certain extent, right? So that certain material can’t be shared or posted, like how Instagram bans nudity.

ZAA: There are two things here. If you try to upload a Disney clip, the platform would ask if you own the rights to the clip. Many platforms are effective when it comes to enforcing copyright protections, because companies like Disney have sued for billions of dollars over copyright violations.

But if I upload your photo, does the platform ask if I have your consent to do so? No. The system is primarily designed to protect financial and commercial interests, but much less attention is given to the social and individual impact of content sharing.

Some European countries, like Germany, have imposed huge penalties for platforms that don’t respond to complaints and do not take down offensive material within a certain time.

The technology is there, watermarking and tracking, but at the same time, you have debates about privacy. How do you regulate harmful content while ensuring user privacy?

And platform providers are also concerned about censorship, if they restrict certain materials, some governments might also push to censor political content.

And looking at the news, things are changing again. For example, Facebook removed its fact-checking system, which was important.

IDS: And now there’s also AI in the picture.

ZAA: Exactly. Now I can use AI to generate, for example, sexual abuse materials without a real victim. So then the question is, who does it actually harm?

AI can also perpetuate biases. If I train AI on past hiring data where all managers were men, it will favour similar candidates, resulting in women not getting the job. So, for a start, women technicians should be involved in AI development to ensure fairness.

Some time ago, a woman created and trained an algorithm to detect and filter out pictures of the male genitalia because she was fed up with getting unsolicited explicit photos. And of course, she faced a huge backlash after that and took herself off Instagram for a while. My point is, the algorithm can be trained. It depends on whether we have enough gender-sensitised technicians who are willing to do this.

We’re always playing catch-up with technology. We need to think ahead, from the development stage, and not just at the end-user level, which is what is happening now.

IDS: Do you work with civil society organisations (CSOs) to combat online violence against women?

ZAA: Yes, it’s critical for the state and civil society to work together to ensure proper implementation. Research has shown that countries with the best laws are those with active civil societies, because they advocate and identify the gaps, strengthening the system.

IDS: Are there Southeast Asian countries that have made notable legal progress in addressing violence against women?

ZAA: Yes, Indonesia enacted the Law on Sexual Violence Crimes in 2022. They have a National Commission on violence against women, a mechanism Malaysia can consider.

During the #MeToo movement, many women who came forward and accused powerful men were sued in retaliation. Some countries have since enacted laws to protect survivors or delay counter-suits until the original complaint is resolved.

Many countries also started looking into the judicial sector. We may have laws in place, but if law enforcers aren’t aligned—for example, if a police officer believes it’s acceptable to beat his wife, how can we expect him to enforce the Domestic Violence Act fairly?

IDS: Public figures often argue that just because their profile and content are public, it doesn’t mean they forfeit their right to privacy. Where do we draw the line between public interest and personal privacy?

ZAA: Yes, public figures are entitled to a certain level of privacy. But when your career thrives on being in public, on your opinions, where do you draw the line?

I know there is enhanced scrutiny by the police, for example, in California, for celebrities because they’re exposed to more trolling, more attacks. And people search for their information. How private then is their data?

A lot of our personal data is held by the government, for example, our driver’s license records. But just because the government collects this information doesn’t mean it’s public. These records exist for specific purposes.

The same applies to companies that store our personal data. If they experience a breach, what level of accountability should they have? If they cannot guarantee the security of the data they collect, should they even be allowed to store it?

Is social media like a house with windows, where you can control visibility, or is it an open field where anyone can watch? The distinction between public and private spaces is critical. If you want something to remain private, you have to take steps to lock it down.

IDS: What advice would you give young activists and legal professionals who want to work in the human rights and gender justice field? Many use online platforms to advocate, but they also find themselves targeted for abuse.

ZAA: There is strength in numbers. Join others who share your goal. For a young person who is interested, there are various areas you can insert yourself into, whether you’re doing this full time or not. You can work in law, policy, activism, or even in the tech industry.

But what’s important is the underlying understanding of gender equality, freedom and the role of socio-cultural norms.

This applies across professions. Even a doctor can do harm if they approach a rape survivor with the wrong mindset—for instance, asking questions like “What were you wearing?” or “Why were you out at night?”, instead of focusing on care and support. That’s why awareness matters.

Whatever field you enter, make sure you are pushing for equality and freedom. You can’t have freedom when half of the population is afraid. I’ve been to countries where young women don’t even have their own social media accounts, they use their brothers’ or a male relative’s because they fear the consequences of visibility. And each year, after the Women’s March on March 8, for example, activists in some countries find their photos circulating online, and receive abusive messages just for participating. So while social media helps amplify their advocacy, it also exposes them to harassment.

At the end of the day, a more equal society leads to greater freedom—for everyone.

IDS: Thank you so much for making the time and for sharing your insights.

ZAA: Sure, thank you.