A/HRC/46/36 global counter-terrorism responses. 26 Women human rights defenders are targeted at alarming rates for challenging the root causes of conflict, including corruption, governance deficits, access to land or resources and traditional notions of family and gender roles in their societies, by both State and non-State actors. 27 States have layered responsibilities under international human rights law, including to respect, protect and promote the rights of all persons within their jurisdiction and to provide effective remedy. 28 These have been specifically elaborated upon in relation to the violations of rights, targeting and reprisals faced by human rights defenders as a result of their work.29 8. The costs are particularly acutely felt in conflict-affected and fragile States,30 where women are doubly squeezed by the harms caused by violent non-State actors for whom indiscriminate violence is their stock-in-trade. Women and girls are caught between Scylla and Charybdis in contexts where non-State armed groups and proscribed terrorist organizations vie for control of territory and governance with States. 31 The Special Rapporteur acknowledges that terrorism is particularly detrimental for the protection of women’s rights and that women who are victims of terrorism face particular and unique challenges. She affirms that there are specific harms that women experience as a result of overarching gender inequalities, stereotypes and assumptions about their needs, experiences and vulnerabilities after terrorist acts that produce policies and practices of layered harms for women who are victims of terrorism. She is deeply concerned about the sustained targeting of women and girls by non-State actors and designated groups, and in particular the widespread use of sexual violence, rape and sexual slavery to harm women and their families. She supports efforts to ensure the prosecution of acts of sexual violence under international law32 and welcomes initiatives to advance the implementation of international law standards for survivor-centred responses and prosecutions.33 9. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur documents the intersections of gender and national security approaches on women, girls, families, family life and family relations – specifically addressing their human rights dimensions and impacts – and provides guidance and recommendations to States.34 II. Impact on women and girls of counter-terrorism and preventing and countering violent extremism law and practice 10. Since 2001, the scale, scope and rate of growth in counter-terrorism regulation has exponentially increased. Counter-terrorism regulations reach from borders to bedrooms and are ever present in the regulatory frameworks that have an impact on the full spectrum of human rights. Expansive counter-terrorism regulation causes rupture, displacement and transformation in the domestic and private lives of individuals, groups and communities, and much of those costs and harms have been unseen and invisible, not least because they are experienced in the “private” sphere and precisely because the burdens fall in unrecognized ways on women and girls. In parallel, counter-terrorism regulations situate institutions and 26 S/2018/900, para. 1. Ibid., para. 61. 28 See General Assembly resolution 53/144. 29 See Human Rights Council resolution 45/36, in particular paras. 29–31; and decision 71/II of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. 30 Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and others, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2018). 31 A/HRC/43/51, para. 28. 32 A/75/337, para. 21. 33 See, e.g., the draft global code of conduct for investigating and documenting conflict-related sexual violence. 34 Noting that advice on gender (but not human rights-based gender analysis) has come from the United Nations and other entities. See, e.g., Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, “Gender dimensions of the response to returning foreign terrorist fighters: research perspectives” (2019); and Global Counterterrorism Forum, “Addendum to the GCTF good practices on women and countering violent extremism, with a focus on mainstreaming gender” (2019). 27 5