Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women opens its sixty-third session

Committee on Elimination of Discrimination                      
  against Women 

15 February 2016

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women opened its sixty-third session this morning, hearing a statement by a representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, adopting the agenda of the session and discussing inter-sessional and follow-up activities.

Orest Nowosad, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section of the Human Rights Treaties Division at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasized the need to strengthen the links between human rights instruments and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  Treaty body concluding observations which were directly relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets should be an integral part of the High Level Political Forum country review, he said.  Linking the 2030 Agenda to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women had great potential to provide increased accountability and strengthen coherence and alignment among the various processes to assist States in delivering on their human rights obligations. 

Recalling that the Assembly of the African Union had declared 2016 as the “African Year of Human Rights with particular focus on the Rights of Women”, Mr. Nowosad announced that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights would soon deploy a gender advisor to its Regional Office in Addis Ababa, and was supporting a number of related activities by the African Union.  Mr. Nowosad added that the Special Rapporteurs on the sale of children, on contemporary forms of slavery, and on the right to health had conducted a five-day visit to Nigeria in January 2016, to assess measures taken by the Government to assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration of women and children who had escaped or been liberated from Boko Haram’s captivity. 

Mr. Nowosad then presented resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its seventieth session that were of direct relevance to the mandate of the Committee.  They included a resolution on taking action against gender-related killing of women and girls, a resolution on women in development, a resolution on the improvement of the situation of women and girls in rural areas, and a resolution on proclaiming 11 February the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.  The Office of the High Commissioner would prepare the first report under General Assembly resolution 68/268 on strengthening and enhancing the effective functioning of the human rights treaty body system. 

The Committee then proceeded to adopt the agenda and organization of work for the sixty-third session.

Patricia Schulz, Rapporteur of the Committee, welcomed that the role of the Committee in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and of the Women, Peace and Security agenda had been recognized.  She noted, however, that such a role would require additional work, meeting time and consequently more resources for the Committee. 

Yoko Hayashi, Chairperson of the Committee, presented her report on the activities undertaken between the sixty-second and sixty-third sessions of the Committee.  She noted that since the previous session, numbers of States parties to the Convention and its protocol had remained at 189 and 106, respectively.  Similarly, the number of States parties having accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1, of the Convention concerning the Committee’s meeting time had remained at 70.  A total of 126 States parties were currently required to accept that amendment in order to bring it into force.  Seven States parties had submitted their periodic reports since the beginning of the Committee’s previous session, namely Singapore, Kuwait, Guatemala, Montenegro, Paraguay, Nauru and Norway.  In addition, Burkina Faso had submitted a report in hard copy version only.  The Committee had accepted requests by Liechtenstein and Mauritius to present their overdue reports under the simplified reporting procedure. 

The Chairperson reported that she had participated in a number of events, including a workshop on “Tackling  Violence Against Women: International and Regional Approaches”, and an Expert Group Meeting on the Committee’s draft general recommendation on violence against women.  In January 2016, two members of the Committee had participated in meetings relating to violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada.  She then informed that dialogues with States parties in the course of the sixty-second session would be webcast live at www.treatybodywebcast.org.

A number of other Experts presented their respective activities between the sixty-second and sixty-third sessions.  Xiaoqiao Zou, Committee Rapporteur on follow-up, said that at the end of the sixty-second session, follow-up letters had been sent to Algeria, Angola, Austria, Nepal and Togo.  First reminders regarding overdue follow-up reports had been sent to Afghanistan, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Serbia and Syria.  Second reminders had been sent to the Comoros and Equatorial Guinea. 

The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. today for an informal meeting with non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions.  More information on the Committee’s sixty-third session, including on its programme of work, can be read here. 

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