OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION IS MAJOR STEP IN REALIZING COMMITMENT TO WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Release
SG/SM/6930
WOM/1121
OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION IS MAJOR STEP IN REALIZING COMMITMENT TO WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL
19990318 The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for Secretary- General Kofi Annan:The Secretary-General is pleased to announce that on 12 March 1999, the forty-third session of the Commission on the Status of Women adopted an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The Protocol makes it possible for women, as individuals or in groups, to submit complaints about alleged violations of the Convention to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, an international body of 23 independent experts. The Protocol also entitles the Committee to initiate inquiries into situations of grave or systematic violations of women's rights. Although the Protocol includes an "opt-out clause", allowing States upon ratification or accession to declare that they do not accept the inquiry procedure, it explicitly provides that no reservations may be entered to its terms.
The Protocol is the culmination of four years of negotiations within a working group of the Commission on the Status of Women chaired by Austria and fulfils one of the commitments of the 1993 Vienna Programme of Action and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. It represents the cooperative work of Governments, women's groups and civil society in partnership all over the world. It will be submitted to the General Assembly for adoption in late 1999, and then opened for signature, ratification and accession, and entered into force after 10 States parties to the Convention have submitted instruments of ratification or accession.
"It is fitting that the Protocol has been adopted in 1999, the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by the General Assembly", the Secretary- General stated. "Together with the achievement of the goal of universal ratification of the Convention by the year 2000, the Optional Protocol is a major step forward in realizing Governments' commitments to women's human rights. I urge Member States to show the same commitment to speedy ratification of the Protocol, as they have shown to the Convention. I also urge those States which have not yet ratified the Convention to do so in this anniversary year." * *** *