لجنة الأمم المتحدة المعنية بالقضاء على التمييز ضد المرأة تختتم الدورة التاسعة والخمسين

Committee on Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women

7 November 2014

ROUNDUP
 
Adopts Concluding Recommendations on Reports of Venezuela, Poland, China, Ghana, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Guinea and Solomon Islands
  
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today concluded its fifty-ninth session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on Venezuela, Poland, China, including Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macao Special Administrative Region, Ghana, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Guinea and Solomon Islands on how they implement the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. 
 
The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations on the eight reports will be available on its website.
 
In addition to considering the reports, the Committee adopted a General Recommendation which included a set of practical, authoritative guidelines designed to ensure that the specific challenges faced by women in situations of displacement and statelessness were addressed, and their rights were understood, applied and enforced.  The General Recommendation also noted that “there are many reasons why women are compelled to leave their homes and seek asylum in other countries. In addition to aggravated or cumulative forms of discrimination against women amounting to persecution, women experience violations of their rights throughout the displacement cycle.  Displacement arising from armed conflict, gender-related persecution and other serious human rights violations that affect women compounds existing challenges to the elimination of discrimination against women.”
 
The Committee also adopted a joint General Recommendation/Comment with the Committee on the Rights of the Child that provided a comprehensive interpretation of the obligations of States to prevent and eliminate harmful practices inflicted on women and girls, such as female genital mutilation, crimes committed in the name of so-called honour, forced and child marriage, and polygamy.  The joint text also highlighted other harmful practices such as virginity testing, binding, widowhood practices, infanticide, and body modifications including fattening, neck elongation and breast ironing.  
 
In  concluding remarks, the Chairperson of the Committee, Nicole Ameline, summed up the work undertaken during the session, saying that in addition to considering the
reports of eight States parties, including the largest country in the world, population-wise, China, they had held informal meetings with non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions and discussed ways of further enhancing their engagement with the Inter-Agency Group on CEDAW Reporting.  The Committee had made progress in
implementing General Assembly resolution 68/268 on treaty body strengthening and had decided on the application of the simplified reporting procedure as from 1 January 2015 on a pilot basis.  The Committee also held an informal meeting with the States parties to the Convention.  Among the major achievements during this session was the adoption of the Joint CEDAW/CRC General Recommendation on harmful practices, and the CEDAW General Recommendation on gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women.  Four decisions were taken on individual communications.  Ms. Ameline paid tribute to the Committee members whose terms would expire at the end of the year.  She said it had been a source of pride and a wonderful opportunity for her to be Chair of this Committee, which many saw as playing the most important role in being the bastion of women’s rights. 
 
Committee Experts took the floor to praise Ms. Ameline’s work as Chair of the Committee and thanks her.
 
The Committee’s sixtieth session will be held from 16 February to 6 March.  The reports of Azerbaijan, Denmark, Ecuador, Eritrea, Gabon, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives and Tuvalu will be reviewed during that session.
 
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For use of the information media; not an official record