UNIVERSAL RATIFICATION OF WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION BY YEAR 2000 IS ACHIEVABLE GOAL, SPECIAL ADVISER ON GENDER ISSUES STATES

WOM/1004
19 January 1998

In Address to Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, as Its Eighteenth
Session Begins; Adopts Programme of Work

The goal of universal ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women by the year 2000 is achievable, the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on
Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, Angela King, told that treaty's monitoring body this
morning. However, she added, there was no cause for complacency given the number of
reservations to the Convention and the fact that ratification did not necessarily mean national policy
and legal change.

Addressing the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women as it began its
eighteenth session, Ms. King also noted that implementation of the Convention in some States
parties was still impeded by entrenched attitudes that contradicted the Convention's principles. The
Committee's work in bridging the gap between ratification and implementation was crucial, and
would determine the success of the Convention, she stressed.

The Committee Chairperson, Salma Khan, expert from Bangladesh, reported on her intensified
efforts to secure further ratification and encourage the implementation of the Convention. At two
recent meetings in Jordan and Lebanon, she had appealed to countries outside the Convention to
overcome their obstacles and develop strategies for its ratification.

Also this morning, the Committee adopted its programme of work for the three-week session,
which will end on 6 February. The Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of
Women, Kristen Timothy, introduced the work programme of the Committee's Working Group II,
which makes recommendations on the 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,
outlined the report on ways and means of expediting the Committee's work.

The Committee was informed that two experts, Mervat Tallawy of Egypt, and Tendai Ruth Bare of
Zimbabwe, would not be able to attend the session. Ms. Tallawy has assumed new duties as
appointed Minister in the Egyptian Government; Ms. Bare was recently appointed head of the
Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation.

The Chairperson, on behalf of the Committee, expressed sympathy to another expert, Charlotte
Abaka of Ghana, whose son was killed in a car accident late last year.

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m tomorrow, 20 January, to begin consideration of the initial
report of Azerbaijan.

Committee Work Programme

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women met this morning to begin its
eighteenth session. It is scheduled to adopt its agenda and organization of work and hear the report
of the Committee's Chairperson on activities undertaken between its seventeenth and eighteenth
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 Azerbaijan,
Croatia, Czech Republic and Zimbabwe; the combined second and third reports of Bulgaria and
Indonesia; the combined second and third periodic reports and the fourth periodic report of the
Dominican Republic; and the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Mexico. (For
background on the session, see Press Release WOM/1003 of 16 January.)

Statement by Special Adviser on Gender Issues

ANGELA KING, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement
of Women, said 1998 had started very auspiciously for the United Nations and for women, with
the appointment of Louise Frechette as the Organization's Deputy Secretary-General. In addition,
1998 was the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the seventeenth year since the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women had entered into force. Ratification and accession to the Convention
was continuing at a steady pace, with 161 States parties to date. Both the 1993 Vienna Declaration
and Programme of Action and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action had established the year 2000
as the goal for universal ratification of the Convention. It was clear that the objective was still
achievable.

However, there was no cause for complacency since the Convention remained plagued by a large
number of reservations and ratification had not necessarily meant policy and legal change in some
States parties, she said. In other States parties, even though laws and policies to implement the
Convention had been introduced, de facto implementation was still impeded by entrenched
attitudes that were in contradiction to the Convention's principles. It was in bridging the gap
between ratification and implementation that the Committee's work was crucial and the success of
the Convention would be determined.

With the Committee's two annual sessions, which would strengthen its visibility and that of the
Convention's obligations, the possibilities for full implementation would be enhanced, she said. At
the same time, the Committee's potential had created enormous expectations and required greater
and greater commitment from Committee members both during the session and intersessionally,
which could be burdensome for the members. The tenth meeting of the States parties of the
Convention would take place on 10 February and was expected to elect 12 Committee members
for four-year terms beginning on 1 January 1999.

Turning to issues on the Committee's agenda, Ms. King said, due to a family emergency, the
Special Rapporteur on violence against women could not attend the session, but the Special
Rapporteur on religious intolerance would address the Committee on 28 January. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, would meet with the Committee
on 4 February. That meeting should provide an opportunity to discuss closer ties between the
Committee and the High Commissioner's Office, as well as the Committee's contribution to the
commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She went on to say that, as a result of the implementation of the Secretary-General's reform
proposals, the Division for the Advancement of Women was now part of the new Department of
Economic and Social Affairs with a mandate to monitor, analyse and assess economic and social
policies and trends from a global, as well as from a gender, perspective. As a result, there had been
some changes to the Division that should allow it to strengthen its support to the Committee's work
and the promotion of the Convention.

Reporting her activities in the intersessional period, she informed of four expert working groups, as
well as her participation in a round table on crimes of sexual violence, which took place in Arusha
from 4 to 6 October 1997. It was gratifying to see the prominent condemnation of sexual violence
as a war crime and its reflection in indictments relating to the former Yugoslavia. In the case of the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, recent developments suggested that acts of sexual
violence would become a routine feature of most future indictments as the central role of rape and
other sexual assaults in the 1994 genocide was acknowledged. Although there had been much
progress in the Tribunals, much remained to be done before expectations could be realized.

Regarding Afghanistan, she said although it was not a State party to the Convention, it was a
signatory and was obliged to do nothing that contravened its terms. From 12 to 23 November
1997, she had led a United Nations gender mission to that country with representatives of the
World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), and of Norway, representing the donor/non- governmental organizations.
The mission's main objective was to reach agreement of a concrete set of programmatic
implementation, field-oriented guidelines to address gender concerns in programme implementation
to be observed by United Nations agencies and the donor and non-governmental community
working in Afghanistan.

The women in Afghanistan were not alone in suffering violations of human rights, she said. Women
all over the world, including in Rwanda, Burundi and Algeria, were at risk. It was the Committee's
role, supported by the Division, to devise strategies to assist those women who were in desperate
need of assistance and who had not yet been touched by the Convention. She looked forward to
imaginative proposals from the Committee in that regard.

Statement by Committee Chairperson

The Chairperson of the Committee, SALMA KHAN, expert from Bangladesh, reported on her
activities between Committee sessions. In September, she attended the Asia/Pacific meeting on
Universal Adherence to the Principal

International Human Rights Instruments, held in Amman, Jordan. The meeting's objective was to
assemble government experts from 34 States that had not submitted their instruments of ratification,
accession or succession to a number of principal international human rights instruments. Useful
interaction took place with the 17 participants who had not ratified the Convention, during which
obstacles were identified and development strategies introduced. In addition, countries that had
overdue initial and subsequent reports were offered aid in their preparation through a technical
assistance programme of the Office of the High Commissioner.

She said that the eighth meeting of persons chairing the human rights treaty bodies, held in Geneva
on 15 September, had focused primarily on issues of reform and development relating to the work
of the treaty bodies. Philip Alston, Chairperson of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights and Chairman and Rapporteur of the eighth meeting, presented a paper containing important
issues, particularly the consolidation of treaty bodies and the proposed reform of the reporting
system. It was agreed that it was neither practicable nor desirable to join the six human rights treaty
bodies into a single committee. Regarding the reform of the reporting system, concern was
expressed that in the absence of appropriate reforms tailored to the needs of each committee, the
examinations of reports might become a ritual without an effective means to protect the human
rights of individuals. Although the problem of overdue reports was discussed, no consensus was
reached on a proposal to consolidate them into a single report covering all six human rights treaties.
It was suggested, however, that each State party might focus its report on a limited range of issues
pertinent to its country. Preserving the impartiality of the experts was also explored, Ms. Khan said.
Recommendations ranged from treaty bodies members refraining from participating in consideration
of their country's report, to influencing their respective governments to refrain from nominating
persons for election in treaty bodies who performed political or other functions that might conflict
with their obligations as independent experts. The chairpersons also discussed with the High
Commissioner for Human Rights ways and means to promote sustained effectiveness and efficiency
of treaty bodies. They requested, through the High Commissioner, that the General Assembly
organize a three-day meeting for the chairpersons at the end of February to follow up on the urgent
work of the treaty bodies as it related to impending reforms. Also at that meeting, Ms. Khan
reiterated her interest in forging a close relationship with the Special Rapporteur on violence against
women in light of the interrelationship of their work.

Among other meetings, she said she had attended a regional workshop in Beirut organized by the
Middle East regional office of UNICEF, which had discussed incorporating the Committee on the
Rights of the Child and the Committee into the curriculum of the law schools of six Arab countries.
The workshop reflected on the concept of women's and children's rights in the Arab world and the
link between the two committees. Ms. Khan had the opportunity at the meeting to appeal to the
five remaining countries members of the League of Arab States that had not yet ratified the
Convention to give the matter serious consideration.

She described further efforts undertaken since the Committee's last session to secure additional
treaty ratifications. Those included a letter written last August urging States parties to ratify the
Convention before the year 2000. At her request, Ms. King had also written to those States parties
that had not yet submitted their initial reports and informed them of the assistance which could be
made available to them if necessary. She also updated the Committee on efforts made towards
formulating a general recommendation on article 12 of the Convention concerning women's health
rights.

Ms. Khan drew attention to the human rights situation in Algeria about which she had received
letters from the High Commissioner for Human Rights and from Amnesty International. According
to the High Commissioner, there was an urgent need for cooperation among all concerned to assist
the more than 65,000 people, including women and children, whom the Algerian situation had
affected in the last few years. She had also asked the Chairperson to provide a summary of the
most recent information on the Algerian situation. Ms. Khan explained in her reply that, although
Algeria had acceded to the Convention on 22 May 1996, it had not yet submitted its initial report.
She recommended that the High Commissioner consider appointing a special rapporteur to address
the human rights situation in Algeria. The letter from Amnesty International had expressed similar
concern, and had included copies of some recent reports on the deteriorating situation, as well as a
copy of a joint appeal calling for the convening of a special session of the Commission on Human
Rights to undertake an international investigation into the matter. The Chairperson, in her reply, had
expressed the Committee's agreement.

In closing, she said that, while 161 countries had already ratified the Convention, and while the
functions of the treaty bodies had improved, the level of implementation by most States parties and
the number of overdue reports remained unsatisfactory. Serious consideration was needed to
further improve the working methods of the Committee.

Statements on Programme of Work

KRISTEN TIMOTHY, Deputy Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women,
introduced the agenda item which was the subject of the Committee's Working Group II, and
concerned the implementation of article 21 of the Convention -- which provides that the Committee
might make suggestions and general recommendations based on the examination of the reports and
information received from States parties. She informed that the Committee had before it a draft
general recommendation on women and health (article 12 of the Convention), prepared by the
expert member, Carmel Shalev of Israel.

In the context of article 22 of the Convention, by which the specialized agencies might be invited to
submit reports on implementation of the Convention in areas that fell within the scope of their
activities, representatives of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the
UNFPA would address the Committee during the session, she said. The Committee would also
take up a working paper containing a draft of the contribution of the Committee to the fiftieth
anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which concerned reservations to the
Convention and had been prepared by Silvia Cartwright, expert from New Zealand.

JANE CONNORS, Chief of the Women's Rights Unit of the Division for the Advancement of
Women, outlined the report before the Committee under agenda item 8 on ways and means of
expediting the work of the Committee. The report (document CEDAW/C/1998/I/4) considered a
number of areas under discussion in prior Committee sessions and addressed relations between the
Committee and other specialized agencies and entities of the United Nations system. It also
underlined the need for cooperation between the Committee and the Special Rapporteur on
violence against women, whose mandate was extended last April for a further three years by the
Commission on Human Rights. A section on the pre-session working group reviewed its timing and
working methods, as well as the promotion of the Convention and the Committee through technical
and advisory services.

The annexes to the report contained a list of States parties whose reports were more than five
years overdue, and others whose reports had been submitted but had not yet been considered, she
said. A final annex contained a note from the High Commissioner for Human Rights concerning the
technical cooperation programme of her office. The report also contained a compilation of
comments by Committee members regarding the enhanced effectiveness of the Organization's
human rights system. In addition to the ways and means report, Working Group I had before it a
working paper containing draft rules of procedure.