Compendium of good practices in the elimination of discrimination against women

Published: 19 April 2017
Author: Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice (in 2019 the name of this group became the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls)
Presented: To the Human Rights Council’s 35^th session in June 2017
Link to report: A/HRC/35/29 available in all 6 official UN languages

Summary

This report focuses on good practices in the elimination of discrimination against women in law and practice and women’s empowerment. It is pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 15/23, which establishes the Working Group and mandates it to develop a compendium of best practices.

In the report, the Working Group analyses good practices for the elimination of discrimination against women in law and in practice and for women’s empowerment.

Identifying such good practices is particularly poignant at this historical juncture, where a profound backlash against hard-won progress is occurring in all spheres.
The Working Group is gravely concerned about the continuing rise of fundamentalisms and openly misogynistic, racist, xenophobic and populist voices, including in Governments. Efforts to re-entrench patriarchal understandings of sex, gender and family into the law raise the importance of sustaining progress and ensuring that good practices continue to be possible in fraught contexts. Ongoing attacks on autonomous women’s movements, civil society organizations, independent academia, public interest lawyers and women’s human rights defenders by State and non-State actors, make it even more crucial to identify those good practices that uphold human rights gains.

Recommendations

The report contains a number of recommendations to support States in developing and implementing comprehensive measures, such as:

• Investing in strategies to promote social change, including extensive training, educational and awareness-raising measures
• Ensuring the active participation of women of all sectors of society in monitoring and implementing human rights
• Recognizing the crucial role of autonomous women’s organizing in the development of good practices, and endeavouring to create a legal, policy and budgetary framework to support such organizing
• Allocating appropriate funds to support active and sustained measures to promote good practices to eradicate discrimination and promote women’s empowerment

Methodology

To inform this report, the Working Group issued a call for inputs to gather information on good practices in eliminating discrimination and empowering women. The Working Group received responses from different stakeholders, including Members States, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations and other actors. Links to inputs are below.

Questionnaire (English | Français | Español)

Inputs Received

Member States

• Argentina
• Australia
• Bulgaria (1 | 2 | 3 | 4)
• Burundi
• Canada
• Cyprus
• Finland
• Georgia
• Germany
• Hungary
• Iran
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy
• Jamaica
• Kenya
• Kuwait
• Kyrgyzstan
• Liechtenstein (1 | 2)
• Malta
• Mexico (1 | 2)
• Nepal
• Norway (1 | 2)
• Paraguay
• Qatar
• Republic of Korea
• Saudi Arabia (العربية | English)
• Senegal
• Serbia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sri Lanka
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• Venezuela

National Human Rights Institutions

• Algeria
• Armenia
• Bolivia
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Denmark
• Finland
• Guatemala
• Jordan
• Kosovo
• Madagascar
• Mexico
• Mongolia
• Myanmar
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Niger
• Paraguay
• Philippines
• The UK