Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women Opens Eighty-Fourth Session

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women this morning opened its eighty-fourth session, hearing a statement from Andrea Ori, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Treaties Branch, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting its agenda for the session, during which it will review the reports of Bahrain, Costa Rica, Georgia, Hungary, Mauritania, Norway, Slovenia and Tunisia.

Mr. Ori said that women and girls had absorbed most of the increase in unpaid care work during the COVID-19 pandemic, sacrificing their well-being, employment, livelihood, and education. To ensure a paradigm shift towards gender-transformative and rights-based support and care systems, Mr. Ori said, women’s rights in support and care systems needed to be explicitly reflected in the post-2030 sustainable development framework and in key documents. The Committee and other treaty bodies could contribute to influencing the post-2030 Sustainable Development Agenda by providing a framework for the development and implementation of human rights-based support and care systems.

Mr. Ori commended the Committee on its recent adoption of general recommendation 39 (2022) on the rights of indigenous women and girls and its current work on a draft general recommendation on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems.

The momentum and energy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ seventy-fifth anniversary campaign in 2023 was providing new opportunities to strengthen cooperation and engagement between international and regional human rights mechanisms. The Committee, Mr. Ori said, had enormous potential to engage with the 189 States parties to the Convention through dialogue on women’s and girls’ human rights.

Ana Peláez Narváez, interim Chairperson of the Committee, said that since the last session, the number of States parties that had ratified or acceded to the Convention had remained at 189. The total number of States parties that had ratified the Optional Protocol remained at 115. Since the last session, Cuba, Niger and Tajikistan had submitted their periodic reports to the Committee. In its eighty-second session, the Committee had decided to make the simplified reporting procedure the default procedure for the submission of State party reports to the Committee. In response, 13 States parties had indicated that they wished to opt out and maintain the traditional reporting procedure.

The following seven Committee Experts were elected to the Committee: Brenda Akia (Uganda), Rangita De Silva De Alwis (Sri Lanka), Esther Eghobamien-Mshelia (Nigeria), Yamila González Ferrer (Cuba), Daphna Hacker Dror (Israel), Marianne Mikko (Estonia), and Maya Morsy (Egypt). Five Experts were also re-elected for the 2023-2026 term: Hiroko Akizuki (Japan), Ana Peláez Narváez (Spain), Rhoda Reddock (Trinidad and Tobago), Elgun Safarov (Azerbaijan), and Genoveva Tisheva (Bulgaria).

Six of the seven newly elected Committee Experts made their solemn declarations, while Yamila González Ferrer (Cuba) will make it at a later date. The Committee also adopted the agenda and programme of work of the session.

The Chair and Committee Experts then discussed the activities that they had undertaken since the last session. Rhoda Reddock, Committee Expert and Chairperson of the pre-Sessional Working Group, and Natasha Stott Despoja, Committee Alternate Rapporteur on follow-up to concluding observations, also briefed the Committee on their work.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women’s eighty-fourth session is being held from 6 to 24 February. All documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, can be found on the session’s webpage. Meeting summary releases can be found here. The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings can be accessed via the UN Web TV webpage.

The Committee will next meet at 3 p.m. on Monday, 6 February to hold an informal meeting with non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions.

Statements

ANDREA ORI, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Treaties Branch, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Representative of the Secretary-General, opened the eighty-fourth session of the Committee, welcoming and congratulating the seven new Committee Experts and the five re-elected Experts.

Mr. Ori said that women and girls had absorbed most of the increase in unpaid care work during the COVID-19 pandemic, sacrificing their well-being, employment, livelihood, and education. Women also dominated underpaid care work. The deficiencies in care and support systems during the pandemic threatened women’s and girls’ rights to life, health, education, work, freedom from gender-based violence, and led to significant setbacks in gender equality.

The transformation of care had been identified as a key enabler for gender-equal recovery and as an essential element for sustainable development. UN Women was leading an organization-wide discussion on the transformation of care. The discussion focused on women’s economic empowerment as unpaid and underpaid caregivers. Existing care models that relied on free or cheap labour of women and girls and failed to perceive receivers of care as rights-holders with dignity and autonomy were no longer sustainable.

To ensure a paradigm shift towards gender-transformative and rights-based support and care systems, all needed to radically reshape their understanding of care. Women’s rights in support and care systems needed to be explicitly reflected in the post-2030 sustainable development framework and in key documents. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, had decided to make “Human rights in support and care systems” the focus of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ seventy-fifth anniversary campaign this February, and United Nations Women had called for the development of a United Nations-wide policy brief on care. The Committee and other treaty bodies could contribute to influencing the post-2030 Sustainable Development Agenda by providing a framework for the development and implementation of support and care systems that ensured the enjoyment of human rights by all women and men.

The Office of the High Commissioner was continuing to support the strengthening of the treaty bodies and was in the process of finalising an implementation plan for the June 2022 conclusions of the Chairs. It was hoped that this plan would facilitate the Committee’s work, as well as that of the other treaty bodies, including by introducing a predictable review calendar. Modern and accessible digital tools were needed to implement such a calendar and make the Committee’s work more efficient.

The work of the Office and the treaty bodies was mutually reinforcing, and the Office would continue to build on the Committee’s substantive discussions, deliberations and outcomes. The Committee’s concluding observations, general recommendations and jurisprudence constituted essential guidance for the work of the Office and the United Nations system on women’s human rights and gender equality. Mr. Ori commended the Committee on its recent adoption of general recommendation 39 (2022) on the rights of indigenous women and girls and its current work on a draft general recommendation on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems.

The Office of the High Commissioner was aware of the chronic under-funding of the treaty body system, which had contributed to significant backlogs in the consideration of State party reports, individual communications and confidential inquiries. Advancing the full implementation of treaty-based human rights obligations required sustainable funding from Member States. It also required sufficient budgetary resources from the Office. While decisions on these matters remained in the hands of Member States, the new High Commissioner had expressed his commitment to supporting greater funding for the treaty body system during his tenure.

The momentum and energy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ seventy-fifth anniversary campaign in 2023 was providing new opportunities to strengthen cooperation and engagement between international and regional human rights mechanisms. The Committee had enormous potential to engage with the 189 States parties to the Convention through dialogue on women’s and girls’ human rights. The High Commissioner looked forward to hearing the Committee’s suggestions in this regard.

In closing, Mr. Ori extended best wishes to the Committee for a successful and productive session.

Six of the seven newly elected Committee Experts made their solemn declarations, and the Committee adopted the agenda and programme of work of the session.

ANA PELÁEZ NARVÁEZ, Interim Committee Chairperson, congratulated the newly elected Committee Experts, as well as the four Experts re-elected to the Committee for the 2023-2026 term.

Since the last session, the number of States parties that had ratified or acceded to the Convention had remained at 189. Similarly, the number of States parties that had accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1 of the Convention concerning the Committee’s meeting time remained at 80; 126 States parties to the Convention were currently required to accept the amendment to bring it into force. The total number of States parties that had ratified the Optional Protocol remained at 115.

Ms. Peláez Narváez said that since the last session, Cuba, Niger and Tajikistan had submitted their periodic reports to the Committee. In its eighty-second session, the Committee had decided to make the simplified reporting procedure the default procedure for the submission of State party reports to the Committee. In response, 13 States parties had indicated that they wished to opt out and maintain the traditional reporting procedure.

Ms. Peláez Narváez and Committee Experts then discussed their intersessional activities undertaken since the last session.

RHODA REDDOCK, Committee Expert and Chairperson of Pre-Sessional Working Group, said the pre-sessional Working Group for the eighty-fourth session met in Geneva from 4 to 8 July 2022. The Working Group prepared lists of issues and questions regarding the reports of Central African Republic, Iceland, Montenegro, Philippines, Rwanda and Venezuela, in addition to a list of issues and questions prior to the submission of the reports of Monaco and New Zealand under the simplified reporting procedure. The pre-sessional Working Group benefited from written and oral information submitted by entities and specialised agencies of the United Nations system and non-governmental organizations, as well as and other national bodies with a mandate to work on women’s rights and gender equality. The Working Group transmitted the lists of issues and questions and lists of issues prior to reporting that it had adopted to the States parties concerned.

NATASHA STOTT DESPOJA, Committee Alternate Rapporteur on Follow-Up to Concluding Observations, briefed the Committee on the status of the follow-up reports received in response to the Committee’s concluding observations. At its eighty-third session, due to unforeseen circumstances, the Committee had decided to postpone its assessment of the follow-up procedure to the eighty-fourth session. The Committee would therefore consider the assessment prepared by the alternate Rapporteur on follow-up at the current session. No assessments of follow-up reports were scheduled for consideration at the eighty-third session so no follow-up letters were sent out at the end of that session.

Ms. Stott Despoja said that for the eighty-fourth session, the Committee has received one follow-up report from Zimbabwe. As the mandate of Committee Expert Naela Gabr, Rapporteur for Zimbabwe, ended on 31 December 2022, Ms. Stott Despoja called for a volunteer to assist in the assessment of the follow-up report of Zimbabwe.

Committee Expert Esther Eghobamien-Mshelia volunteered to assist in the assessment.