UNIVERSAL RATIFICATION OF WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION BY YEAR 2000 IS ACHIEVABLE GOAL, SPECIAL ADVISER ON GENDER ISSUES STATES

19 January 1998

Press Release
WOM/1004

UNIVERSAL RATIFICATION OF WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION BY YEAR 2000 IS ACHIEVABLE GOAL, SPECIAL ADVISER ON GENDER ISSUES STATES

19980119 In Address to Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, as Its Eighteenth Session Begins; Adopts Programme of Work

The goal of universal ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by the year 2000 is achievable, the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, Angela King, told that treaty's monitoring body this morning. However, she added, there was no cause for complacency given the number of reservations to the Convention and the fact that ratification did not necessarily mean national policy and legal change.

Addressing the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women as it began its eighteenth session, Ms. King also noted that implementation of the Convention in some States parties was still impeded by entrenched attitudes that contradicted the Convention's principles. The Committee's work in bridging the gap between ratification and implementation was crucial, and would determine the success of the Convention, she stressed.

The Committee Chairperson, Salma Khan, expert from Bangladesh, reported on her intensified efforts to secure further ratification and encourage the implementation of the Convention. At two recent meetings in Jordan and Lebanon, she had appealed to countries outside the Convention to overcome their obstacles and develop strategies for its ratification.

Also this morning, the Committee adopted its programme of work for the three-week session, which will end on 6 February. The Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women, Kristen Timothy, introduced the work programme of the Committee's Working Group II, which makes recommendations on the reports and information received from States parties. The Chief of the Women's Rights Unit of the Division for the Advancement of Women, Jane Connors, outlined the report on ways and means of expediting the Committee's work.

The Committee was informed that two experts, Mervat Tallawy of Egypt, and Tendai Ruth Bare of Zimbabwe, would not be able to attend the session. Ms. Tallawy has assumed new duties as appointed Minister in the Egyptian

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Government; Ms. Bare was recently appointed head of the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation.

The Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, expressed sympathy to another expert, Charlotte Abaka of Ghana, whose son was killed in a car accident late last year.

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m tomorrow, 20 January, to begin consideration of the initial report of Azerbaijan.

Committee Work Programme

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women met this morning to begin its eighteenth session. It is scheduled to adopt its agenda and organization of work and hear the report of the Committee's Chairperson on activities undertaken between its seventeenth and eighteenth sessions. It was also scheduled to hear a statement by the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, Angela King.

During the session, the 23-member expert Committee -- the monitoring body of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women -- will discuss measures taken by eight States parties to that treaty to ensure the full development and advancement of women in the political, social, economic and cultural fields. It will consider the initial reports of Azerbaijan, Croatia, Czech Republic and Zimbabwe; the combined second and third reports of Bulgaria and Indonesia; the combined second and third periodic reports and the fourth periodic report of the Dominican Republic; and the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Mexico. (For background on the session, see Press Release WOM/1003 of 16 January.)

Statement by Special Adviser on Gender Issues

ANGELA KING, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, said 1998 had started very auspiciously for the United Nations and for women, with the appointment of Louise Frechette as the Organization's Deputy Secretary-General. In addition, 1998 was the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the seventeenth year since the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women had entered into force. Ratification and accession to the Convention was continuing at a steady pace, with 161 States parties to date. Both the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action had established the year 2000 as the goal for universal ratification of the Convention. It was clear that the objective was still achievable.

However, there was no cause for complacency since the Convention remained plagued by a large number of reservations and ratification had not necessarily meant policy and legal change in some States parties, she said. In other States parties, even though laws and policies to implement the Convention had been introduced, de facto implementation was still impeded by entrenched attitudes that were in contradiction to the Convention's principles. It was in bridging the gap between ratification and implementation that the Committee's work was crucial and the success of the Convention would be determined.

With the Committee's two annual sessions, which would strengthen its visibility and that of the Convention's obligations, the possibilities for full implementation would be enhanced, she said. At the same time, the Committee's

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potential had created enormous expectations and required greater and greater commitment from Committee members both during the session and intersessionally, which could be burdensome for the members. The tenth meeting of the States parties of the Convention would take place on 10 February and was expected to elect 12 Committee members for four-year terms beginning on 1 January 1999.

Turning to issues on the Committee's agenda, Ms. King said, due to a family emergency, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women could not attend the session, but the Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance would address the Committee on 28 January. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, would meet with the Committee on 4 February. That meeting should provide an opportunity to discuss closer ties between the Committee and the High Commissioner's Office, as well as the Committee's contribution to the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She went on to say that, as a result of the implementation of the Secretary-General's reform proposals, the Division for the Advancement of Women was now part of the new Department of Economic and Social Affairs with a mandate to monitor, analyse and assess economic and social policies and trends from a global, as well as from a gender, perspective. As a result, there had been some changes to the Division that should allow it to strengthen its support to the Committee's work and the promotion of the Convention.

Reporting her activities in the intersessional period, she informed of four expert working groups, as well as her participation in a round table on crimes of sexual violence, which took place in Arusha from 4 to 6 October 1997. It was gratifying to see the prominent condemnation of sexual violence as a war crime and its reflection in indictments relating to the former Yugoslavia. In the case of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, recent developments suggested that acts of sexual violence would become a routine feature of most future indictments as the central role of rape and other sexual assaults in the 1994 genocide was acknowledged. Although there had been much progress in the Tribunals, much remained to be done before expectations could be realized.

Regarding Afghanistan, she said although it was not a State party to the Convention, it was a signatory and was obliged to do nothing that contravened its terms. From 12 to 23 November 1997, she had led a United Nations gender mission to that country with representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and of Norway, representing the donor/non-governmental organizations. The mission's main objective was to reach agreement of a concrete set of programmatic implementation, field-oriented guidelines to address gender concerns in programme implementation to be observed by United Nations agencies and the donor and non-governmental community working in Afghanistan.

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The women in Afghanistan were not alone in suffering violations of human rights, she said. Women all over the world, including in Rwanda, Burundi and Algeria, were at risk. It was the Committee's role, supported by the Division, to devise strategies to assist those women who were in desperate need of assistance and who had not yet been touched by the Convention. She looked forward to imaginative proposals from the Committee in that regard.

Statement by Committee Chairperson

The Chairperson of the Committee, SALMA KHAN, expert from Bangladesh, reported on her activities between Committee sessions. In September, she attended the Asia/Pacific meeting on Universal Adherence to the Principal International Human Rights Instruments, held in Amman, Jordan. The meeting's objective was to assemble government experts from 34 States that had not submitted their instruments of ratification, accession or succession to a number of principal international human rights instruments. Useful interaction took place with the 17 participants who had not ratified the Convention, during which obstacles were identified and development strategies introduced. In addition, countries that had overdue initial and subsequent reports were offered aid in their preparation through a technical assistance programme of the Office of the High Commissioner.

She said that the eighth meeting of persons chairing the human rights treaty bodies, held in Geneva on 15 September, had focused primarily on issues of reform and development relating to the work of the treaty bodies. Philip Alston, Chairperson of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Chairman and Rapporteur of the eighth meeting, presented a paper containing important issues, particularly the consolidation of treaty bodies and the proposed reform of the reporting system. It was agreed that it was neither practicable nor desirable to join the six human rights treaty bodies into a single committee. Regarding the reform of the reporting system, concern was expressed that in the absence of appropriate reforms tailored to the needs of each committee, the examinations of reports might become a ritual without an effective means to protect the human rights of individuals. Although the problem of overdue reports was discussed, no consensus was reached on a proposal to consolidate them into a single report covering all six human rights treaties. It was suggested, however, that each State party might focus its report on a limited range of issues pertinent to its country.

Preserving the impartiality of the experts was also explored, Ms. Khan said. Recommendations ranged from treaty bodies members refraining from participating in consideration of their country's report, to influencing their respective governments to refrain from nominating persons for election in treaty bodies who performed political or other functions that might conflict with their obligations as independent experts. The chairpersons also discussed with the High Commissioner for Human Rights ways and means to promote sustained effectiveness and efficiency of treaty bodies. They requested, through the High

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Commissioner, that the General Assembly organize a three-day meeting for the chairpersons at the end of February to follow up on the urgent work of the treaty bodies as it related to impending reforms. Also at that meeting, Ms. Khan reiterated her interest in forging a close relationship with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women in light of the interrelationship of their work.

Among other meetings, she said she had attended a regional workshop in Beirut organized by the Middle East regional office of UNICEF, which had discussed incorporating the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee into the curriculum of the law schools of six Arab countries. The workshop reflected on the concept of women's and children's rights in the Arab world and the link between the two committees. Ms. Khan had the opportunity at the meeting to appeal to the five remaining countries members of the League of Arab States that had not yet ratified the Convention to give the matter serious consideration.

She described further efforts undertaken since the Committee's last session to secure additional treaty ratifications. Those included a letter written last August urging States parties to ratify the Convention before the year 2000. At her request, Ms. King had also written to those States parties that had not yet submitted their initial reports and informed them of the assistance which could be made available to them if necessary. She also updated the Committee on efforts made towards formulating a general recommendation on article 12 of the Convention concerning women's health rights.

Ms. Khan drew attention to the human rights situation in Algeria about which she had received letters from the High Commissioner for Human Rights and from Amnesty International. According to the High Commissioner, there was an urgent need for cooperation among all concerned to assist the more than 65,000 people, including women and children, whom the Algerian situation had affected in the last few years. She had also asked the Chairperson to provide a summary of the most recent information on the Algerian situation. Ms. Khan explained in her reply that, although Algeria had acceded to the Convention on 22 May 1996, it had not yet submitted its initial report. She recommended that the High Commissioner consider appointing a special rapporteur to address the human rights situation in Algeria. The letter from Amnesty International had expressed similar concern, and had included copies of some recent reports on the deteriorating situation, as well as a copy of a joint appeal calling for the convening of a special session of the Commission on Human Rights to undertake an international investigation into the matter. The Chairperson, in her reply, had expressed the Committee's agreement.

In closing, she said that, while 161 countries had already ratified the Convention, and while the functions of the treaty bodies had improved, the level of implementation by most States parties and the number of overdue

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reports remained unsatisfactory. Serious consideration was needed to further improve the working methods of the Committee.

Statements on Programme of Work

KRISTEN TIMOTHY, Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women, introduced the agenda item which was the subject of the Committee's Working Group II, and concerned the implementation of article 21 of the Convention -- which provides that the Committee might make suggestions and general recommendations based on the examination of the reports and information received from States parties. She informed that the Committee had before it a draft general recommendation on women and health (article 12 of the Convention), prepared by the expert member, Carmel Shalev of Israel.

In the context of article 22 of the Convention, by which the specialized agencies might be invited to submit reports on implementation of the Convention in areas that fell within the scope of their activities, representatives of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the UNFPA would address the Committee during the session, she said. The Committee would also take up a working paper containing a draft of the contribution of the Committee to the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which concerned reservations to the Convention and had been prepared by Silvia Cartwright, expert from New Zealand.

JANE CONNORS, Chief of the Women's Rights Unit of the Division for the Advancement of Women, outlined the report before the Committee under agenda item 8 on ways and means of expediting the work of the Committee. The report (document CEDAW/C/1998/I/4) considered a number of areas under discussion in prior Committee sessions and addressed relations between the Committee and other specialized agencies and entities of the United Nations system. It also underlined the need for cooperation between the Committee and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, whose mandate was extended last April for a further three years by the Commission on Human Rights. A section on the pre-session working group reviewed its timing and working methods, as well as the promotion of the Convention and the Committee through technical and advisory services.

The annexes to the report contained a list of States parties whose reports were more than five years overdue, and others whose reports had been submitted but had not yet been considered, she said. A final annex contained a note from the High Commissioner for Human Rights concerning the technical cooperation programme of her office. The report also contained a compilation of comments by Committee members regarding the enhanced effectiveness of the Organization's human rights system. In addition to the ways and means report, Working Group I had before it a working paper containing draft rules of procedure.

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