CEDAW – the Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women of­ten re­ferred to as the bill of rights of women, is an in­ter­na­tion­al treaty adopt­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on 18 De­cem­ber 1979.

De­spite the ex­is­tence of oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights treaties, women still do not have equal rights with men. Ad­di­tion­al means of pro­tect­ing women’s hu­man rights were re­quired be­cause women’s “hu­man­i­ty” did not guar­an­tee pro­tec­tion of their rights.

For the past 40 years, the Com­mit­tee on the Elim­i­na­tion of Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Women has worked with ded­i­ca­tion and pas­sion to as­sist coun­tries in im­ple­ment­ing their treaty oblig­a­tions to pro­tect and pro­mote women’s hu­man rights since the VERY FIRST SES­SION con­vened in Gene­va in Oc­to­ber 1982.

The CEDAW Com­mit­tee is the body of in­de­pen­dent ex­perts that mon­i­tors im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of All Forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Women. The CEDAW Com­mit­tee con­sists of 23 ex­perts on women’s rights from around the world. Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came a sig­na­to­ry to CEDAW on 27 June 1980. Our very own Pro­fes­sor Rho­da Red­dock was ap­point­ed to the 23-mem­ber Unit­ed Na­tions com­mit­tee in 2018, charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of mon­i­tor­ing the progress made by States Par­ties in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Con­ven­tion.

Professor Rhoda Reddock facilitating CEDAW Sensitization.

Tremen­dous Sen­si­ti­za­tion Wit­nessed

The Com­mit­tee has es­tab­lished it­self as an au­thor­i­ta­tive source on all that con­cerns women’s rights. Since its first ses­sion in Oc­to­ber 1982, the Com­mit­tee has wit­nessed tremen­dous growth in the num­ber of States par­ties and cor­re­spond­ing growth in its work­load. The Con­ven­tion cur­rent­ly has 189 states par­ties. Thus, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the mem­ber states of the UN (193) have vol­un­tar­i­ly agreed to re­spect, pro­tect, pro­mote and ful­fil the hu­man rights of women.

The Con­ven­tion iden­ti­fies many spe­cif­ic ar­eas where there has been no­to­ri­ous dis­crim­i­na­tion against women, for ex­am­ple in re­gard to po­lit­i­cal rights, mar­riage and the fam­i­ly, and em­ploy­ment. It al­so spells out spe­cif­ic goals and mea­sures that are to be tak­en to fa­cil­i­tate the cre­ation of a glob­al so­ci­ety in which women en­joy full equal­i­ty with men and thus full re­al­iza­tion of their guar­an­teed hu­man rights.

Professor Rhoda Reddock.

Why is CEDAW im­por­tant?

CEDAW is a tool that helps women around the world to bring about change in their dai­ly life. In coun­tries that have rat­i­fied the treaty, CEDAW has proved in­valu­able in op­pos­ing the ef­fects of dis­crim­i­na­tion, which in­clude vi­o­lence, pover­ty, and lack of le­gal pro­tec­tions, along with the de­nial of in­her­i­tance, prop­er­ty rights, and ac­cess to cred­it.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, the treaty has con­tributed the de­vel­op­ment of:

• ↓cit­i­zen­ship rights in Botswana and Japan;

• in­her­i­tance rights in Tan­za­nia;

• ↓prop­er­ty rights and po­lit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion in Cos­ta Ri­ca.

CEDAW has al­so fos­tered adop­tion of:

• a law on gen­der equal­i­ty in Mon­go­lia;

• ↓a law in Rwan­da pro­hibit­ing sex-based dis­crim­i­na­tion in ac­cess to land;

• ↓do­mes­tic vi­o­lence laws in Turkey, Nepal, South Africa, and the Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea;

• ↓leg­is­la­tion crim­i­nal­iz­ing all forms of vi­o­lence against women in Burk­i­na Fa­so and femi­cide in Pana­ma;

• ↓a na­tion­al in­quiry in­to miss­ing and mur­dered in­dige­nous women in Cana­da;

• ↓an­ti-traf­fick­ing laws in Ukraine and Moldo­va.

How does CEDAW work?

The States that rat­i­fied the Con­ven­tion are legal­ly oblig­ed, first­ly, to elim­i­nate all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion against women in all ar­eas of life, and, sec­ond­ly, to en­sure women’s full de­vel­op­ment and ad­vance­ment in or­der that they can ex­er­cise and en­joy their hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms in the same way as men. Third­ly, a State par­ty must al­low the CEDAW Com­mit­tee to scru­ti­nize its ef­forts to im­ple­ment the treaty by re­port­ing to the body at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals.

Coun­tries that have be­come par­ty to the treaty (States par­ties) are oblig­ed to sub­mit reg­u­lar re­ports to the Com­mit­tee on how the rights of the Con­ven­tion are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed. Dur­ing its pub­lic ses­sions, the Com­mit­tee re­views each State par­ty re­port and ad­dress­es its con­cerns and rec­om­men­da­tions to the State par­ty in the form of con­clud­ing ob­ser­va­tions.

In­for­ma­tion Source:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/in­stru­ments-mech­a­nisms/in­stru­ments/con­ven­tion-elim­i­na­tion-all-forms-dis­crim­i­na­tion-against-women

CEDAW Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CCoTT)

CEDAW Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CCoTT) is a UN ECOSOC ac­cred­it­ed vol­un­teer non-gov­ern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tion in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der the 1995 com­pa­nies act fo­cused on Ad­vo­ca­cy, Pub­lic Aware­ness and Ed­u­ca­tion on and for the sus­tain­able im­ple­men­ta­tion of the prin­ci­ples of the Con­ven­tion for the Elim­i­na­tion of All forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women (CEDAW). Us­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach, we uti­lize the rec­om­men­da­tions ad­vanced at state pe­ri­od­ic re­views to en­sure com­pli­ance with­in a na­tion­al and hu­man rights con­text.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion strives to cul­ti­vate a vi­brant com­mu­ni­ty that will sup­port, strength­en, and guide the de­vel­op­ment of frame­works as a crit­i­cal cog in the ad­vo­ca­cy wheel while pro­mot­ing the es­sen­tial tenets of the Con­ven­tion, and en­gag­ing with com­mu­ni­ties in a man­ner that adds sig­nif­i­cant val­ue in­to ef­fec­tive, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

Con­tact De­tails:

Tel: (868) 489-2185 | 225-7734 | Email: in­fo@cedawtt.org | Web­site: www.cedawtt.org

(in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted by Ter­ry Ince)

CEDAW is made up of 30 ar­ti­cles, di­vid­ed in­to the fol­low­ing ar­eas:-

Gen­er­al frame­work of the Con­ven­tion Ar­ti­cles 1-5

1. De­f­i­n­i­tion of dis­crim­i­na­tion -

Any dis­tinc­tion, ex­clu­sion or re­stric­tion made on the ba­sis of sex which has the ef­fect or pur­pose of im­pair­ing or nul­li­fy­ing the recog­ni­tion, en­joy­ment or ex­er­cise by women, ir­re­spec­tive of their mar­i­tal sta­tus, on a ba­sis of equal­i­ty of men and women, of hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms in the po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, so­cial, cul­tur­al, civ­il or any oth­er field.

2. Pol­i­cy mea­sures -

States must make laws and reg­u­la­tions, im­ple­ment poli­cies and change prac­tices to elim­i­nate dis­crim­i­na­tion against women.

3. Equal­i­ty -

Women are fun­da­men­tal­ly equal with men in all spheres of life. States should take ac­tion to en­sure women can en­joy ba­sic hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms.

4. Tem­po­rary spe­cial -

mea­sures Af­fir­ma­tive ac­tion or tem­po­rary spe­cial mea­sures should and can be used (e.g. quo­tas or women-on­ly ser­vices) to ac­cel­er­ate women’s equal­i­ty.

5. Sex roles and stereo­typ­ing -

The Con­ven­tion rec­og­nizes the in­flu­ence of cul­ture and tra­di­tion in re­strict­ing women’s en­joy­ment of rights. States must mod­i­fy or abol­ish dis­crim­i­na­to­ry cul­tur­al prac­tices and take ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures to elim­i­nate sex role stereo­typ­ing and prej­u­dice stem­ming from the idea of the in­fe­ri­or­i­ty or su­pe­ri­or­i­ty of one sex over the oth­er.

Spe­cif­ic and sub­stan­tive is­sues Ar­ti­cles 6-16

6. Traf­fick­ing and pros­ti­tu­tion -

States Par­ties must take all mea­sures, in­clud­ing leg­is­la­tion to stop all forms of traf­fick­ing and ex­ploita­tion of women for pros­ti­tu­tion.

7. Po­lit­i­cal and pub­lic life -

Women have equal rights to vote, hold pub­lic of­fice and par­tic­i­pate in civ­il so­ci­ety.

8. Par­tic­i­pa­tion at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el -

Women should be able to rep­re­sent their coun­try in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and work with in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions on an equal ba­sis with men.

9. Na­tion­al­i­ty -

Women have equal rights with men to ac­quire, change or re­tain their na­tion­al­i­ty and that of their chil­dren.

10. Equal rights in ed­u­ca­tion -

Women have equal rights to ed­u­ca­tion in­clud­ing vo­ca­tion­al train­ing and guid­ance, con­tin­u­ing ed­u­ca­tion, sport and schol­ar­ships. The con­tent of the cur­ricu­lum should pre­vent the rep­e­ti­tion of neg­a­tive stereo­types and sex­u­al health ed­u­ca­tion should be avail­able.

11. Em­ploy­ment -

Women have the right to work, em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, equal re­mu­ner­a­tion, free choice of pro­fes­sion and em­ploy­ment, so­cial se­cu­ri­ty, and pro­tec­tion of health. Dis­crim­i­na­tion on the grounds of mar­riage, preg­nan­cy, child­birth, and child­care is pro­hib­it­ed.

12. Health­care and fam­i­ly plan­ning -

Women have equal rights to ac­cess health care in­clud­ing sex­u­al health, fam­i­ly plan­ning ser­vices and pre and post-na­tal care.

13. Eco­nom­ic and so­cial ben­e­fits -

Women have equal rights to fam­i­ly ben­e­fits, fi­nan­cial cred­it and to par­tic­i­pate in recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties, sports and cul­tur­al life.

14. Rur­al women -

Rur­al women have the right to ad­e­quate liv­ing con­di­tions, par­tic­i­pa­tion in de­vel­op­ment plan­ning, and ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, trans­port and fi­nan­cial ser­vices.

15. Equal­i­ty be­fore the law -

Women are to be treat­ed as equal be­fore the law. Women have the le­gal right to en­ter con­tracts, own prop­er­ty and to choose where to live.

16. Mar­riage and fam­i­ly -

Women have equal rights with men with­in mar­riage in­clud­ing fam­i­ly plan­ning, prop­er­ty own­er­ship and oc­cu­pa­tion.

Com­mit­tee and Pro­ce­dures Ar­ti­cles 17-23

Ad­min­is­tra­tion and in­ter­pre­ta­tion Ar­ti­cles 23-30