SPECIAL ADVISER ON GENDER ISSUES CALLS FOR INNOVATIVE METHODS TO ENCOURAGE RATIFICATION OF WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION

384th Meeting (AM)
WOM/1054
22 June 1998


In Opening Address to Nineteenth Session of Committee On Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; Programme of Work Adopted


More innovative methods were needed to encourage ratification of the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,
the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the
Advancement of Women, Angela King, told the treaty's monitoring body this
morning.

Opening the nineteenth session of the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women, Ms. King told the 23-member expert body that
there was evidence of increased commitment to and recognition of women's
human rights within the United Nations system. However, she warned of the
need to guard against complacency, and to bridge the gap between States
parties ratification and implementation of the Convention.

The Committee's Chairperson, Salma Khan of Bangladesh, reported on her
activities as Chairperson since the Committee's last session. At a
preparatory session for the General Assembly's special session on social
development, she had recommended that developing countries should proceed
slowly in economic liberalization, as it tended to reduce demand for
unskilled labour. She had also participated in an international non-
governmental organization (NGO) conference to raise awareness about the
assault on women's human rights by fundamentalism in the Catholic, Muslim
and Jewish religious sects.

The Committee adopted its programme of work for the three-week session,
which will last until 10 July. The Deputy Director of the Division for the
Advancement of Women, Kristen Timothy, introduced the work of the
Committee's Working Group II, which makes recommendations on reports and
information received from States parties. The Chief of the Women's Rights
Unit of the Division for the Advancement of Women, Jane Connors, introduced
the work of Working Group I, which covers ways and means of expediting the
Committee's work.

Also this morning, the Committee welcomed Antonia Guvava, expert from
Zimbabwe, and Chikako Taya, from Japan, to the Committee, to complete terms
which had been affected by two resignations.

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 23 June, to begin its
consideration of Slovakia's initial report.

Committee Work Programme

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women met this
morning to begin its nineteenth session. It was scheduled to adopt its
agenda and organization of work and hear the report of the Committee's
Chairperson on activities undertaken between the eighteenth and nineteenth
sessions. It was also scheduled to hear a statement by the Special Adviser
to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, Angela
King.

During the session, the 23-member expert committee -- the monitoring body
of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women -- will discuss measures taken by eight States parties to that Treaty
to ensure the full development and advancement of women in the political,
social, economic and cultural fields. It will consider the initial reports
of Slovakia and South Africa; the combined second and third periodic
reports of Nigeria, Panama and the United Republic of Tanzania; and the
combined third and fourth reports of New Zealand, Peru and the Republic of Korea. (For background on the session, see Press Release WOM/1053 of 19 June.)

Statement

ANGELA KING, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of
Women, recalled efforts by the United Nations Division for the Advancement
of Women regarding the forty-second session of the Commission on the Status
of Women, held in March 1998. The Commission reviewed areas of the
Platform of Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women
(Beijing, 1995) which related to human rights. It had urged governments to
ratify and accede to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women. The Division had approached regional
intergovernmental bodies to encourage its members to persuade governments
to ratify the Convention.

The Commission had also addressed reservations placed on the Convention
by member States, she said. The Commission had asked governments to limit
and narrow their reservations, and to regularly review them with a view to
their withdrawal. The open-ended working group of the Commission established to
draftthe optionalprotocol tothe Conventionhad metthroughout theCommission's
session. That working group would convene at the Commission's 1999
session, and she was confident it would complete its task at that time.

The year 2000 marked five years since the adoption of the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action, she recalled. The Commission had
recommended that a high-level special session of the General Assembly be
held from 5 to 9 June 2000 to review and assess progress achieved in the
Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and the
Beijing Platform for Action. Preparatory work would be carried out at the
Commission's forty-third and forty-fourth sessions in 1999 and 2000. The
Commission had invited the Committee to assist in that effort.

Next year would be the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Programme
of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and
Development (Cairo, 1994), she recalled. The Conference was a benchmark in
the international community's recognition of the importance of empowering
women and the right to reproductive health. The year 1999 also marked
the twentieth anniversary of General Assembly resolution 34/180,
by which it had adopted the Convention and opened it for signature,
ratification and accession.

Since the Committee's last session, which was held in January, the
Commission on Human Rights and the Commission on Crime Prevention and
Criminal Justice had met, she said. The Committee's Chairperson, Salma
Khan, had addressed the human rights body, as had Ms. King. That body had
had before it a report on women's human rights, prepared jointly by the
Division and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. For the
first time, the Commission on Human Rights had held a special debate on
gender issues and human rights. In her address to the Commission on Crime
Prevention and Criminal Justice, Ms. King had stressed the importance of
advancing the interests of women in light of the gender implications of
crime, as well as with regard to national and international efforts to
combat crime.

Within the United Nations system, there was evidence of increasing
commitment to gender mainstreaming and recognition of women's human rights,
she said. Despite progress, however, there was need to guard against
complacency. Since the Committee's last session, there had been no
additional ratifications or accessions to the Convention. Greater and more
innovative methods were needed to encourage ratification, and to bridge the
gap between ratification and implementation.

During the session, the Committee might wish to reflect on strategies to
address the issue of overdue reports, she said. A large number of reports
of States parties had been outstanding for five years or more. Together
with the staff at the Division for the Advancement of Women, Ms. King was
constantly looking for ways to strengthen support for the Committee. In
particular, efforts focused on increasing the visibility of the Committee
and its work, and ensuring that it was aware of efforts to advance women's
status taking place in other parts of the United Nations system. She said
she would be happy to discuss any proposals to assist the experts in their
work during sessions and intersessionally.

SALMA KHAN, Chairperson for the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women, reporting on her activities as Chairperson
between the eighteenth and nineteenth sessions, said that the Ninth Meeting
of the Chairpersons of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies held at Geneva in
February, underlined the view that universal ratification of the six core
human rights treaties constituted an essential dimension of a global order
committed to the full respect of human rights. The Chairpersons called on
the United Nations system to attach even greater priority to encouraging
and facilitating the ratification of the six treaties. Referring to the
success of the plan of action for the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, the Chairpersons felt that an overall plan of action should be drawn
up to enhance the resources available to the treaty bodies.

She said that at the forty-second session of the Commission on the Status
of Women, the focus had been on the human rights of women, the girl child,
women and armed conflict, and violence against women. The session also
reviewed the mainstreaming of women in the United Nations system and
emerging issues, trends, opportunities and new approaches that affected
the equality of women. At the fifty-fourth session of the Commission on
Human Rights held in Geneva in March, the Committee had called upon all
governments to accept the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women and to implement the mechanism to actualize
the rights of those who constituted two thirds of the world's poor.

She said that at the Organizational Session of the Preparatory Committee
of the special session of the General Assembly on the Implementation of the
World Summit for Social Development, the major focus of her statement was
on the plight of people living in south Asia and the African sub-Sahara,
where the goals of the Summit had remained largely unmet. In those
regions, the vast majority of the world's poor lived, and more than 50 per
cent of them were women. The special session should therefore devote more
attention to reaching the ultra-poor, through special governmental policies
and programmes that would meet their basic survival needs and create more
gender sensitivity. More attention should also be paid to the fast growth
of the female labour force's participation in developing countries.
Governments in developing counties should proceed slowly in adopting
economic liberalization, as it tended to reduce the demand for unskilled
labour.


She said that at the annual session of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP)/United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Board
held in Geneva in June, ways to enhance the capacity of countries to absorb
and make the most effective use of resources allocated to population
programmes were addressed. At that meeting, she had emphasized the need
for a greater focus on reproductive health, particularly its widespread
violation among adolescent women. The purpose of the NGO Women and
Fundamentalisms Conference in Barcelona in April, which she also attended,
was to raise public awareness of the serious assault on women's human
rights inherent in the religious fundamentalism of the Catholic, Muslim and
Jewish religious sects. The meeting denounced violence and discrimination
against women by fundamentalists and demanded that governments take primary
responsibility to ensure the human rights of women. It also called upon
United Nations authorities, human rights commissions and treaty bodies to
denounce fundamentalist abuse of human rights and to abstain from
supporting, both economically and politically, those governments which used
fundamentalist doctrines to repress women.

She said that since the appointment of the Special Rapporteur on Violence
Against Women, the Committee had stressed the need for cooperation with
her. However, despite a clear understanding from both sides regarding the
need, a mutual exchange of views had not materialized. In light of the
urgency to establish a link, the Committee could consider appointing a
focal point for liaison with the Special Rapporteur.

Between the eighteenth and nineteenth session, the Committee had
strengthened its relationships with United Nations specialized agencies,
particularly with the UNFPA. In conjunction with the United Nations
Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Committee continued to facilitate
its goal of advocating the universal ratification of the Convention, while
developing an optional protocol to it. Cooperation with various NGOs had
considered and a number of NGO shadow reports on specific countries had
been considered.

Experts Comments on Activity Reports

Some members of the Committee commented on the two presentations. A
number of members asked that the Chairperson's report be circulated, and
stressed the need for time to discuss the issues raised therein.

One expert said that major events were occurring within the United
Nations system, including the deliberations currently taking place on the
proposed international criminal court. The Committee should be taking a more active
role in such activities and should make its presence felt, perhaps through
a statement in the deliberations on the Court. Also, key activities for
the year 2000 should be integrated into a plan, so the Committee's response
would be anticipatory rather than reactive.

Another member said she hoped that discussion of the human rights of
women would become a tradition in the Commission on Human Rights. She
noted with concern the absence of Committee members in important
gatherings, such as a recently convened meeting of the Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS) on women in the economic and social fields.

Statements on Programme of Work

KRISTEN TIMOTHY, Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of
Women, introduced agenda item 6, which was the subject of the Committee's
Working Group II, and concerned implementation of article 21 of the

Convention -- which provides that the Committee might make suggestions and
general recommendations based on the examination of reports and information
received from States parties. Members of specialized bodies and agencies
were also invited to submit information to the Committee under article 22 of the
Convention.

At its eighteenth session, the Committee had agreed to continue to work
on a draft general recommendation on women's health, article 12 of the
Convention, she recalled. A draft had been prepared, discussed and revised by Working

Group II, and it was currently before the Committee. The Committee also
had before it a note by the Secretary-General on reports of specialized
agencies on implementation of the Convention. Another document presented a
revised working paper on reservations to the Convention.

JANE CONNORS, Chief of the Women's Rights Unit of the Division for the
Advancement of Women, outlined reports on agenda item 7, related to Working
Group I, on ways and means of expediting the Committee's work. A report on
improving the Committee's working methods, prepared as a pre-session
document, covered a number of subjects, including the relationship of the
Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women with the Committee, and issues
arising from the ninth meeting of persons chairing human rights treaties
bodies, held from 25 to 27 February 1998. Annex I of the report listed
States parties whose reports were overdue for five years or more, and Annex
II listed States whose reports were to be considered, taking into account
geographical balance. Also before the Committee was a working paper
containing draft rules of procedures.