|
1. States Parties shall take into account the particular problems faced by rural women and the significant roles which rural women play in the economic survival of their families, including their work in the non-monetized sectors of the economy, and shall take all appropriate measures to ensure the application of the provisions of the present Convention to women in rural areas. 2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, that they participate in and benefit from rural development and, in particular, shall ensure to such women the right to: a. participate in the elaboration and implementation of development planning at all levels;
|
Source: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, A.G. Res.34/180, 34 U.N. GAOR Supp. (N° 46) to 193, U.N. Doc. A/34/46, entry into force 3 September, 1981
The specific objectives of the Plan of Action are as follows:
to promote gender equality in opportunities for on- and off-farm employment in rural areas.
There are four priority areas of intervention:
rural and agricultural development policy and planning.
Rural finance and marketing services:
Target the production, processing and marketing of poultry, pigs and other smaller animals that are raised mainly by women, aiming specifically at enhancing women's income-generating opportunities.
Develop gender-sensitive guidelines and training materials for improving the business management and marketing skills of women and men farmers.
Collect gender-disaggregated data on the clientele of financial institutions in rural areas, and record the information in the AgriBank-Stat database.
Produce and disseminate information materials to promote the equitable participation of women and men in new enterprises and equitable access to support services.
Rural Organizations:
Develop a technology transfer mechanism involving professional agricultural women's associations and national agricultural research and extension systems, and use it to target small-scale female entrepreneurs.
Promote women's broader participation as members, investors, decision-makers and users of the services of rural institutions.
Develop gender-sensitive training materials on a broad range of topics for institutional capacity building - small group enterprise and cooperative business management and finance; local government development planning and finance, development service restructuring, decentralisation and staffing - and encourage women's participation in capacity building training activities.
Agricultural research and technology:
Focus technology transfer on specialised, income-generating opportunities in horticulture and smallholder dairy farming, sectors that are commonly dominated by women.
Take into account gender-specific opportunities and constraints in access to technology and techniques for improving aquaculture and inland fisheries production.
Promote the design and implementation of sustainable wood energy systems and the sustainable use of non-wood forest products.
Focus technology transfer initiatives on women and young farmers.
Agricultural education and extension:
Direct extension systems to consider rural women's resources and available time and to target their needs specifically.
Within the implementation framework of the Special Programme for Food Security, design training and extension programmes to ensure the equitable sharing of benefits and the participation of women and men farmers.
Use information and communication technology to improve rural women's and girls' access to education and training on the sustainable use and management of natural resources.
The purpose of the initial report is to establish initial contact between the States Party and the Committee of Experts. It paves the way for the review of later reports.
In reviewing an initial report, the Committee first reviews the measures taken by the States Party in applying the international obligations entailed by the ratification of any instrument. It notes sectors that need to be improved and to which the States Party needs to devote special attention. This is why the report needs to be sufficiently detailed. The report should:
1. Establish the constitutional, legal and administrative framework for the implementation of the Convention.
2. Explain the legal and practical measures adopted to give effect to the provisions of the Convention.
3. Demonstrate the progress made in ensuring enjoyment of the provisions of the Convention by the people within the States Party and subject to its jurisdiction.
4. List any eventual factors and constraints to the implementation of the Convention.
A States Party should deal specifically with every article in Parts I, II, III and IV of the Convention; legal norms should be described, and the factual situation and the practical availability, effect and implementation of remedies for violation of provisions of the Convention should be explained and exemplified.
The report should explain:
1. whether the Convention is directly applicable in domestic law on ratification, or has been incorporated into the national Constitution or domestic law so as to be directly applicable;
2. whether the provisions of the Convention are guaranteed in a Constitution or other laws and to what extent; or if not, whether its provisions can be invoked before and given effect to by courts, tribunals and administrative authorities;
3. how article 2 of the Convention is applied, setting out the principal legal measures which the States Party has taken to give effect to Convention rights; and the range of remedies available to persons whose rights may have been violated.
The report should include information about any national or official institution or machinery which exercises responsibility in implementing the provisions of the Convention or in responding to complaints of violations of those provisions, and give examples of their activities in this respect.
The report should outline any restrictions or limitations, even of a temporary nature, imposed by law, practice or tradition, or in any other manner on the enjoyment of each provision of the Convention.
The report should describe the situation of non-governmental organisations and women's associations and their participation in the implementation of the Convention and the preparation of the report.
The report should contain sufficient quotations from or summaries of the relevant principal constitutional, legislative and other texts which guarantee and provide remedies in relation to Convention rights.
The reports should be accompanied by these texts, which will not be translated or copied, but will be made available to the Committee.
Periodic reports should focus on problem sectors found by the Committee during the review of the initial report. Review of the periodic reports should provide the Committee with the opportunity to evaluate any progress since the presentation of the preceding report. Periodic reports should not only update the information in earlier reports, they should also take up matters raised by members of the Committee to which the representatives of the States Party concerned have not fully replied. This is why it is important to assemble relevant documentation and useful information. In conclusion, all reports should take into account the observations and general recommendations of the Committee on the provisions of the Convention. Subsequent periodic reports of States Parties should focus on the period between the consideration of their previous report and the presentation of the current reports.
There should be two starting points for such reports:
1. The concluding comments (particularly "Concerns" and "Recommendations") on the previous report.
2. An examination by the States Party of the progress made towards and the current implementation of the Convention within its territory or jurisdiction and the enjoyment of its provisions by those within its territory or jurisdiction.
Periodic reports should be structured so as to follow the articles of the Convention. Periodic reports should also highlight any remaining obstacle to the participation of women on an equal basis with men in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the States Party.
The States Party should refer again to the guidance on initial reports and on annexes, insofar as these may also apply to periodic reports.
There may be circumstances where the following matters should be addressed:
a. a fundamental change may have occurred in the States Party's political and legal approach affecting Convention implementation: in such a case a full article-by-article report may be required;
b. new legal or administrative measures may have been introduced which require the annexure of texts, and judicial or other decisions.
1. In preparing the second periodic report, States Parties should follow the general guidelines, including in these reports any questions not addressed in the initial report.
2. Generally speaking, the second periodic report should focus on the period between the date of the review of the initial report and the date of its preparation.
3. States Parties should take account of their initial report and the debates of the Committee concerning this report and include the following components in their second periodic report:
a. legal and other measures adopted subsequent to the preceding report with a view to implementation of the Convention;
b. actual progress towards promoting and ensuring the elimination of discrimination against women;
If the States Party has ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol and the Committee has conducted an inquiry under article 8 of the Optional Protocol, a report should include details of any measures taken in response to an inquiry, and to ensure that the violations giving rise to the inquiry do not recur.
1. All major modifications concerning the condition of women and gender equality since the preceding report;
2. any continuing obstacle to the participation of women in the political, social, economic and cultural life of their country on an equal basis with men;
3. questions put to the Committee which could not be addressed during the review of the preceding report.
As these guidelines show, the second and subsequent reports should focus on events arising subsequent to the last meeting of the Committee with representatives of the States Party. The information requested may concern the same articles of the Convention as in the preceding reports but in greater and more exact detail, and may especially take up matters not examined in sufficient depth. The information should highlight changes occurring since the review of the preceding report, i.e. new laws adopted and progress made in the area of the elimination of discrimination against women, etc.
Based on these guidelines, a list of questions should be sent ahead of time to the States Party whose report is to be reviewed. The questions on this list cover either a given article or a group of articles. The States Party thus has the opportunity to prepare answers for the session during which its second or subsequent report is to be reviewed. Members of the Committee may however pose other questions to the representative of the States Party during the review of the report.
Any reservation to or declaration as to any article of the Convention by the States Party should be explained and its continued maintenance justified. The precise effect of any reservation or declaration in terms of national law and policy should be explained.
States Parties that have entered general reservations which do not refer to a specific article, or which are directed at articles 2 and/or 3 should report on the effect and the interpretation of those reservations. States Parties should provide information on any reservations or declarations they may have lodged with regard to similar obligations in other human rights treaties.
If the States Party has ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol and the Committee has issued Views entailing provision of a remedy or expressing any other concern, relating to a communication received under that Protocol, a report should include information about the steps taken to provide a remedy, or meet such a concern, and to ensure that any circumstance giving rise to the communication does not recur.
In the light of paragraph 323 of the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, in September 1995, initial and subsequent reports of States Parties should contain information on the implementation of the actions to be taken in regard to the 12 critical areas of concern identified in the Platform. Reports should also contain information on the implementation of the Further actions and initiatives to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action agreed by the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, "Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first session" in June 2000.
Taking into account the gender dimensions of declarations, platforms and programmes of action adopted by relevant United Nations conferences, summits and special sessions of the General Assembly (such as the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance and the Second World Assembly on Ageing), reports should include information on the implementation of specific aspects of these documents which relate to specific articles of the Convention in the light of the subjects with which they deal (for example, migrant women or older women).
1. Reports should be submitted in one of the six official languages of the United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish or Russian). They should be submitted in hard and electronic form.
2. Reports should be as concise as possible. Initial reports should be no more than 100 pages; periodic reports should be no more than 70 pages.
3. Paragraphs should be sequentially numbered.
4. The document should be on A4-sized paper; and presented in single-spaced format.
5. The document should be printed on one side of each sheet of paper so as to permit their reproduction in offset.
The Committee intends its consideration of a report to take the form of a constructive discussion with the delegation, the aim of which is to improve the situation pertaining to Convention rights in the State.
On the basis of all information at its disposal, the Committee will supply in advance a list of issues or questions which will form the basic agenda for consideration of periodic reports. Written answers to the list of issues of questions will be required from the States Party several months in advance of the session at which the report will be considered. The delegation should come prepared to address the list of issues and to respond to further questions from members, with such updated information as may be necessary; and to do so within the time allocated for consideration of the report.
The States Party 's delegation should include persons who, through their knowledge of and competence to explain the human rights situation in that State, are able to respond to the Committee's written and oral questions and comments concerning the whole range of the Convention's provisions.
Shortly after the consideration of the report, the Committee will publish its concluding comments on the report and the constructive dialogue with the delegation. These concluding comments will be included in the Committee's annual report to the General Assembly.
The States Party must take all appropriate measures at the country level to strengthen implementation of the Convention. In accordance with the nature of the issues arising in the course of the constructive dialogue, the Committee expects the States Party to take the necessary legislative or policy measures, and to disseminate the conclusions of the report, in all appropriate languages, with a view to public information and discussion.
|
[3] Source: United Nations
International Human Rights Instruments (HRI/GEN/2/Rev.1/Add.2-5 May
2003) |
