Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women opens its sixty-seventh session in Geneva

Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women 

3 July 2017

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women this morning opened its sixty-seventh session, hearing a statement by Orest Nowosad, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting its agenda and programme of work for the session.

Mr. Nowosad congratulated the Committee on the appointment of its former Member Pramila Patten as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, and then briefed on the landmark report by the High-Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents released on 22 May, which called on States to create an enabling environment for the right to and through health, and close the most persistent gap between the promises and achievements in health and human rights of women, children and adolescents, that of leadership.  Mr. Nowosad also updated the Committee on the developments that had taken place during the thirty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council which had concluded on 23 June, and welcomed the potential adoption of a new general recommendation on gender-based violence during the current Committee session, to update the Committee’s landmark General Recommendation N°19 (1992) on the same topic.

Dalia Leinarte, Committee Chairperson, presented her report on inter-sessional activities and said that the number of States parties to the Convention remained at 189, and the number of States parties having accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1 on the Convention concerning the meeting time of the Committee remained at 71.  Since the last session, Sao Tome and Principe had ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on 23 March 2017, bringing the total number of States parties to 109.  Also, the State of Palestine had submitted its initial report and eight States parties had submitted their periodic reports: the Cook Islands, Cyprus, Republic of the Congo, Austria, Bahamas, Nepal, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Israel.

The Committee then adopted the provisional agenda and organization of work for the sixty-seventh session, and heard reports on the status of the follow-up reports and on the pre-session working group for the sixty-seventh session, as well as updates on the activities conducted by the Committee Experts in the intersessional period.

During the session, the Committee will review reports presented by Italy, Thailand, Romania, Costa Rica, Montenegro, Barbados, Niger and Nigeria.  All the documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties can be found at the session’s webpage.

The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings will be available via the following link: http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/.

The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. today to hold an informal public meeting with non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions with respect to Italy, Thailand, Romania and Costa Rica, whose reports will be considered by the Committee this week.

Opening Statement

OREST NOWOSAD, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, congratulated the Committee on the appointment of its former Member, Pramila Patten, as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.  In his update to the Committee, Mr. Nowosad said that one year after its establishment, the High-Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents had launched its landmark report on 22 May, entitled “Leading Realization of Human Rights to and through Health” which called on States to create an enabling environment for rights to and through health by upholding the right to health in national law, establishing a rights based approach to health financing and universal health coverage, and removing violence and discrimination against women, including harmful practices and intersecting forms of discrimination.  The report was not a technical report, but a call from leaders to leaders, which concluded that the most persistent gap between the promises and achievements made in relation to the health and human rights of women, children and adolescents was, in reality, a leadership gap.  Mr. Nowosad stressed that the High Commissioner for Human Rights had committed to address this gap by working closely with the World Health Organization on the implementation of the recommendations made in the report.

Turning to the recently concluded thirty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council, Mr. Nowosad said that on 13 June, the Council had held its annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women, and it had held two panels, one on accelerating efforts to eliminate violence against women: engaging men and boys in preventing and responding to violence against women and girls, and another on women’s rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: health and gender equality.  The Committee’s former colleague, Dubravka Šimonovic, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, in her annual presentation to the Council on 12 June had highlighted the importance of protection orders and called for comprehensive approaches to integrate services and shelters to prevent violence against women, and had referred to the Committee’s important jurisprudence concerning the due diligence obligation of States to combat and prevent gender-based violence.  At the opening of the thirty-fifth session of the Council on 6 June, the High Commissioner had expressed his dismay at the poor reporting record of many States parties to the international human rights treaty bodies, and had reminded the States that reporting obligations were not optional, and that reporting procedures helped identify gaps and measures to correct them.

Mr. Nowosad also briefed the Committee on the twenty-ninth annual meeting of Chairs of the Treaty Bodies held in New York from 26 to 30 June, during which the Chairs, inter alia, had discussed a common approach to engaging national human rights institutions, decided to remain engaged in the process leading to the 2020 review of the treaty bodies systems and to formulate proposals for discussion within their respective treaty bodies, and reiterated the recommendation to all treaty bodies to use and endorse the Addis Ababa guidelines on the independence and impartiality of treaty bodies members and the San José Guidelines against intimidation and reprisals.  The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights commended the Committee for the visible momentum it had generated to promote the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and provide best practice in linking the realization of human rights to the 2030 Agenda, and was heartened that during the current session, the Committee would potentially adopt a new general recommendation on gender-based violence to update the Committee’s landmark General Recommendation N°19 (1992) on the same topic.

Adoption of the Agenda and Organization of Work and the Report of the Chairperson

The Committee adopted the provisional agenda and organization of work for the sixty-seventh session.

DALIA LEINARTE, Committee Chairperson, presenting her report on activities undertaken since the previous session, congratulated former Committee Expert Pramila Patten on her recent appointment and said that she would be the Committee’s capable ally at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  The number of States parties to the Convention remained at 189, and the number of States parties having accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1 on the Convention concerning the meeting time of the Committee remained at 71.  The Chairperson recalled that, in order for this amendment to enter into force, the acceptance by 126 States parties to the Convention was required.  Since the last session, Sao Tome and Principe had ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on 23 March 2017, bringing the total number of States parties to 109.  Also, the State of Palestine had submitted its initial report and eight States parties had submitted their periodic reports: the Cook Islands, Cyprus, Republic of the Congo, Austria, Bahamas, Nepal, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Israel.

Turning to her inter-sessional activities, Ms. Leinarte said that on 13 March, she had participated in the opening of the sixty-first session of the Commission on the Status of Women, and that, together with the Committee Expert Ms. Acar in her capacity as Chair of the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, Ms. Šimonovic the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, and other experts had met with the Secretary-General António Guterres and discussed enhanced coordination of efforts by the United Nations and regional mechanisms to protect women’s human rights from regression.  The Chair had also met with the Deputy Executive Director of United Nations Women, Lakshmi Puri, and discussed cooperation with the Committee.

Committee Experts provided an update on their respective activities during the intersessional period.

Pre-sessional Working Group Report and the Follow-up

PATRICIA SCHULZ, Committee Expert, briefed the Committee on the pre-sessional working group for the sixty-seventh session, which had met from 21 to 25 November 2016 and had prepared lists of issues with regard to the reports of Barbados, Costa Rica, Italy, Montenegro, Niger, Nigeria and Thailand.  On a pilot basis, the Working Group had prepared a list of issues prior to the submission of the combined sixth and seventh periodic reports of Luxembourg under its optional simplified reporting procedure, which was scheduled for review at the Committee’s sixty-ninth session.  The lists of issues and questions, which had focused on themes covered by the Convention, had been transmitted to the States parties concerned, concluded Ms. Schulz.

HILARY GBEDEMAH, Committee Expert and Rapporteur on Follow-Up, said that during the sixty-sixth session of the Committee, she had met with representatives of the Central African Republic and the Republic of the Congo whose responses had been positive and who had appreciated the information shared.  At the end of that session, follow-up letters outlining the outcome of assessments of follow-up reports had been sent to Andorra, Cameroon, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Iraq, Jamaica, Lithuania, Peru and Seychelles.  First reminders regarding overdue follow-up reports had been sent to Brunei Darussalam, Ghana, Guinea, Poland and Venezuela, and a second reminder to Sierra Leone.  The Committee had received follow-up reports from Belgium, Denmark and Ecuador on time, and with delays from China, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Oman, Solomon Islands and Swaziland.  During the current session, first reminders regarding the submission of follow-up reports should be sent to Azerbaijan, Eritrea, Gabon, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives and Tuvalu, and second reminders to Brunei Darussalam, Ghana, Guinea, India, Mauritania, Poland and Venezuela.

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