Committee on Elimination of WOM/1688

Discrimination against Women

831^st Meeting (AM)

VITALITY OF WOMEN’S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION IS PART OF ENCOURAGING PICTURE

FOR GENDER EQUALITY; COMMITTEE IS ‘BEACON OF HOPE’, OPENING SESSION TOLD

The current strength and vitality of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women was part of a broader, encouraging picture for gender equality, the Committee monitoring the implementation of the Convention was told at the opening of its forty-first session this morning.

Calling the Committee “a beacon of hope for women around the world”, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Inés Alberdi, said that the Fund had always looked to the Women’s Convention as a central, guiding reference.  Increasingly, in the context of changes being made to aid modalities, UNIFEM was supporting national partners to infuse the treaty’s principles into national budgeting processes and development strategies.

Additionally, she said, the Convention had now gained near universal ratification by Member States, and its Optional Protocol was gaining increasing application.  The Committee’s jurisprudence was expanding and the forthcoming general recommendations on article 2 and on the rights of women migrant workers would provide welcome guidance in those challenging areas.

The improvement of Government compliance with reporting obligations had been accompanied by improved mechanisms and procedures to facilitate the Convention’s implementation, she continued.  Of particular note had been the adoption, in an increasing number of countries, of national plans of action to implement the Committee’s concluding recommendations.  Progress towards gender equality had also been accompanied by improved support for gender equality by the United Nations system itself, as well as the groundbreaking conclusions reached by the Commission on the Status of Women on financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

She noted that this month’s Security Council resolution on women, peace and security -– 1820 (2008) -- had joined resolution 1325 (2000) in clarifying responsibilities to protect women against systematic violence.

Formally known as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the 23-person expert body was established in 1982, following the Convention’s entry into force in September 1981.  During its current session, the Committee will consider the reports of eight States parties: Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Nigeria, Slovakia, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania and Yemen.

Opening the session, Ngonlardje Mbaidjol, Director of the New York Office of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), encouraged the Committee to consider ways of contributing to the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this year.  The Secretary-General would convene in October the first Conference of States parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which had entered into force on 12 May, and elect the first 10 members of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  That new Committee would benefit greatly from the experiences of the members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women since the new Convention contained various references to the rights of women with disabilities, particularly in relation to violence.

The 18 June adoption by the Human Rights Council of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had been another important development, he said.  The Protocol invested the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights with competence to receive and consider petitions, as well as to conduct inquiries into alleged violations of the Convention’s terms.  The Council’s most recent special session on the negative impact of the worsening world food crisis on the right to food would be of interest to the Committee, as would its two panel discussions held 5 June on the human rights of women, which had focused on violence against women and maternal mortality.  OHCHR was committed to ensuring that the Convention and the Optional Protocol achieved universal ratification and became widely known.

Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, said the session was taking place after two informal consultations of the General Assembly on the gender dimensions of system-wide coherence.  The note submitted to the President of the General Assembly in early June had presented, in a nutshell, the United Nations system support to Member States in their efforts to achieve gender equality.  It provided a candid picture, stressing that gender equality was essential to the achievement of peace, human rights and internationally agreed development goals.  It also underlined that the United Nations mandate to promote gender equality -- while long-standing and enshrined in the Charter -- was only partly implemented.

At the country level, progress was constrained by significant gaps, she said.  United Nations entities increasingly worked together on gender issues and tried to improve coordination, but overall coherence remained limited.  The lack of clarity regarding the division of labour often led to duplication of efforts and neglected priorities.  There was a strong desire across the board to address the weaknesses of the United Nations system, and a broad-based momentum to strengthen gender equality work.  In a letter of 17 June, Co-Chairs of the Assembly’s informal consultations had asked for a paper on the institutional aspects of the matter, to present, in a non-prescriptive manner, possible options to strengthen the Organization’s work on gender equality, including governance and financial dimensions.  The paper should give focus to the Assembly’s consideration of the issue and help it to come to an agreed outcome.

Carolyn Hannan, Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women, said the Committee’s August 2007 session had been the last serviced by her Division.  She outlined the Division’s efforts to ensure a smooth transfer of the servicing to OHCHR and said that, since last August, as part of its project to support countries emerging from conflict, the Division had provided capacity-building assistance to Liberia to promote gender equality and prepare its report under the Convention.  It had held three workshops last year for staff of the national machinery for the advancement of women, several line ministries and other Government agencies.  The Division also helped Haiti to prepare its report, conducting a high-level consultation mission to that country in April 2007, with the participation of two Committee members.

The question of violence against women had clearly received priority attention from Governments and other stakeholders, she said.  The momentum generated by the Secretary-General’s study of October 2006 had accelerated, and United Nations entities were responding with increased urgency to the issue.  The Security Council’s 19 June open debate on women, peace and security and the resolution it had unanimously adopted that day had focused on the question of sexual violence.  Governments, civil society and other stakeholders were strengthening coordinated approaches at the national level to tackle the scourge.

She explained that the system-wide campaign to eliminate violence against women and girls through 2015, launched on 25 February, had been developed around two key pillars: a strategy to support national capacity development objectives by 2015; and a communications strategy of global advocacy by the Secretary-General and senior United Nations officials.  Those efforts would support the campaign’s objectives to increase public awareness, political will and resources to augment national concrete action to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

The Committee’s Chairperson, Dubravka Šimonović, reported on the activities undertaken since the Committee’s fortieth session, highlighting her participation in the latest session of the Commission on the Status of Women, and a panel (in her personal capacity), organized last April in Geneva by OHCHR, on laws that discriminated against women.  She also reported that the Committee’s working group had adopted an outline in April for general recommendation on article 2 of the Convention.  In May, she had participated in an expert group meeting on good practices in legislation on violence against women.  Last week, together with two experts, she had attended the seventh Inter-Committee meeting, which had been followed by the meeting of Chairs of human rights treaty bodies.

In her statement to the Commission on the Status of Women, she had drawn attention to the enhancement of the Committee’s working methods, the extension of its meeting time and the transfer of responsibility of servicing the Committee to OHCHR, she said.  She had also noted that several States parties had withdrawn reservations to the Convention, or expressed their intention to do so.  The conclusions adopted by the Commission had reaffirmed the Convention and its Optional Protocol and taken note of the work of the Committee towards the realization of the principle of gender equality.  The Commission had also invited the Committee to continue giving full consideration to financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

She added that the ongoing year-long commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a great opportunity to highlight the equality of women and men.  The Committee’s work for more than a quarter of a century had constituted a concrete contribution to the Declaration’s implementation.

Also today, Heisoo Shin, Chairperson of the pre-session working group for the fortieth and forty-first sessions, introduced the report of that body.  Jane Connors, Chief of the Treaty Section, introduced the agenda item on the implementation of article 21 of the Women’s Convention and the item on ways and means of expediting the Committee’s work.

The Committee will take up the sixth periodic report of Yemen tomorrow, 1 July.

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For information media • not an official record