消除对妇女歧视委员会审议塞内加尔的报告（部分翻译）

消除对妇女歧视委员会

2015年7月7日

消除对妇女歧视委员会今天审议了塞内加尔关于落实《消除对妇女一切形式歧视公约》规定的第三次至第七次合并定期报告。

塞内加尔常驻联合国日内瓦办事处代表巴斯罗·塞内（Bassirou Sene）在介绍报告时重申了塞内加尔消除对妇女歧视的承诺，包括通过旨在确保在2015-2025年优先行动计划中将性别问题主流化的国家性别平等和均衡方案。由于《平等法》的落实，2012年的立法选举和2014年的地方选举在妇女政治代表性方面出现了明显改善：议会妇女成员的数量已由2007年的22%增至43%，而妇女在地方社群的代表率已从2009年的15.9%增至目前的47.2%。虽然仍存在一些挑战，该国在打击对妇女的歧视方面作出了重要的进步，塞内加尔希望与民间社会和私营部门在应对这些挑战方面建立合作伙伴关系，尤其是在妇女性别平等和赋权方面。

委员会专家对塞内加尔承认妇女在诉诸司法方面面临障碍表示认可，并询问该国采取了那些措施来确保妇女能够诉诸司法和争取权利。该国仍有不符合公约规定的法律，例如家庭法中关于婚龄的规定。专家们询问了修改法律和去除歧视性规定的时间表，并建议通过一项包含充分符合公约规定的歧视定义和补救措施的法律。在实地落实公约需要广泛的事实、法律和政策文书，专家表示，并询问了塞内加尔使用临时特别措施和划拨给打击歧视和暴力侵害妇女问题的预算问题。由于对妇女产生负面影响，包括妇女生殖器切割、早婚和童婚、一夫多妻制和休妻问题在内的有害传统做法也是值得关切的问题。

代表团在回应时强调称，国家性别均衡和平等战略和行动计划涉及到各个领域的妇女不平等问题且包括一些领域的广泛积极行动。“权利亭项目”旨在促使妇女了解她们可用于打击暴力和歧视的工具，而司法部下属的性别政策厅则旨在确保妇女更易诉诸司法的机会。 在塞内加尔，各方对妇女生殖器官切割问题的关注不断上升，该国还开展了一项全国调查以理解打击这个和其他有害做法面临的障碍和困难，塞内加尔还将与包括联合国妇女署在内的五个联合国机构共同推出旨在消除基于性别的暴力的多层次全面行动方案。塞内加尔于2013年推出了特别旨在消除儿童乞讨的国家儿童保护战略，而妇女、家庭和儿童部也在打击贩运儿童的框架下设立了一个帮助儿童的中心和三位数救助热线。

塞内女士在总结发言中代表作为发展主体、正在向前迈进的塞内加尔妇女感谢委员会，并重申塞内加尔始终努力成为一个尊崇法治，促进人权、尤其是妇女权利的国家。

塞内加尔代表团包括来自司法部，妇女、家庭和儿童部，外交部和塞内加尔常驻联合国日内瓦办事处的代表。

委员会将于7月8日星期三上午10点再次召开公开会议，届时将审议西班牙的第七次和第八次合并定期报告（CEDAW/C/ESP/7-8）。

报告

点此阅读塞内加尔第三次至第七次合并定期报告：CEDAW/C/SEN/3。

Presentation of the Reports of Senegal

BASSIROU SENE, Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations Office at Geneva, reiterated the commitment of Senegal to eradicate discrimination against women and said that it had built an economy based on sustained growth for the benefit of all citizens, through several flagship programmes, such as the national Gender Equality and Equity Programme, which would ensure gender mainstreaming in the Priority Plan of Action 2015-2025. Senegal had ratified the International Labour Organization Convention 183 on maternity protection. The outcome of the legislative elections in 2012 had seen a significant increase in the number of women members of Parliament, from 22 per cent in 2007 to 43 per cent. Those gains had been reinforced by the results of the 2014 local elections, in which the representation of women in local collectivities had tripled, from 15.9 per cent in 2009 to 47.2 in 2015. Those were some effective examples of the implementation of the Law on Parity.

The mechanism for social protection had been strengthened, and after launching the universal health coverage programme, Senegal provided 250,000 families with economic subsidies or family security stipends in order to increase the resilience of women. The process to ensure equality of opportunity for persons with disabilities had been launched, which allowed equal access to health care, education, vocational training and grants and financing. Youth employment was a priority and Senegal had put in place a Community Areas Programme aimed at making agriculture the first source of employment and the engine of economic growth; the programme would create 300,000 jobs. Legal, political and institutional measures to protect children and the most vulnerable would be strengthened, and would also ensure tangible application of international instruments; this included the adoption of an action plan to address the problem of child and early marriages. Significant progress had been recorded in the fight against discrimination against women, even if some challenges remained, and Senegal hoped to build partnerships with civil society and the private sector to address those challenges, in particular those of gender equality and empowerment of women.

Articles 1 and 2: Defining Discrimination and Obligations of States Parties

Questions from the Experts

A Committee Expert expressed regret that since the dialogue that had taken place in 1994, the Committee had not had an opportunity to exchange views with Senegal on its implementation of the Convention, and as a consequence, the Committee would examine today 21 lapsed years. Concerning the legislation, the Expert asked how Senegal would ensure that all women in the country knew their rights and how to enjoy those rights; how it would remove discrimination against women from law and practice; and what measures would be undertaken to ensure access to justice and courts for women to claim their rights. The Expert welcomed Senegal’s intention to ensure that its National Human Rights Committee would receive A status under the Paris Principles, and asked about the timeframe for the revision of legal provisions to remove discriminatory provisions.

Responses by the Delegation

With regard to capacity building of stakeholders, measures were in place to ensure that the judiciary and legal professionals were familiar with the issues related to discrimination against women and violence against women. The Agency for Human Rights participated in the dissemination of international legal instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Concerning the constitutionality of certain laws, any women who believed that a law was not constitutional could lodge a petition with the Constitutional Court; unfortunately, statistics for the number of cases lodged were not available. Senegal would shortly modify its Criminal Code and its Criminal Procedure Code, which would allow civil society organizations to lodge complaints and cases with courts. The draft law to amend the law on its national human rights institution was now being circulated within Parliament; once enacted, the National Human Rights Committee would be called the National Human Rights Commission and it would be set up in accordance with the Paris Principles. In terms of awareness about rights, the delegation stressed the existence of the Network of the Houses of Justice that could lodge proceedings on behalf of individuals and could represent in court those who were illiterate. Some discriminatory laws unfortunately still existed. Senegal had revised its Code on the Rights of Child and acknowledged that its Family Code was not in line with the provisions of the Convention, including on the issues of age for marriage, child and early marriage and corporal punishment.

In a follow-up question, a Committee Expert thanked Senegal for recognizing obstacles to access to justice for women and asked whether an enactment of a law which would contain the definition of discrimination against women in line with the Convention and provided remedies could make the issues confronting women in Senegal more visible?

The delegation said that although discrimination was punishable in its Criminal Code, it would be advisable to include in its legislation the Convention’s definition of discrimination against women word for word. The legal reform in Senegal had already been launched and it would be useful to consider the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in this process. A significant budget had been allocated for free legal aid for criminal cases, which were dispersed upon demands lodged by lawyers.

Another Expert stressed that the new laws needed to be passed as soon as possible, considering that the process had been ongoing for several years already.

Articles 3 and 4: Appropriate Measures and Temporary Special Measures to Combat Discrimination

Questions from the Experts

A Committee Expert asked about the Ministry for Women, Family and Children and how it implemented policies related to gender and women empowerment. Women were well recognized as useful agents of development, but not necessarily as holders of rights or power. The Expert stressed that adequate budgets were necessary to ensure effectiveness of programmes and asked about the budget for programmes to fight violence against women and how they were distributed between the Ministry for Women, Family and Children and the Ministry of Justice.

Another Expert stressed that a whole range of practical, legal and policy instruments were important to ensure the implementation of the Convention on the ground, including special measures. The Expert invited Senegal to reflect further on how to use special measures, including in its Senegal Emergence Programme, and in the areas of illiteracy and feminization of poverty, stressing that it could use the Committee’s general comment on the subject as guidance.

Responses by the Delegation

The National Gender Equity and Equality Strategy Action Plan was responsible for the issue of the inequality of women across all fields, and it contained a whole range of affirmative actions in several areas, including in education. The implementation of the strategy was coordinated by the Ministry of Women, Family and Children, and its specific actions were implemented by several bodies and agencies according to the Action and Implementation Plan. The Ministry had set up local and regional committees in order to monitor the implementation of the policies and programmes, including on supporting women’s empowerment through the dissemination of knowledge about their rights.

On feminization of poverty and women empowerment, it was important to stress that development policies and programmes in the country were focused not only on economic growth, but also on building human capital and on peace and security. The Rights Kiosk Project aimed to enable women to know what tools they had at their disposal to fight violence and discrimination. The Gender Policy Cell existed in the Ministry of Justice to ensure easier access to justice for women.

Senegal had set up a social protection system which helped women from vulnerable segments of society and it aimed to increase the coverage from the current 20 per cent to 75 per cent by 2020. The priority was placed on reproductive health and some medical interventions were provided free of charge, such as C sections and extension of family planning services, and childbirth was free in some areas of the country. The programme also introduced itinerant midwives to improve maternal, neonatal and infant health in remote areas, as well as free health care for the elderly and children under the age of five. Preliminary findings on the impact of those gender policies were available and it was hoped that gender policy and mainstreaming would soon be institutionalized within the Ministry of Health.

A Gender Unit would be created within the Ministry of Finance which would examine all programmes for their gender characteristics and would then refer those projects to budgeting units; this would ensure that gender mainstreaming and budgeting would be institutionalized.

Articles 5 and 6: Modifying Social and Cultural Patterns and Suppressing Exploitation of Women

Questions from the Experts

A Committee Expert noted that there were harmful traditional practices which affected women in Senegal, such as female genital mutilation and early and child marriages, and asked what was being done to address and raise awareness about such practices, and what was being done to prohibit harmful practices such as polygamy, child marriages, female genital mutilation, and repudiation. Another Expert asked about measures to empower women to denounce and fight violence against women, including domestic violence, about laws in place to ensure proper functioning of the Observatory of Gender Parity, and about human and financial resources to ensure its proper functioning.

Responses by the Delegation

There was increased attention on female genital mutilation and a nation-wide survey had been conducted to understand obstacles and barriers to the fight against this practice. Civil society organizations were very active in providing awareness and training on gender-based violence and sexual violence crimes. An inter-ministerial think-tank on violence against women had been set up, while the prosecution of cases of domestic violence was mandatory. It was a rigour of the law on domestic violence that sometimes prevented women from filing a complaint, because the offenders were imprisoned and this also carried negative consequences for the whole family.

In terms of financing of the fight against discrimination, the State was the primary funding source and earmarked substantive funding to ensure that the Law on Parity was implemented. There were funding gaps in some other substantive areas though, for example the Ministry for Women had a rather low funding, but because gender issues were horizontal ones, each Ministry had its own gender budget, but there was no system to calculate the total funding for gender actions.

Law 9905 had been drafted to address female genital mutilation, but the rate of detection of the procedure was very low because people in Senegal did not usually report each other. A multi-dimensional and holistic Plan of Action to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence would soon be launched in cooperation with five United Nations agencies, including United Nations Women. People were already talking about this issue which was previously a taboo, while a survey was being undertaken to assess the situation with regard to sexual violence, gender-based violence and female genital mutilation which would form a basis for the formulation of future programmes.

Questions from the Experts

A Committee Expert commended Senegal for the recently enacted Law on Human Trafficking and its Action Plan, and expressed concern about the significant gap between the legal and administrative measures and their implementation, which resulted in the continued practice of human trafficking in the country, including for purposes of labour, sexual exploitation, and forced begging. The Expert asked about resources put at the disposal of anti-trafficking unit, whether the planned legal revisions would include the Anti-trafficking Law, measures to support and protect victims of trafficking, data on the prosecution of unscrupulous teachers of Koranic schools and corrupt State officials, and measures to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among prostitutes.

Responses by the Delegation

Senegal took the issue of human trafficking and trafficking in persons seriously and had in place a law and action plan to address this issue; the amendment of the Criminal Code to this end was ongoing. Statistics on trafficking in persons were not reliable, but it was known that in 2008, out of 100 cases of trafficking in persons, 47 did not lead to a trial as a result of lack of evidence or lack of due procedure. Senegal did not have in place a mechanism for the compensation of victims of trafficking, nor a dedicated complaint system; shelters for victims of trafficking were also lacking. In 2013, the National Children Protection Strategy had been set up as an umbrella strategy for various programmes to protect childhood. It also included a programme to end child begging, a very complex socio-economic issue deriving from multi-faith traditions. Prostitution was not criminalized. The Ministry for Women, Family and Childhood had set up a centre which had a three-digit hot line for children.

A delegate stressed that child beggars accompanied by their mothers seen on the streets in Senegal were not Senegalese at all and explained that because of an Islamic obligation to give to the poor, many poor persons from neighbouring countries came into the country and begged. In 2011, 10 Koranic teachers or marabouts had been prosecuted for forcing students or talibes to beg, and nine had been sentenced.

In follow-up questions, a Committee Expert noted that the delegation said that there was a high degree of impunity for violence against women, also due to women not filing a complaint against their husbands who would then be imprisoned, and asked whether Senegal was considering any alternative punishment for perpetrators of violence against women, which would ensure that there was no impunity. Another Expert stressed that the World Health Organization was against mandatory health checks and asked what proportion of imprisoned women were there for failing to undergo the compulsory health tests. Rape was a terrible form of violence, said another Expert, noting an increase in the number of cases, and that rape was an offence and not a crime.

Senegal had a very low HIV/AIDS prevalence rate and stressed that prostitutes were not opposed to health checks and treatments. The primary difficulty in addressing prostitution was that it was actually clandestine because of socio-cultural reasons. The law had made it possible for prostitutes, women and men alike, to access health services.

Articles 7 to 9: Equality in Political and Public Life at the National and International Levels and Equality in Nationality Laws

Questions from the Experts

An Expert welcomed that Senegal was ranked right after Sweden in the political participation of women and had reached 43 per cent women representation in Parliament thanks to the Law on Parity; but the Expert was concerned about persistent negative stereotypes about the political participation of women, for example as heads of political parties, while data on the number of women in the foreign service and the judiciary were lacking.

Replies by the Delegation

Concerning the low number of women in the diplomatic service, a delegate stressed that a requirement was to pass the competitive national examination, which also required attending an institution of higher education.

A committee for the monitoring of the implementation of the Law on Parity had been set up, which also aimed to build capacity of women to better implement this law.

Articles 10 to 14: Equality in Education, in Employment and Labour Rights, and in Access to Health Facilities, Finance and Social Security, and Rural Women

Questions from the Experts

A Committee Expert congratulated Senegal on advancements made in education and expressed concern about vertical and horizontal segregation in the education system. The illiteracy rate among women was high and only about 10 per cent of girls accessed higher education. What incentives and temporary special measures were in place or were being contemplated to address this issue and to close regional disparity in the teachers’ force? Corporal punishment was still practiced in schools, and drop out rates for girls were very high, often due to pregnancies. How many people had been sanctioned for sexual harassment of students?

The delegation was also asked about gender mainstreaming in employment policies and programmes and what was being done to promote the employment of women in traditionally male professions; about the definition of sexual harassment in the workplace in line with international norms and standards and the measures to address gender pay gap in public and private sectors; and about measures to address the disturbingly persistent phenomenon of forced labour of children, particularly students of Koranic schools forced to beg by the teachers. Experts further inquired about plans to cover the human resources gap in the health sector, about measures to reduce the very high maternal mortality rates of 410 per 100,000 live births, and the data on abortions performed in the country.

Responses by the Delegation

The report of Senegal contained very detailed information about the initiatives in the area of education and the measures in place to ensure higher schooling rates of girls, including in higher education. The delegation agreed on the need to step up efforts in the area of education, and stressed the crucial importance of data and statistics for this purpose. A lot of awareness raising among parents and teachers was being undertaken with regard to rape of girls in schools. Corporal punishment was formally prohibited by an amendment to the Criminal Code.

Gender wage disparity no longer existed in the public service where women and men enjoyed the same salary. Recently, an act to establish quotas for the employment of persons with disabilities had been voted in. There was no discrimination between women and men in the Constitution, women and men were equal, although women in Senegal could be bolder in their quest for advancement. There should be more people working in agriculture, and the Government should facilitate the provision of agricultural inputs and machinery to assist people in achieving self-sufficiency.

Five hundred midwives and nurses had been recruited recently as part of the response to the Ebola epidemic, and health structures were in place in urban areas to meet the demand for health services. The Government had a constitutional obligation to provide health to everyone, but a deficit in healthcare existed, as evidenced by the high maternal mortality rates. In 2014, the Government had recruited 1,000 workers, including 500 midwives, to keep maternal mortality rates in check; another 500 would be recruited this year. Regional public health institutions were being opened in each region, and specialised hospitals would be opened in four regions and in the capital that would provide specialist services for cancer, kidney transplants and maternal health. In order to improve the situation of human resources in the health sector, nurses and paramedic training institutes were being set up.

Questions from the Experts

Committee Experts noted obstacles women faced in access to credit, loans and property because they could not offer collaterals, and because the existing rules prevented women from inheriting land. In rural areas, land belonged to heads of households, and women could not head a family, unless they were widows. There was a need to pay particular attention to rural women who represented the majority of women in the country, and the majority of workforce. Only 25 per cent of women effectively inherited land. Experts asked about the situation of women with disability, the situation of women in detention and older women.

Responses by the Delegation

A Commission on Land Reform had been set up and was looking into the proposals for reform of the laws governing land ownership, including access to land for women. It was important to say that land was in general managed by families. A keynote feature of the land reform policy was the setting up of agricultural community domains, in which many women were included. The National Women’s Loan Fund had been set up to facilitate the access of women to credit, while the Emergence Fund had been set up to increase access to microfinance for women. There were 27 women detained on charges of abortion.

Articles 15 and 16: Equality in Legal and Civil Matters and in Family Law

Questions from the Experts

An Expert said that since 1989, women in Senegal, including married women, enjoyed their full legal capacity, but the term “marital power” still applied, which was a form of discrimination against women. What was the normative legal framework governing family law in Senegal, and what was the scope of application of customary law, particularly in areas of marriage? The Committee Expert stressed the obligation of the Government to ensure that all marriages were registered in order to protect the rights of women and asked about property ownership in polygamous marriages and how women were empowered to make informed choice in this matter. The legal age of marriage was 16 for girls and 18 for boys, which was discriminatory to start with, and yet the Criminal Code criminalized the marriage of children under the age of 13.

Responses by the Delegation

Senegal was 95 per cent Muslim and polygamy was an option to be chosen during the registration of marriage. Customary marriage was common, because many people lived in rural areas. Marriage as an institution was protected by the State, and since 1973 custom was no longer the matter of the law; all judgements were handed down by civil courts and all questions pertaining to the family were settled on the basis of normative law. That said, there were remnants of customary law in the society and there was an option to choose a polygamous or monogamous marriage. In Senegal, polygamy was lawful and the changes needed to be debated by the society.

Concluding Remarks

YOKO HAYASHI, Committee Chairperson, thanked the delegation for the constructive dialogue and encouraged Senegal to take all necessary measures to address the various recommendations made by the Committee.

BASSIROU SENE, Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations Office at Geneva, thanked the Committee on behalf of women of Senegal who were moving ahead and who were agents of development and confirmed that Senegal throughout its history had always attempted to be a State of the rule of law and to promote human rights, especially the rights of women.

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