COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN BEGINS SEVENTEENTH SESSION

Press Release
WOM/974

COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN BEGINS SEVENTEENTH SESSION

Five more countries had become parties to the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, bringing the total number of ratifications to 160, the monitoring body for the implementation of that Convention was told this morning as it opened its seventeenth session.

Addressing the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on behalf of the Secretary-General and his Special Adviser on Gender Issues, the Deputy Director of the Division for Advancement of Women, Kristen Timothy, said the Convention had recently been ratified by the Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon, Mozambique, Switzerland and Turkmenistan.

She added that the Committee's seventeenth session was a historic occasion as it was the first time that it was meeting for a second annual session. Further, she informed the 23-member expert Committee that significant progress had been made towards the elaboration of an optional complaints protocol to the Convention. The working group on that protocol had considered a draft optional protocol prepared by its Chairperson, Aloisia Woergetter of Austria. A first reading of the Chairperson's draft had been completed and would be built on in its next year's meeting.

During this morning's meeting, experts raised questions about the draft optional protocol on the Convention. They inquired as to who exactly could present communications to the Committee. Silvia Cartwright, the Committee's resource person in the open-ended working group on the draft optional protocol to the Convention, said that the original proposal had been that individuals and groups claiming to be directly affected by a violation of rights could complain. However, there was a lot of information before the working group which indicated that others should also be allowed to petition on behalf of those directly affected. The question was yet to be resolved.

Several experts expressed concern at the lack of a close relationship between the Committee and the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women. The need for closer ties with other treaty bodies was also stressed. In that context, it was said that structural and not ad hoc links were required.

Expressing concern at the great number of pending reports, experts said that efforts should be made to encourage submission of State parties' reports early and in the language used by Committee members.

Also this morning, the Committee adopted its provisional agenda and programme of work, as orally amended. By the amendment, it agreed to consider the third report of Italy, available only in English, along with its second periodic report. The Committee considers reports submitted by States parties within one year after their accession to the Convention and thereafter at least every four years. The reports are required to focus on legislative, judicial and administrative measures adopted by States to give effect to the provisions of the Convention and on progress achieved in that regard.

Further, the Committee also heard a solemn declaration by one of its re-elected members, Kongit Sinegiorgis of Ethiopia, as provided for in its rules of procedures. Ms. Sinegiorgis had been unable to attend the Committee's sixteenth session. The Committee is currently chaired by Salma Khan, of Bangladesh. Its three vice-chairpersons are: Charlotte Abaka, of Ghana; Carlota Bustelo Garcia del Real, of Spain; and Miriam Yolanda Estrada Castillo, of Ecuador. Aurora Javate de Dios, of the Philippines, is the Rapporteur. The current bureau was elected in January 1997 for a period of two years.

A report on her activities between the sixteenth and seventeenth sessions of the Committee was also presented by the Committee Chairperson. In addition, a report was made by Silvia Cartwright of New Zealand on her participation as the Committee's resource person in the open-ended working group of the Commission on the Status of Women on the draft optional protocol.

The Chief of the Women's Rights Unit, Jane Connors, introduced a report on ways and means of expediting the Committee's work (document CEDAW/C/1997/II/4). The report addresses a number of issues that build on discussions held during the sixteenth session (13-31 January 1997), including the formulation of general recommendations, relations between the Committee and specialized agencies, modalities for dealing with overdue reports, the withdrawal of reports and other practices, the relationship between the Committee and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and the views of the seventh meeting of persons chairing the human rights treaty bodies (16-20 September 1996) on the participation of members of those bodies in any aspect of the review of the reports of States parties of which they are nationals. She also introduced a note by the Secretary-General on reports of specialized agencies on implementation of the Convention in areas falling within the scope of their activities (document CEDAW/C/1997/II/3 and Add.1-4).

The Committee will meet again at 3 p.m. today to continue its deliberations.

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Statements

KRISTEN TIMOTHY, Officer-in-Charge and Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women, opened the meeting on behalf of the Secretary- General and of Angela King, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women. She said the Committee's seventeenth session was a historic occasion as it was the first time that it was meeting for a second annual session. She noted that the General Assembly's approval of the second session was an interim measure pending the acceptance of two thirds of the States parties to the Convention of the amendment to its article 20(1). Only 14 States parties had accepted the amendment, she added.

Since the Committee's last session, five more countries had become parties to the Convention, she stated. They were the Kyrgyz Republic (10 February); Switzerland (27 March); Mozambique (16 April); Lebanon (21 April); and Turkmenistan (1 May).

She said significant progress had also been made towards the elaboration of an optional complaints protocol to the Convention. The open-ended working group of the Commission on the Status of Women, which met for the first time in parallel with the fortieth session of the Commission, continued its work last March. The working group had considered a draft optional protocol prepared by its Chairperson, Aloisia Woergetter of Austria, on the basis of suggestions by the Committee and comments by Member States. A first reading of the Chairperson's draft had been completed by the working group, which would build on it when it meets next year. The Commission had again invited a representative of the Committee to attend, as a resource person, the sessions of the open-ended working group when it meets next year and during the Commission's forty-third session, in 1999.

The Commission's forty-first session had marked its fiftieth anniversary since its establishment, she said. The celebrations to mark the anniversary had included a meeting of the Commission which had been addressed by the Secretary-General. He and others who spoke during the commemoration had pointed to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women as one of the central achievements of the Commission.

At its forty-second session next year, the Commission would review four critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action which incorporates issues of central importance to the Committee, she said. Those areas are: violence against women; women and armed conflict; human rights of women; and the girl child. As part of the preparations for the Commission's session, the Division would convene expert group meetings on those issues. From 9 to 12 November, it would convene an expert group meeting on the theme of gender-based persecution at the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada. From 1 to 4 December, another expert group meeting on the issue of women's enjoyment of economic and social rights would

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be convened at the Institute for Human Rights at the Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland. In early October, there would be an expert group meeting at Addis Ababa on the rights of adolescent girls. The latter meeting was being co-sponsored by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The Division hoped that recommendations from the meetings would elaborate actions to accelerate the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, she said. The Division would welcome insights from the Committee on the substance of those expert group meetings, she added.

Ms. Timothy said that the Division was working closely with many non- governmental organizations to prepare for the fiftieth anniversary this year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She noted that the Committee might wish to revisit the issue of the pre-session meeting of the working group to consider the appropriate timing for introducing that innovation in its work. Arrangements had been made for a meeting of the group to follow the current session, but, unfortunately, not enough experts were available.

She informed the Committee that since its last session the working methods of United Nations human rights treaty bodies had been subjected to intense scrutiny by at least two important academic conferences. The final report on enhancing their long-term effectiveness prepared by Philip Alston, the independent expert appointed by the Secretary-General, was submitted to the fifty-third session of the Commission on Human Rights in March. The report contained important suggestions that could affect the Committee's work. She invited views from the Committee on the contents and recommendations of the report.

SALMA KHAN, expert from Bangladesh and Committee Chairperson, said this was the first time that the Committee was meeting officially for a second time within one year. That was a partial fulfilment of its long-felt need to have more time to carry out its mandate.

Reporting on her activities as chairperson between the sixteenth and seventeenth sessions, she said most of those activities had been related to participating in seminars organized by non-governmental organizations on the Convention. The only United Nations-sponsored meeting attended by her had been the forty-first session of the Commission on the Status of Women. That meeting had been particularly important to the Committee because of the open- ended working group on the draft optional protocol to the Convention. As members were aware, the Commission had approved the renewal of the working group's mandate. She said she was sure that the Committee wanted to renominate Silvia Cartwright as resource person in the next session of the Commission.

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In April, she had been invited by Rights and Humanity, a London-based organization, to an international round table entitled "Equal Opportunities for Women: A Question of Rights and Humanity", which was held in Amman, she said. In her presentation, she had focused on the Committee's work in relation to Muslim countries and the implications of Islamic law to the lives of women. Copies of her presentation were available. The round table had recommended the need to build on the positive elements in religion and culture and had stressed that the Koran should be seen as a basis for reforms.

In May, she had attended a round table on "United Nations: Reforms, Good Governance and Civil Society" organized jointly by the Commission on Global Governance, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and Women's Feature Services in New Delhi, she said. One of the recommendations of the round table had been that there must be a place within the United Nations system for individuals and organizations to petition for action to redress wrongs that could imperil people's security.

In February, she had visited Iran on its Government's invitation, she went on. That had been the first time that any Committee member had been invited to speak on the Convention there. She had spoken to the Women's Solidarity Association of Iran with special focus on social and human rights of women. That invitation had been a positive indication that Iran might consider the ratification of the Convention in the near future.

In addition, in May, she had visited South Africa to share her experiences on training concerning the Committee in her own country, as well as working procedures of the Committee, she said. In that context, she stressed that the Committee's relationship with non-governmental organizations was being strengthened. She emphasized that reviewing the rules of procedures would be one of the most important tasks before the Committee, especially in the context of the optional protocol.

Ms. CARTWRIGHT, resource person of the Committee in the working group of the Commission on an optional protocol to the Convention, stressed that such a protocol would provide a means of communicating directly to the Committee of a failure to implement any of the Convention's provisions. In that context, it was not anticipated that every State party who had ratified the Convention would have to ratify the optional protocol.

The move to have an optional protocol under the Committee was not a new one, she said. It was just a step to ensure that women had a right to bring communications before the Committee. The Commission had taken up the Chairperson's draft on the optional protocol and gone through it. While enormous progress had been made, there were still major issues to be determined. The issue of who exactly may lodge a complaint still had to be determined. One point of view was that only those who were directly affected should have the right to lodge complaints. However, the Committee had always

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believed that other groups and individuals should also be able to lodge complaints on individuals' behalf.

Further, the question of resources also remained to be decided, she said. Also, there was widespread support for the adoption of an optional protocol to the Convention and the inquiry procedure. Under the inquiry procedure, the Committee could undertake inquiry with the cooperation of the States parties concerned. In the future, it would be essential to begin discussion on the rules of procedure for an optional protocol. She suggested that the Committee should start such discussions as early as the next session. The draft for the optional protocol might be ready by March next year.

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