Sixty-ninth session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women opens in Geneva

Committee on Elimination of Discrimination  
  against Women  

19 February 2018

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women this morning opened its sixty-ninth session, hearing a statement by Adam Abdelmoula, Director of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting its agenda and programme of work for the session.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Committee paid tribute to its Vice-Chair Theodora Oby Nwakwo, a distinguished jurist and a women’s rights activist, who passed away on 9 December 2017.

Mr. Abdelmoula briefed the Committee on the Human Rights Council’s special session on the situation of the minority Rohingya Muslim population and other minorities in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, noting that in his address to the Council, the High Commissioner had deplored various rights deprivations, which this Committee had already highlighted in its 2016 concluding observations on Myanmar.  Those included restrictions on freedom of movement of the Rohingya minority and their access to identity cards, education and healthcare, and the very high incidence of maternal and child mortality among Rohingya families.  This was one example of how the treaty bodies, by providing indicators for early warning for human rights violations that might lead to violence and conflict, complemented the Secretary-General’s focus on prevention, stressed Mr. Abdelmoula.  He further explored the links between the work of the Committee and the soon-to-be-adopted Organizational Management Plan for 2018 of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and informed the Committee of the serious negative implications on the Office and the treaty bodies of the financial decisions taken by the General Assembly at the end of its seventy-second session in December 2017.

In the discussion with Committee Experts, which was primarily focused on the impact of budgetary gaps on the work of the Committee and the support provided by the Office, Mr. Abdelmoula noted that, in essence, the General Assembly had not honoured the accepted resource allocation formula contained in its own resolution 68/268.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was already overstretched and could not support the additional work of the human rights treaty bodies.  The failure to grant additional resources to the treaty bodies and to the Office for additional staff would cause an increase in the backlog of the treaty bodies, and would bring the whole situation back to square one, remarked Mr. Abdelmoula, and reiterated that the Office would continue working with the General Assembly to urge it to reconsider the decision.

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.  Monaco had accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1 on the Convention concerning the meeting time of the Committee, bringing the total number of States parties which had done so to 72.  The number of States parties to the Optional Protocol to the Convention remained at 109.  Nine States parties had submitted their periodic reports since the last session, namely Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Botswana, Cabo Verde, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Qatar, and the United Kingdom, while Lichtenstein had submitted its periodic report under the simplified reporting procedure.

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

The Committee’s sixty-ninth session will be held from 19 February to 9 March 2018, during which it will review reports presented by Malaysia, Chile, Republic of Korea, Fiji, Saudi Arabia, Suriname, Luxembourg and the Marshall Islands.  All the documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, can be found on 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. this afternoon to hold an informal public meeting with non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions with respect to Malaysia, Chile, Republic of Korea and Fiji, whose reports will be reviewed this week.

Opening Statement

ADAM ABDELMOULA, Director, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, started by expressing deep sadness at the passing on 9 December 2017 of Theodora Oby Nwakwo, a distinguished jurist and a women’s rights activist, who had served on the Committee since 2013.  Ms. Nwakwo had never missed a battle to give a voice to the voiceless and in 2015 she had received the Women Have Wings award for women of courage, said Mr. Abdelmoula.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women had requested, on 28 November 2017, the Government of Myanmar to submit an exceptional report by the end of May 2018, recalled Mr. Abdelmoula.  The Committee had requested information on cases of sexual violence, including rape, against Rohingya women and girls by State security forces, on the number of women and girls killed since the latest outbreak of violence in August 2017, and on prosecutions and sentences imposed on perpetrators.  On 5 December, the Human Rights Council had held a special session on the situation of the minority Rohingya Muslim population and other minorities in the Rakhine state of Myanmar.  The High Commissioner for Human Rights had asked the Council to recommend the establishment of a new, impartial and independent mechanism to assist individual criminal investigations of those responsible.  In his address to the Council, the High Commissioner had deplored various rights deprivations, which this Committee had already highlighted in its 2016 concluding observations on Myanmar, including restrictions on freedom of movement of the Rohingya minority and their access to identity cards, education and healthcare, and the very high incidence of maternal and child mortality among Rohingya families.  In the resolution adopted at the end of this special session, the Council had requested the High Commissioner to provide oral updates on the human rights situation of the Rohingya for a period of three years, and to prepare a comprehensive written report on the situation and present it to the Council at its fortieth session in March 2019.  This report would greatly benefit from the input of this Committee and other human rights mechanisms.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights would soon adopt its Organizational Management Plan for 2018, further noted Mr. Abdelmoula, which included enhancing equality and countering discrimination as one of its pillars; four of the eight thematic results under this pillar directly related to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.  The Plan linked the thematic results to the Sustainable Development Goals that provided a common reference and baseline work on equality and non-discrimination, and the Office commended the Committee’s concrete steps to promote women’s human rights perspectives through those Goals.  Additionally, the Plan placed a great emphasis on national implementation; through their recommendations, the human rights mechanisms, including treaty bodies such as this Committee, provided basis for engagement with States and other national actors, and an opportunity for the Office to support States in implementing the recommendations.

Mr. Abdelmoula stressed that an important lesson to be drawn from many country emergency situations was that the work of the human rights mechanisms – as this Committee’s work on Myanmar – could provide indicators for early warning for human rights violations that might lead to violence and conflict.  In doing so, human rights treaty bodies complemented the Secretary-General’s focus on prevention.  Human rights were facing challenging times and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and treaty bodies were feeling the brunt, continued Mr. Abdelmoula.  The financial decisions taken by the General Assembly at the end of its seventy-second session in December 2017 had serious implications for the Office and all treaty bodies, as resources for the travel of experts and staff had been reduced by 25 per cent and 10 per cent respectively, and the establishment of only two out of 11 requested posts had been approved.  The additional meeting time of this Committee had not been affected by this decision.  Mr. Abdelmoula reassured the Experts that the Office was looking at ways and means to address this situation through the appropriate budgetary process, and that it remained committed to provide treaty bodies with the highest quality of support.

In the discussion that followed, Committee Experts recognized the efforts of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and his Office to ensure that human rights treaty bodies had sufficient resources to ensure their functioning, and asked about possible creative ways to address the budgetary gaps, and how those financing gaps would impact the preparatory work for the allocated meeting time.  Stressing the importance of the work of independent Committee Experts, an Expert urged that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights should assess the duplication of work between human rights committees and the proliferating special procedures.  A concern was raised that the reduction in resources would cause greater backlogs, which in turn would lead to increasing dissatisfaction of States parties; this dissatisfaction would particularly affect the crucially important work of inquiries and communications.  Was it really possible to do more without adequate resources, wondered the Experts.  Many contemporary crises had their origin in human rights violations, thus the increased importance of shoring up the relevance of international law and the respect for human rights.

ADAM ABDELMOULA, Director, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the resource allocation was an issue for Member States to address and recalled that resolution 68/268 called for the allocation of resources in tandem with the increasing workload of human rights treaty bodies.  In essence, the latest decision by the General Assembly concerning resource allocation had not honoured the accepted formula in its own resolution 68/268.  Because the General Assembly had not allocated the needed resources, and because the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was already overstretched, it could not support additional work of the human rights treaty bodies.  The General Assembly’s decision not to grant additional resources, including for staff, would cause an increase in the backlog of the treaty bodies, and would bring the whole situation back to square one.  The Office was working with the General Assembly to urge it to reconsider the decision.

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-ninth session.

DALIA LEINARTE, Committee Chairperson, presenting her inter-sessional report, said that Ms. Oby Nwankwo, the Committee Expert who had passed away on 9 December 2017, would be greatly missed, and that during the session, the Committee would approve the candidate nominated by the Government of Nigeria.  The number of States parties to the Convention remained at 189.  Monaco had accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1 on the Convention concerning the meeting time of the Committee, bringing the total number of States parties which had done so to 72.  The acceptance by 126 States parties to the Convention was required for this amendment to enter into force, recalled the Chair, and said that the number of States parties to the Optional Protocol to the Convention remained at 109.  Nine States parties had submitted their periodic reports since the last session, namely Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Botswana, Cabo Verde, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Qatar and the United Kingdom, while Lichtenstein had submitted its periodic report under the simplified reporting procedure.

Turning to her inter-sessional activities, Ms. Leinarte said that, at the international conference on cooperative indicators for measuring progress in the field of human rights in November 2017 Tajikistan, she had discussed the importance of the Sustainable Development Goal 5 and the practice of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.  In December 2017, Ms. Leinarte had delivered a presentation on a theme of the Committee’s jurisprudence and practice in the field of violence against women, organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow, Russia.  The Chair would attend the opening of the sixty-second session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York on 12 March.

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

Pre-sessional Working Group Report and the Follow-up

NAHLA HAIDAR, Committee Expert, briefed the Committee on the pre-sessional working group for the sixty-ninth session, which had met from 24 to 28 July and had prepared list of issues with regard to the reports of Chile, Fiji, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia and Suriname.  On a pilot basis, the Working Group had prepared a list of issues prior to the submission of the eight periodic report of Mauritius under its optional simplified reporting procedure; this report was scheduled for review at the Committee’s seventy-first session.  The lists of issues and questions, which focused on themes covered by the Convention and were prepared with particular attention to the States’ parties follow-up to the concluding observations of the Committee on their previous report, had been transmitted to the States parties concerned.

HILARY GBEDEMAH, Committee Expert and Rapporteur on Follow-Up, said that she had met with representatives of Uganda and the Central African Republic whose responses had been positive and who had appreciated the information shared.  At the end of the sixty-eighth session, follow-up letters outlining the outcome of assessments of follow-up reports had been sent to Benin, Brunei Darrusalam, Slovenia and Spain, and first reminders regarding overdue reports to Croatia, The Gambia, Namibia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal and Viet Nam.
The Committee had received follow-up reports from Bolivia, Croatia, Maldives, Mauritania, Namibia and Poland with delays, and from Portugal and Uzbekistan on time.  During the current session, first reminders regarding the submission of follow-up reports should be sent to Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Russia, Timor-Leste and the United Arab Emirates.
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