RIGHTS: UN Members Sign New Protocol to Protect Women

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 1999 (IPS) - The United Nations has taken a significant step forward in its fight for women’s rights with 22 member states signing a protocol that empowers individual women to file complaints of discrimination direct to the world body.

Signatories include Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Senegal, the Netherlands and Sweden.

The new legal instrument – officially called “the optional protocol” – is an amendment to the 20-year-old UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The protocol makes it possible for women, either as individuals or in groups, to submit complaints about alleged violations of the Convention. It also entitles CEDAW to initiate inquiries into situations of grave or systematic violations of women’s rights.

These could include complaints about sexual harrassment in the workplace; denial of health care facilities and gender violence, among other discriminatory practices.

The amendment was negotiated over a period of more than four years and adopted in October. On Friday, the day commemmorating the 51st anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the optional protocol was open for signature by member states.

“I can think of no better way to celebrate the last Human Rights Day of a century which has seen great advances in women’s rights, than by adding this important instrument to our tool kit for ensuring that women really enjoy those rights,” said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Since 1893, when New Zealand became the world’s first country to grant women equal rights, women in all parts of the world have worked steadfastly to secure their equal status and rights under the law and practice, Annan said.

And from the birth of the United Nations, women have made skilful use of the Organisation as a platform to voice their demands for equality and non-discrimination, he added.

“It is the duty of all of us – individuals, governments and the international community – to be vigilant and articulate custodians of this precious instrument – the optional protocol,” he added.

Annan also said it is the duty of the international community to give hope to those whose rights are violated, to encourage them to fight back, to resist, to bear witness.

“It is the duty of all of us to speak up on behalf of the rights of women everywhere,” Annan asserted.

Angela King, the UN’s Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, told reporters that “the significance of the new instrument for the protection and promotion of human rights of women cannot be overstated.”

The Convention, she said, had joined the ranks of those instruments that offer individuals and groups of individuals, who are victims of human rights violations, an international forum to seek redress for their grievances.

“But in addition to providing an international remedy for violations of women’s rights, the optional protocol will act as an incentive for governments to take a fresh look at the means of redress that are currently available to women at the domestic level,” King said in a joint statement with Mary Robinson, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“It is action at the national level which will create the environment in which women and girls are able to enjoy all their human rights fully, and where their grievances will be addressed with efficiency and speed they deserve,” the statement said.

The protocol needs 10 ratifications to enter into force, and King appealed to member states to ratify it without delay.

“Having been part of the process that led to this celebratory moement, we pledge to support this new procedure so that it may become a useful and effective addition to our inventory of tools for the protection,promotion and defence of the human rights of women,” she added.