COMMITTEE ON DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN MEETS WITH NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women this afternoon discussed with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) the situation of women Belgium, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Slovenia, Uruguay and Ecuador, whose country reports it will consider this session.

NGOs raised issues impacting the enjoyment of women's rights in these countries, including with regard to sexual and reproductive rights; violence against women; and funding for laws to protect women's rights and ensure their implementation. A number of NGOs underscored the continuing, and in some cases increasing, gaps between women and men in terms of salaries, participation in political life, and access to education.

Belgian NGOs were particularly concerned about a lack of coordination at the federal level in action in favour of women. Canadian NGOs stressed the "crisis situation" of indigenous women. For Kyrgyzstan organizations, a lack of protection against violence and in particular violence by both State and non-State actors against lesbian, bisexual and transgender women was raised. Regarding Mongolia, NGOs highlighted that to date a number of violent crimes against women such as marital rape, incest and date rape were not formally criminalized. In Slovenia, NGOs criticized a lack of governmental will to address issues of equality, and a lack of attention to the issue of high maternal mortality rates, which were increasing. Concerning Uruguay, NGOs criticised a lack of action on violence against women and a need to address high early school drop out rates. For Ecuador, particular concerns of NGOs were the implementation gap between the rights set out in the new Constitution, and women's rights on the ground, and in particular in the area of sexual and reproductive rights, with a recent ban on the "emergency pill" by the Constitutional Tribunal.

Speaking this afternoon were the representatives of International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH); Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, in a joint statement with Voice of Women for Peace; the Haudensaunee Confederacy; Forum of Women’s NGOs of Kyrgyzstan; Labrys – Kyrgyzstan; Coalition of Mongolian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Advocates; Centre for Citizens’ Alliance; Association S.O.S. Help Line For Women And Children – Victims Of Violence; Slovene Philanthropy and Slovenia Women’s Lobby; CLADEM (Women’s Collective) Uruguay; Mizangas; CLADEM – Ecuador; and Corporacion Humanas – Ecuador.

At the outset, the Chairperson explained that the delegation of Cameroon had informed the Committee that it was unable to travel to Geneva in time to present its report tomorrow. The Committee's review of the report of Cameroon had therefore been postponed to another session.

The Committee will hear from NGOs again later in the session, on the afternoon of Monday, 27 October, when the organizations will submit statements on the country reports to be considered during the second and third weeks of the session.

When the Committee meets at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 21 October, it will begin its consideration of the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Belgium (CEDAW/C/BEL/6), in Chamber A.

Statement on Belgium

GRATIA PUNGU, of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), drew the Committee's attention to the fact that Belgium had made little progress in terms of monitoring the Convention or the rights of women generally; that there was a lack of political coordination on the equality of women and men, with older laws not updated and modernized to suit the modern State; that measures that were taken were done in a dispersed fashion, without correct evaluation or follow-up; and that, while in dealing with the issue of discrimination against women children's and women's groups were consulted, human rights associations were not; that was to treat women's rights as if they were not human rights.

Statements on Canada

SHARON McIVOR, in of the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action speaking also for Voice of Women for Peace, said that Canadian women seriously questioned whether Canada took the review by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women seriously. It had failed to implement the 23 recommendations that the Committee had made in 2003, had directly flouted some of them and had moved backwards on several issues. Aboriginal women in Canada were in a "crisis" situation, continuing to live in impoverished conditions, with high rates of poverty, poor health, lack of access to clean water, low school completion rates and high rates of violence; rates of poverty were high among women and girls, with women's incomes about 60 per cent that of men; social programmes vital to women, such as child care, were in crisis; law enforcement agencies and Canada's justice system continued to be inadequately responsive to violence against women; and there were not enough shelters for women victims of violence. In a shocking move, in 2006, the Government had cancelled its funding to the Court Challenges Programme, which had provided women with their only practical access to the use of their constitutional equality rights. The Government had also changed its funding guidelines, which meant that women's NGOs could not receive funding for advocacy or research.

JACQUELINE HOUSE, of the Haudensaunee Confederacy, said that since 1924 Canada had declared war on the right of haudensaunee women to live free in the natural order of law. Their women had been standing up against government officials, who wanted to take their land, most recently in 2006, when Canadian police used tasers against women and children. They had over 9,000 acres under dispute with Canada.

DOREEN SILVERSMITH, also a Haudensaunee member, said that a lot of people did not know about the violent police actions against the haudensaunee women. She encouraged the Committee members to read their report.

Statements on Kyrgyzstan

BEKNAZAROVA MUNARA, of the Women Support Centre, said that there was vertical and horizon gender segregation in the labour market in Kyrgyzstan, and there was a tendency for the gap between women's and men's salaries to grow. Today, women's average salary amounted to 66.6 per cent of that of men, whereas in 1996 that indicator had been 73 per cent. Moreover, statistical information on the growth of trafficking on women was very approximate. No systemic monitoring or evaluation was being conducted, although Kyrgyzstan was still a sending, transit and receiving country for such traffic.

CHINARA KARTANBAEVA, of the Forum of Women’s NGOs of Kyrgyzstan, speaking on violence against women, noted that while Kyrgyzstan had adopted a law on domestic violence in 2003 there were no obligations on financing the law or mechanisms for its implementation. The level of issuance of protective orders was very low. For instance in 2006, where 150 cases of appeal on the issue of domestic violence were recorded in one region, only 4 protective orders were issued. Furthermore, no compensation to victims of domestic violence existed.

SYINAT SULTANALIEVA, of Labrys, said that there was a latent division of women in Kyrgyzstan into two classes: the upper class women who deserved their human rights because they obediently followed the patriarchal norms, and the lower class women who did not fit into those standards and thus did not deserve human rights. They were lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, and women selling sex. Those women did not have access to education, legal aid, health care, employment, or political representation. Secondly, institutional violence against women selling sex should be stopped.

Statements on Mongolia

ANARAA NYAMDORJ, of the Coalition of Mongolian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Advocates, said that the Government of Mongolia had acted and continued to act in contravention of its international obligations under the Convention and other international conventions through its engagement in exclusionary practices that denied lesbian and bisexual women and female-born transgender persons the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Lesbian, bisexual or transgender persons were often subject to a range of human rights violations, including harassment, physical violence, hate crimes and sexual assaults. There was enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that sexual violence against such persons in Mongolia by both State and non-State actor was pervasive, and that the Government had failed to provide protection.

ZANAA JURMED, of the Centre for Citizens’ Alliance, said that high rates of unemployment and poverty among young women made women more vulnerable, in particular to trafficking and sexual harassment. Furthermore, discrimination and violence against disabled women, Kazakh and reindeer women remained rampant and without redress. Mongolia to date had not criminalized a number of violent crimes against women such as marital rape, incest and date rape. And, although the law on domestic violence had been in force for over three years now, only 20 cases had been prosecuted under that law, while the National Centre Against Violence provided legal and psychological support and counselling to six women per day.

Statements on Slovenia

SPELA VESELIC, of the Association S.O.S. Help Line For Women And Children – Victims Of Violence, said that gender equality mechanisms at the local level in Slovenia remained very poor. On the national level, the governmental Office for Equal Opportunities had become weaker partly also due to its transformation into a general anti-discrimination body. Gender equality coordinators in most of the ministries lacked power and training. One of the obligations of the Office for Equal Opportunities was to monitor the action plans of the political parties for equal representation of men and women, and the low influence of that Office on election results was one example of their weakness. As a result, in this year's elections, there were only 12 women parliamentarians, or 13.3 per cent of parliamentarians were women.

OBERSNEL KVEDER DUNJA, of the Slovene Philanthropy and Women’s Lobby of Slovenia, complained that the Government had not tackled the issue of maternal mortality, as had been suggested by the Committee. The maternal mortality rate was consistently above the average of the other countries in the European Union. That rate was not decreasing, but increasing. It had increased from 12 per 100,00 live births from 1995 to 1999, to 15 per 100,000 live births in the period 2000 to 2002. This was owing to the fact that it was more and more difficult for women to access the legally prescribed preventive programmes on sexual and reproductive health, and a lack of monitoring of the situation.

Statements on Uruguay

FLOR DE MARIA MEZA TANANTA, of CLADEM (Women’s Collective) Uruguay, on the issue of violence against women, said that no specific budget had been set aside for the adequate implementation of the Law on Domestic Violence. She was also concerned that the Government failed to provide shelters for victims.

MYRIAM ELIZABETH SUAREZ GARCIA, of Mizangas, was concerned about the high level of dropouts for girls in school, in particular in the early years of secondary education. Universal, free education had to be guaranteed. There was a lack of specific statistical data, but it was clear that the poverty of the rural population hindered women's access to secondary education.

Statements on Ecuador

SYLVANA SANCHEZ, of CLADEM (Women's Collective) Ecuador, said the 1998 Ecuadorian Constitution contained important advances for the rights of women, but they had not been accompanied by the necessary policies and budgeting for their implementation. The bridge between the Constitution of 2008 and real advancement existed. The national Women's Council had been institutionalized by an Executive Decree, which left it up to the Executive's will to modify or abolish it. Other concerns included wage gaps between men and women, sexual harassment against bisexual and lesbian women, and the high number of elderly women without any income.

ELISABETH VASQUEZ, of Corporacion Humanas – Ecuador, said that the discourse on sexual and reproductive rights in the country had continued to compromise women's rights. This led to, for example, the Constitutional Tribunal to ban the "emergency" pill, under pressure from the Catholic Church, and other measures. On violence against women, there were documented cases of discrimination and torture of bisexual, lesbian and transgender women, who were ordered to undergo, among others, programmes in mental health institutions to correct their "aberrant" behaviour. Domestic violence against women had increased over the past two years. A minimum percentage of cases brought to court were resolved. To date, domestic violence was not defined in criminal law.

Questions and Comments by Committee Members

In questions and comments on Canada, Committee Members asked what recourse indigenous women had to vindicate their rights in the courts, given the Government's move in 2006 to cancel its Court Challenges Programme. An Expert also asked if NGOs had an explanation for the apparent rollback by the Government in the area of women's rights. What was the existing legal protection system for native women, and did access to shelters for such women exist.

On Slovenia, an Expert asked about strategies by NGOs to address trafficking, and to increase women's political participation. On Kyrgyzstan, NGOs were asked to elaborate on the very high statistic on bride kidnapping, which was cited at 51 per cent in some communities. Was bride kidnapping considered a crime?

In a general question, an Expert asked for NGOs to elaborate on whether they had had input in formulating government policy in the area of women, or if they had been invited to participate in drafting reports to the Committee, for example. The Chairperson noted the statement by a number of NGOs that their countries "did not take the Convention seriously", or, in other words, that it was not really implementing the normative framework for the rights pertaining to women in their country. She asked the representatives of NGOs to analyse why that was the case.

Response by Non Governmental Organizations

Responding to the questions on Belgium, NGO speakers pointed out that Belgium did not have statistics on race, but only on migration, so it was hard to show discrimination against women of ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, reports had shown that non-European women were discriminated against in terms of employment. On a second level, older women were also the subject of discrimination.

On Canada, NGOs said that women were not taking the issue of murders of women to the courts; and they took note of the comment about the Optional Protocol. In terms of decreases of funds for NGOs, while the pot of money had not been reduced, effectively NGOs were blocked from using that money for any advocacy work.

On bride kidnapping, Kyrgyz NGOs explained how the practice was carried out, where a potential husband merely picked his bride out on the street and then proceeded to forcibly kidnap her. The level of kidnapping was actually pretty much the same around the country, something like 45 per cent of ethnic Kyrgyz women having been forced into marriages. The "saving money" explanation for such marriages was not founded. That was considered "consensual kidnapping" or in other terms elopement. The statistic that they were giving here was for non-consensual kidnapping.

Mongolian NGOs said that there were numerous programmes in place in conjunction with international groups to combat trafficking, as well as a provision in the Criminal Code and a National Programme to Combat Trafficking. However, poverty remained. In that situation, it was hard to stop the trade in women and girls, which brought in a lot of income. Moreover, the political will to ensure that women's participation in the political sphere was lacking, and the 30 per cent quota for women's candidature had been abolished.

The high maternal mortality rate in Slovenia was indisputable, the Slovenian NGOs said. On violence against women, they had 12 shelters, with 197 beds, for a nation of 2 million. They also had a 24-hour help line. As for support from the Government, their direct services, such as shelters and the help line, were covered by the Government up to 60 per cent, but there was almost no chance of getting funding for advocacy work.

NGOs from Uruguay said the Criminal Code was totally patriarchal, including a chapter on "modesty and honour". While a reform of the criminal code had been announced, human rights NGOs had not been invited to participate. There had been huge difficulties in getting a bill on reproductive rights through Parliament; they had been trying since 1986. The legal profession did not think that it should be part and parcel of domestic law, even if it was in contradiction of Uruguay's international obligations.

Ecuadorian NGOs ran their clinics with private funding. It had been very hard to bring to court cases of torture or ill treatment suffered by bisexual, lesbian and transgender women, because they were often subjected to such treatment in private clinics.

For use of the information media; not an official record

CEDAW08016E