Monitor Compliance with Women’s Anti-Discrimination Treaty

The 23-member UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is considering reports from 15 countries this week. (Austria, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Greece, India, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Namibia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Peru, Poland, Suriname, Tajikistan and Vietnam). Under the Chairperson, Dubravka Simonovic of Croatia, they are working together at the United Nations Headquarters in New York for three weeks to examine, analyze and make comments on women’s discrimination issues as presented to them in the country’s reports on the implementation of provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). I read some of the reports and find a great deal of useful information concerning progress in how countries undertake to combat discrimination against women. Tajikistan sets up tougher measures and penalties in dealing with violence against women and creates special social services rehabilitation center for the victims of violence. There is some advancements in India in their efforts to amend religious-based personal laws to reduce gender inequality. Kazakhstan reports progress in women’s representation in local representative bodies, in parliament and in the government. Namibia outlaws discrimination on the basis of sex in most aspects of employment and taxation. Where as in Vietnam, the National Assembly passed the law on Gender Equality with a strategy for women’s advancement to 2010. I am looking forward to reading members concluding comments at the end of the session on 2 February. The Chairperson will send it to the UN General Assembly and then post it on the Committee’s website for general readership.

Filed under Gender Issues, United Nations |