Yesterday afternoon, WHA attended the NZ Human Rights Commission (HRC) Public CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) consultation and workshop. The consultation provided an opportunity for individuals and non-governmental organisations to speak to issues they have identified for the CEDAW committee.
The CEDAW convention commits countries to end all forms of discrimination against women and contains three core elements; civil and political rights, women’s reproductive rights and addresses how stereotypes, culture and customs perpetuate discrimination of women.
The Commission identified six issues that they will focus on in their report, these were:
- Violence and abuse;
- Poverty;
- Employment;
- Access to healthcare; and
- Human trafficking.
Attendees broke into groups to explore the above issues and had the opportunity to raise recommendations to each other. Some recommendations that were made included; increasing the pay for midwives, changes to secondary tax and living wage, and removing the sanctions on women who don’t record the father of their child on their birth certificate (a $28 penalty per child).
Women’s Health Action Trust will be preparing a submission and we encourage you to do the same, groups and individuals send submissions to cedaw.ohchr.org by 11 June 2018. If you would like to find out more information about how to prepare a submission, click here.
