Activities of the Chairperson from the end of the exceptional session in August 2002 to 31 December 2002
Dear Experts and friends,
During the period in question, I participated in the following
activities:
The fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly, from 9 to 11 October
2002, - during the debate under items 102 and 103 on the advancement of women,
the follow-up to the Fourth
World Conference on Women and the twenty-third special session of the
General Assembly on “Women 2000: Gender equality, development and peace
for
the twenty first century”. Under
item 102, the Assembly considered, inter alia,:
·
The report of the Secretary-General
on working towards the elimination of crimes against women committed in the
name of honour (A/57/169);
·
The report of the Secretary-General
on trafficking in women and girls (A/57/170);
·
The Note of the Secretary-General on
the situation of the International Training and Research Institute for the
Advancement of Women (A/57/129-E-2002/77); and
·
The report of the Working Group on
the Future Operations of INSTRAW (A/57/330).
Dear Experts and friends,
I am purposely mentioning these documents because of their importance to
the work of the Committee. The first two are included because they relate to
the implementation of Articles 5, 6, and 12 of the Convention in particular.
The issue of trafficking in women and girls will be on the agenda during the
upcoming CSW session and the Committee may wish to make a statement on the
issue based on States parties reports reviewed so far. Trafficking in women and
girls has taken such a global dimension that not only do the victims suffer
discrimination under almost all the Articles of our Convention, but even their
basic right to life is often threatened. Personally, I feel that it is
important for the Committee to also inform itself of the difficult situation
and the future work of INSTRAW.
My main task was, of course, to brief the Third Committee on the output
of the Committee over the past year. Dear Experts and Friends, since you can
have copies of my statement, I shall not dwell on the statement itself, but
rather speak about the reactions to the statement by some of the delegates.
Almost all the delegates who took the floor referred to my statement and
commended the Committee’s work, particularly its revised working methods, which
as many put it, have made the constructive dialogue a very interesting learning
process. Many delegates highly commended the Committee for holding the first
ever informal closed meeting with States parties during the twenty-seventh
session. They found the meeting extremely useful, particularly in respect of
the implementation of Article 18 by States parties. May I take the opportunity
to encourage the Committee to implement its decision to hold such informal
meetings periodically? Such meetings should also be held with States not yet
parties to the Convention. I understand
the Committee will have such a meeting during this session.
Still on the reactions to my statement, please permit me to just mention
a few examples. The delegate from Ukraine spoke at length on CEDAW’s working
methods and was happy to inform the Assembly that his Government was in the
process of ratifying the Optional Protocol. Her Excellency the Ambassador of
Surinam also spoke at length about the “wonderful experience” during the
presentation of her country’s combined initial and periodic report. Reacting
to the twelfth meeting of States parties held on 29 August 2002, which I
had mentioned in my statement, like the distinguished delegate of Cuba and the
representative of CARICOM, her Excellency the Ambassador of Surinam regretted
that the Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC) was underrepresented on the
Committee, and worse still that the Caribbean sub-region
was not represented at all.
In his statement, the distinguished delegate of Iran mentioned that his
Government was in the process of ratifying the Convention. This was very
welcome information for me. “Old” Committee members will recall that in my
report to the Committee at its 27th session I mentioned that I had
meetings with the Iranian delegation when I participated in the Commission on
Human Rights meeting in Geneva in April 2002, the purpose of the meeting being
to encourage the Iranian Government to ratify the Convention. May I suggest
that the Committee follow up with the Mission here in New York? I have read
from other sources that the Parliament in Iran has passed a law that gives
women more opportunities to seek divorce even though the draft of this law had
previously failed to pass on several occasions. Again the policy on school
uniforms for girls (wearing veils) in basic schools has also been relaxed. To
me, these are commendable efforts towards the ratification and implementation
of the Convention.
I was very much intrigued by a point raised by the distinguished delegate
of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in her statement and I quote: “From the
perspective of the Framework of Welfare, women are seen as a vulnerable group,
as victims ‘we’ need to help. As if women are not part of ‘we, the peoples’.
Basing ourselves on the viewpoint of the Framework of Human Rights, no matter
how important, is not enough either. Women want to use their qualities, and
society needs their qualities; hence women want the opportunity to make their
own, diverse and valuable contributions. Society as a whole can benefit from
these.” Dear Experts, I am sure you also find the point interesting. The
distinguished delegate of Denmark, speaking on behalf of the European Union and
the Central and Eastern European Countries associated with the Union,
emphasised in his statement that the primary international instrument on
respect for the rights of women is the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol. The EU
welcomed the efforts made by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women. It urged States parties to accept the amendment to Article 20,
para. 1, of the Convention. The EU, by this commendable statement, is making it
crystal clear that the CEDAW Convention is the central international instrument
on respect for the rights of women. Experts should bear this in mind during the
presentation of reports of States parties from the Union, especially in terms of
the visibility of the Convention in national laws.
I was glad when I was also given the floor in the debate following a
panel on poverty alleviation. My comments were based on the fact that according
to States parties’ reports, feminization of poverty is largely due to the
denial of equal opportunities, equal rights and equal status to women and girls
throughout their life cycle, as well as all forms of violence against them.
Therefore, poverty alleviation programmes should address obstacles that impede the
full enjoyment by women and girls of their rights under the Convention,
including the implementation of Article 4.1, especially in the allocation of
funds and in education and training. I encouraged those countries that have not
yet ratified the Convention to do so. I also encouraged those State parties
that have placed reservations on articles that are incompatible with the letter
and spirit of the Convention to work towards withdrawing them if feminisation
of poverty is at least to be reduced.
Dear Experts and friends, on the afternoon of 9 October 2002, I had a
meeting with the Secretary-General. I was accompanied by Ms. Carolyn Hannan,
Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women. The purpose of the
meeting was to inform the Secretary-General that my term as Chairperson and
member of the Committee end on 31 December 2002 and to
once again thank him for his decision to keep the Committee in New York.
I briefed the Secretary-General on the Committee's first informal closed
meeting with States parties, talked about the large number of States parties
present and their active participation, and the fact that some of the
delegations were actually led by their Ambassadors. This and the overwhelming
participation of delegates at the twelfth meeting of States parties on 29
August 2002 are demonstrations of the keen interest that States parties have in
the work of the Committee and, also, of the fact that all States parties have
Missions in New York. In Geneva, many Missions
from developing countries serve at the same as their countries
representatives to Switzerland and in some cases to Austria as well. In
addition, they also serve on bodies and agencies such as ILO, WTO, WHO and many
more. Bearing in mind all this workload and limited staff -obviously due to
economic reasons, - it is difficult for such Missions to adequately and
effectively participate in all the various meetings. In this regard, it is my
hope that the decision he took on 9 March 2001 to keep the Committee serviced
by DAW was an irreversible one.
Thanks to Ms. Hannan, my attention was drawn to a report of the
Secretary-General, which was not part of items 102 and 103. The report was
under item 53 of the 57th session of the General Assembly and entitled,
“Strengthening of the United Nations: an agenda for further change” (A/57/387).
I read this document with keen interest, particularly paragraph 46 of section B
– Strengthening of human rights. This paragraph talks about elections in
respect of the Commission on Human Rights and debates. The paragraph states and
I quote, "They (Member States) must realize that, if they allow elections
and debates to be dictated by political considerations, or by block positions,
rather than by genuine efforts to strengthen human rights throughout the world,
the credibility and usefulness of the Commission will inevitably be
eroded". To me, this is also true for the independent treaty bodies. Dear
Experts and friends this powerful statement in the S-G's report touches upon an
issue which I have been concerned about for some time. I did commend the S-G
for the report and requested him to continue to emphasize the independence of
Committee members on the various treaty bodies. Nothing should jeopardise the
independence of Experts. The Secretary-General agreed and promised to bring
this to the attention of States parties. The Committee may wish to discuss this
issue with the aim of ensuring the independence of Experts. This could also be brought up at the
Chairpersons Meeting.
The document further raises the issue of States parties’ obligations to
report on the implementation of the current six human rights treaties to the
respective monitoring bodies and how this could be streamlined. The “old”
Experts will remember that this is an issue that keeps on coming up every now
and then. Reacting to this, I briefed
the Secretary-General on the
first Inter-Committee Meeting of the six UN human rights treaty bodies
held in June 2002. This meeting actually addressed most of the issues that were
raised in his document and came out with workable recommendations. Implementing
these recommendations could make the reporting procedures easier and more
effective in terms of content and length of the reports as well as reduce or
eliminate duplication of information to the different treaty bodies. The
recommendations of the First Inter-Committee Meeting of June 2002 held in
Geneva also encourage the Committee to address the gender perspective of the
five other human rights instruments as well.
May I recommend that the Committee take up this document, particularly
section B, and make a statement or suggestion, as incidentally was proposed in
a letter from the High Commissioner for Human Rights addressed to me as
Chairperson.
In all, my meeting with the Secretary-General was a very fruitful one and
I wish to take this opportunity to thank all those, particularly Ms. Hannan,
who made it possible to happen.