Pakistan and Women's rights

Subject: Pakistan and Women's rights
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:55:36 -0400
From: pleblancop@aol.com

Greetings:

 

Title: Shadow report presented to the UN Committee on the Elimination

of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) at the United Nations in New

York

 

Pakistan acceded to the UN Convention on the Elimination of

Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1996. Ten years overdue, the

government of Pakistan presented its first report to the committee in

May 2007.

 

A group of over sixty NGOs from Pakistan, with the support of Justice

and Peace Netherlands, CMC Mensen Mensen met een Missie, and ICCO &

Kerk in Actie, took the initiative to write an NGO report (shadow

report) to raise the most important women’s rights violations and

issues in Pakistan that were not fully tackled in Pakistan’s

government’s report. They presented their report to the committee the

day before the government of Pakistan presented its official report.

Besides specific recommendations, the organizations endorsing this NGO

report urged the government of Pakistan to ratify the optional protocol

to CEDAW and to withdraw the limiting declaration that was made upon

accession to the CEDAW convention. The shadow report was originally an

initiative of the Pakistan Support Group in Geneva of which Pakistani

and other NGOs are members, including Dominicans for Justice and Peace

and Franciscans International.

 

In their concluding comments, the experts of the UN Committee on the

Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) presented strong

recommendations to the government of Pakistan. Women’s rights have to

become a priority in Pakistan. The Committee expects the

recommendations to be implemented before Pakistan’s next report, which

is due in 2009.

 

See attached text.

 

Philippe LeBlanc, OP