Individual communications

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women can receive and consider individual communications, also known as complaints, from or on behalf of a person or group of persons claiming to be victims of a violation of the Convention by a State party (set out in the Optional Protocol to the Convention).

For the Committee to be able to receive individual complaints, the State party concerned must have recognized the Committee’s competence by ratifying the Optional Protocol. You can check this here.

The following resources provide more information on submitting complaints:

• Individual complaints form and Guidance Note
• Fact Sheet on Individual Complaint Procedures under the United Nations Human Rights Treaties
• Working Methods of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and its Working Group on individual communications received under the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW Convention (Word)
• Guidelines on third-party interventions under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
• General information about the complaints procedures for all treaty bodies
• General information about individual complaints

Recent complaints

The Committee publishes a list of all complaints that have been received on an annual basis. This list is not comprehensive:

• Browse complaints made to the CEDAW in the jurisprudence database
• Statistical survey on individual complaints (Excel)
• Table of pending cases (Word)

The CEDAW Working Group on communications under the Optional Protocol follows up on ongoing CEDAW communications and inquiries.

How to submit a complaint

Complaints should be submitted using the online submission form.

Learn more: Treaty bodies communications page