unreasonably prolonged, particularly because the complainant had been at risk of serious injury during that period.83 3.3.6 Challenges and Limitations of Admissibility Criteria Feminists have critiqued the human rights treaty mechanisms generally as reflecting ‘male’ standards and excluding women’s experiences. Some of the male standards, as discussed below, are reflected in the procedures to access the remedies to redress these violations. As such, the admissibility criteria to access the individual complaints mechanisms of the human rights treaties themselves end up as the reason for rejection of women’s claims. Most of the human rights mechanisms, (with the exception of the ACHPR, which is explained in detail below) require the individual victim or groups on her behalf to apply disallowing groups of individual victims to apply together as a class of victims having suffered the same or similar violations. Christine Chinkin argues that, “[t]he mechanism for group or collective complaints allow women who may hold shared experience, such as widespread rape or sexual violence during armed conflict, to benefit from collective representation. In addition, collective complaints by women may be better placed to address structural causes of violence and inequality”.84 The emphasis on the complaints procedures of human rights treaties that it comes from a ‘victim of violation’ or on her behalf, “prohibits actions being brought challenging a particular law, policy, or practice … Women who face … irreversible genital mutilation may have little use for the individual petitions system, as it is geared towards post-abuse reparation rather than preventive action”.85 Women’s experience of sexual violence often accompanies trauma, a sense of shame, guilt or fear of reprisals from the perpetrators. The presupposition of the human rights mechanisms that victims themselves can or ought to bring complaints serves to discourage women complainants. That women can approach groups to act on their behalf is a solution, however the local groups they may know or can approach are not necessarily the ones that have the knowledge and expertise of handling a complaints procedure of an international treaty mechanism. The complaints procedures of these mechanisms now “have safeguards (interim measures) against ill-treatment or intimidation against complainants, … and all committees allow names to be removed from the public written records. However, the latter does not keep the identity of the victim secret from the State Party, not least because admissibility criteria disallow anonymous submission, but also because to do so would prevent the State Party responding to the particular facts at hand”.86 Finally, it is indeed positive for victims and survivors that different regional and international mechanisms have held that prolonged delay in achieving justice at the domestic level may constitute an indication that the remedy is in effect not available. However, the consequence of a prolonged delay by these regional or international mechanisms to decide on complaints filed with them is less clear. There are cases at the ACHPR, for example that have been pending for more than ten years and it could be said that justice for the complainants of these cases is practically not available before the ACHPR. In such cases, the admissibility criteria that the case must not have been examined before any other international mechanism serves to limit victims’ access to other possible regional or international avenues of justice. It is not clear if the complainants in such cases can send their communication to another appropriate regional or international mechanism and request waiver of the admissibility criteria of ‘the case not to be examined by another international mechanism’ on the grounds of justice in effect not being available at the international mechanism of the first instance because of prolonged delay. 83 A.T. v. Hungary (CEDAW Comm. No. 2/2003 (2005). 84 Chinkin, Christine, ‘Feminist Interventions into International Law,’ (1997)19 Adel.L.R.13 (20). 85 Supra n. 1, at p. 129. 86 Ibid., at p. 128. 24 ADMISSIBILITY AND EXHAUSTION OF DOMESTIC REMEDIES | REDRESS