Committee on Elimination of

Discrimination against Women

925^th Meeting (AM)

Women’s Anti-Discrimination Committee Opens Session, Urged to Mark Anniversary

of Adoption by Security Council of Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, Security

 

Committee to Examine Reports of Albania, Argentina, Australia, Fiji,

Russian Federation , Turkey, Papua New Guinea, Exceptional Report of India

In an effort to raise awareness of the role women could play in maintaining peace and security around the world, the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women urged Committee members to use the forty-sixth session, opening today, to recognize the tenth anniversary of the Security Council’s landmark resolution on women, peace and security.

Committee Chairperson Naela Gabr of Egypt, who functions in her personal capacity as an expert on the 23-member body, said Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) had been the first Council resolution that specifically addressed the impact of war on women and stressed women’s equal participation and full involvement in all efforts to maintain and promote peace and security.  “I would like to encourage Committee members to seize this occasion to issue a statement,” Ms. Gabr said.  She added that the “action agenda” to be agreed at the upcoming United Nations high-level meeting on the Millennium Development Goals would be an opportunity to show that Goal 3 — the promotion of gender equality and empowering women — was vital to implementation of every other Goal.

During its forty-sixth session, due to run through 30 July, the Committee, which monitors compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, would consider periodic reports from Albania, Argentina, Australia, Fiji, Russian Federation and Turkey, as well as an initial report from Papua New Guinea and an exceptional report from India.  It also would consider cases under the Optional Protocol to the Convention and discuss various issues, such as draft general recommendations on article 2, older women and the economic consequences of divorce.  It would aim to improve the format of its concluding observations and meet with representatives of non-governmental organizations, national human rights institutions and the United Nations system.

In an update of activities since the Committee’s forty-fifth session in January, she said that two States, Morocco and Spain, had accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1 of the Convention on the Committee’s meeting time, bringing the number of States parties to have done so to 57.  Acceptance by two thirds of the membership, or 124 of the 186 States parties, was required for the amendment to enter into force.  She noted that 99 States parties had adhered to the Optional Protocol, by which the Committee can receive and consider complaints from individuals or groups within a State parties’ jurisdiction.

Ms. Gabr said she had participated in the twenty-second meeting of chairpersons of human rights treaty bodies in Brussels.  That meeting lets treaty body experts outside Geneva mix with regional partners based in Brussels and strengthen their work together.  At the meeting, she discussed how trafficking in and violence against women and girls were cross-cutting issues, which merited the attention of other human rights treaty bodies and human rights regional mechanisms.

In March, Ms. Gabr had attended the fifty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, at which she had reviewed the work of the Committee’s past two sessions, including the adoption of revised working methods on the follow-up procedure and methodology used to assess States parties’ reports.  She had informed them about the Commission’s adoption of statements to strengthen its relationship with non-governmental organizations and strengthen the role of national parliaments vis-à-vis the Convention.

In addition, she and a dozen other Committee members had attended an informal meeting, hosted by the French Government in Paris in May, to review discriminatory laws and the role of parliaments.  That discussion had included a review of the international institutional mechanisms that could contribute to the Committee’s work regarding discriminatory legislation.

In her opening address on behalf of the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kyung-wha Kang, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the treaty body system faced considerable challenges and it was crucial to develop and uphold a clear vision of a coherent treaty body system.  While each treaty body was an independent legal mechanism monitoring specific treaties, none of them worked in isolation, and, thus, all treaty bodies should contribute to the process by improving and harmonizing their working methods.

She noted that the twenty-second meeting of the chairpersons of treaty bodies in Brussels had been groundbreaking, in that it had brought United Nations human rights treaty bodies closer to the regions.  The chairpersons had agreed that convening its meetings in the regions strengthened the visibility of treaty bodies, and they had asked the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to explore the possibility of organizing the chairpersons meeting at the regional level every other year.

In order to improve the Office’s operation, OHCHR had hired a consultant to map out work flows related to the treaty body and overall work processes, she added.  The goal was to develop concrete recommendations that would help integrate treaty reporting and implementation into its overall mandate.  The consultant’s work was well advanced.  As it continued to compile the Committee’s ideas and suggestions, OHCHR hoped to see a broad agreement on measures to strengthen the treaty bodies.

Several Committee members asked Ms. Kang about the consultant’s work and the need to keep the experts informed about the process.  One Committee member said the consultant should have a strong knowledge of the Committee’s work.

Ms. Kang said the consultant was engaged in a management exercise meant to analyse the Office’s internal workload, as the treaty body’s work expanded without additional budget resources from the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary).  Existing staff had to work overtime and were stretched to their limit to absorb existing work.  The consultant would be investigating specifics, such as how many hours it took for a staff member to draft a concluding report.  The consultant would map out the full extent of the work required to support the treaty bodies and would share that information with Committee members and Member States.  It was an internal evaluation and the results of the report would be shared with the Committee after it was finalized.

Next, chair of the pre-session working group for the forty-sixth session, and expert from Slovenia, Violeta Neubauer, provided an overview of the working group’s activities as it prepared lists of issues and questions with respect to the initial report of Papua New Guinea and the periodic reports of Albania, Australia, Fiji, the Russian Federation and Turkey.  The examination of the sixth periodic report of Argentina, originally scheduled for the forty-fourth session, had been postponed until this session.

The Committee also adopted its provisional agenda and organization of work for the current session.

It will meet again at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 13 July, to consider Argentina’s sixth periodic report.

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For information media • not an official record