On the 3rd of December women and men around the world celebrated the 30th anniversary of CEDAW, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Within the existing patriarchal order CEDAW is an extraordinary revolutionary document, unique in its perception of women as full human beings.
Professor Upendra Baxi wrote:
“No single phrase in recent human history has been more privileged to bear the mission and burden of human destiny than [the phrase] “human rights”… -- the greatest gift of classical and contemporary human thought is the notion of human rights. Indeed, more than any other moral language available to us at this time in history, the language of human rights is able to expose the immorality and barbarism of the modern face of power”. (From “Inhuman Wrongs and Human Rights”)
Thirty years ago, this single powerful phrase ‘Human Rights’, was finally recognized as including and belonging to women too. CEDAW calls for equality and the elimination of discrimination, it also calls for the transformation of systems of oppression such as patriarchy and racism. Women’s human rights are about human rights for all, they speak to a life of shared and respected humanity. The elimination of discrimination against women is an imperative if we strive in earnest towards the fulfillment of human rights.
CEDAW was a major radical step forward, an act of transcendence, embarked on in a world dominated by a Patriarchal order (in which women willingly and unwillingly participate as well…) CEDAW recognizes and articulates the political, civil, economic, social and cultural human rights of women. It represents a practical yet ground-breaking call that stands to make all religions, all cultures and economic and social organizations across the globe richer by accepting women as equal human beings. CEDAW gives women an important role as agents of change at the center of the State, of communities and families.
It is important to stress again that CEDAW’s places an absolute prohibition on all forms of discrimination against women. Discrimination is defined as “any distinction, exclusion, or restriction, made on the basis of sex, with the purpose or effect of obstructing the enjoyment of human rights by women and girls". Furthermore, in addition to demanding that women be accorded equal rights with men, the Convention prescribes the measures to be taken to ensure that women everywhere are able to enjoy their full human rights as full human beings. The Convention covers all areas of life and frames them from a human rights perspective. Women’s right to political participation, education, health, equality in the family, a life free from violence and of an adequate standard of living are some of the human rights covered in the Convention. CEDAW talks about results, all actions taken by the government to improve the life of citizens should lead to equal results and benefits for women and men. The understanding is that life with human rights for all is a win/win situation.
Currently, 186 countries - over ninety percent of the members of the United Nations are party to CEDAW. These nations are bound to put the provisions of the Convention into practice and to translate human rights into an experience lived by all. The act of ratification of this human rights convention by a specific country is what gives “ teeth” to this call of equality and non discrimination for women. States that are party to CEDAW undertake the obligation to scrutinize their national laws accordingly and inform the population about it. Unfortunately, too many States are slow in doing so. More upsetting and totally incomprehensible is the fact that the United States is not one of the 186 countries who are committed to upholding CEDAW. This fact speaks for itself and calls for change.
As part of the celebrations in commemoration of the adoption of the CEDAW, this article is a call for all readers to support and join actions to have the Convention ratified by the US Congress. After all, the Convention sets out internationally accepted principles that would be legally bounding in the United States after ratification. Just think about the ways CEDAW would enrich the current debates about healthcare reform.
Background information on the Convention
CEDAW was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1979 to reinforce the provisions of existing international instruments and thus making human rights indivisible, interconnected and interrelated designed to combating the continuing discrimination against women. CEDAW identifies many specific areas where there has been notorious discrimination against women, for example in regard to political human rights, marriage and the family, and employment. In these and other areas the Convention 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 humanity as full Human beings. When you read the summary below you will find several important areas of our lives that call for change in the USA as well.
Women must participate in the decision that determine their lives; this is best done guided by the holistic human rights framework.
USEFUL RESOURCES: http://pdhre.org/conventionsum/cedaw.html
CEDAW in the US Campaign: http://actnow-phr.org/campaign/cedaw#petition
http://www.amnestyusa.org/violence-against-women/ratify-the-treaty-for-the-rights-of-women-cedaw/join-the-umbrella-petition/page.do?id=1108268
The text of the Convention: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cedaw.htm
Discrimination Against Women: The Convention and the Committee, Fact Sheet #22, UN Centre for Human Rights (http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet22en.pdf)
Website in commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Convention: http://www.unifem.org/cedaw30/
Response: Women as Full Human Beings
Lanfran@Yorku.ca
As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of CEDAW, the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women, we may want to temper our notions around the idea that CEDAW
is an extraordinary revolutionary document, unique in its
perception of women as full human beings.
The reason for the caution here is not to devalue the achievement of
CEDWA but to recognize two things. First that it is but on stepping
stone in a long path toward full rights for women, and a just gender
equality. There is much left to be done. Second, it is but one
stepping stone in a long path that, in Western thought at least,
stretches well back into the Enlightenment.
It was almost 200 years ago, after she had taken Edmond Burke to task
for not opposing American slavery, that Mary Wollstonecraft wrote "A
Vindication of the Rights of Women: with Strictures on Political and
Moral Subjects"(1792), re-published in Sylvana Tomaselli (ed) "A
Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of
Women", Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995.
While we mark history by events, by writings, and by declarations, the
history of the struggles around human rights have gone on for ever,
and will go on for ever. The test of our efforts will always be "are
we making progress" and not "are we there yet".
If the CEDWA stepping stone deserves a distinct marker it is give
tribute to the fact that a global body (the UN) has endorsed the
notion that the rights are universal, and that the next phases in the
quest for more pervasive human rights now spansglobal initiatives, as
well as civil and local initiatives.
Professor Upendra Baxi wrote:
“No single phrase in recent human history has been more privileged to bear the mission and burden of human destiny than [the phrase] “human rights”… -- the greatest gift of classical and contemporary human thought is the notion of human rights. Indeed, more than any other moral language available to us at this time in history, the language of human rights is able to expose the immorality and barbarism of the modern face of power”. (From “Inhuman Wrongs and Human Rights”)
Thirty years ago, this single powerful phrase ‘Human Rights’, was finally recognized as including and belonging to women too. CEDAW calls for equality and the elimination of discrimination, it also calls for the transformation of systems of oppression such as patriarchy and racism. Women’s human rights are about human rights for all, they speak to a life of shared and respected humanity. The elimination of discrimination against women is an imperative if we strive in earnest towards the fulfillment of human rights.
CEDAW was a major radical step forward, an act of transcendence, embarked on in a world dominated by a Patriarchal order (in which women willingly and unwillingly participate as well…) CEDAW recognizes and articulates the political, civil, economic, social and cultural human rights of women. It represents a practical yet ground-breaking call that stands to make all religions, all cultures and economic and social organizations across the globe richer by accepting women as equal human beings. CEDAW gives women an important role as agents of change at the center of the State, of communities and families.
It is important to stress again that CEDAW’s places an absolute prohibition on all forms of discrimination against women. Discrimination is defined as “any distinction, exclusion, or restriction, made on the basis of sex, with the purpose or effect of obstructing the enjoyment of human rights by women and girls". Furthermore, in addition to demanding that women be accorded equal rights with men, the Convention prescribes the measures to be taken to ensure that women everywhere are able to enjoy their full human rights as full human beings. The Convention covers all areas of life and frames them from a human rights perspective. Women’s right to political participation, education, health, equality in the family, a life free from violence and of an adequate standard of living are some of the human rights covered in the Convention. CEDAW talks about results, all actions taken by the government to improve the life of citizens should lead to equal results and benefits for women and men. The understanding is that life with human rights for all is a win/win situation.
Currently, 186 countries - over ninety percent of the members of the United Nations are party to CEDAW. These nations are bound to put the provisions of the Convention into practice and to translate human rights into an experience lived by all. The act of ratification of this human rights convention by a specific country is what gives “ teeth” to this call of equality and non discrimination for women. States that are party to CEDAW undertake the obligation to scrutinize their national laws accordingly and inform the population about it. Unfortunately, too many States are slow in doing so. More upsetting and totally incomprehensible is the fact that the United States is not one of the 186 countries who are committed to upholding CEDAW. This fact speaks for itself and calls for change.
As part of the celebrations in commemoration of the adoption of the CEDAW, this article is a call for all readers to support and join actions to have the Convention ratified by the US Congress. After all, the Convention sets out internationally accepted principles that would be legally bounding in the United States after ratification. Just think about the ways CEDAW would enrich the current debates about healthcare reform.
Background information on the Convention
CEDAW was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1979 to reinforce the provisions of existing international instruments and thus making human rights indivisible, interconnected and interrelated designed to combating the continuing discrimination against women. CEDAW identifies many specific areas where there has been notorious discrimination against women, for example in regard to political human rights, marriage and the family, and employment. In these and other areas the Convention 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 humanity as full Human beings. When you read the summary below you will find several important areas of our lives that call for change in the USA as well.
Women must participate in the decision that determine their lives; this is best done guided by the holistic human rights framework.
USEFUL RESOURCES: http://pdhre.org/conventionsum/cedaw.html
CEDAW in the US Campaign: http://actnow-phr.org/campaign/cedaw#petition
http://www.amnestyusa.org/violence-against-women/ratify-the-treaty-for-the-rights-of-women-cedaw/join-the-umbrella-petition/page.do?id=1108268
The text of the Convention: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cedaw.htm
Discrimination Against Women: The Convention and the Committee, Fact Sheet #22, UN Centre for Human Rights (http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet22en.pdf)
Website in commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Convention: http://www.unifem.org/cedaw30/
Response: Women as Full Human Beings
Lanfran@Yorku.ca
As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of CEDAW, the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women, we may want to temper our notions around the idea that CEDAW
is an extraordinary revolutionary document, unique in its
perception of women as full human beings.
The reason for the caution here is not to devalue the achievement of
CEDWA but to recognize two things. First that it is but on stepping
stone in a long path toward full rights for women, and a just gender
equality. There is much left to be done. Second, it is but one
stepping stone in a long path that, in Western thought at least,
stretches well back into the Enlightenment.
It was almost 200 years ago, after she had taken Edmond Burke to task
for not opposing American slavery, that Mary Wollstonecraft wrote "A
Vindication of the Rights of Women: with Strictures on Political and
Moral Subjects"(1792), re-published in Sylvana Tomaselli (ed) "A
Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of
Women", Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995.
While we mark history by events, by writings, and by declarations, the
history of the struggles around human rights have gone on for ever,
and will go on for ever. The test of our efforts will always be "are
we making progress" and not "are we there yet".
If the CEDWA stepping stone deserves a distinct marker it is give
tribute to the fact that a global body (the UN) has endorsed the
notion that the rights are universal, and that the next phases in the
quest for more pervasive human rights now spansglobal initiatives, as
well as civil and local initiatives.
