Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and Girls

Calls upon States to consider ratifying or acceding to, as a matter of particular priority, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Optional Protocol thereto, to limit the extent of any reservations and to formulate them as precisely and as narrowly as possible to ensure that no reservations are incompatible with the object and purpose of the Convention, to implement its provisions through appropriate legislation and policies, as applicable, and to take into due account recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, other States during the universal periodic review and other relevant human rights mechanisms, with a view to ensuring the realization of women’s human rights;

Calls upon States:

Urges States to take all appropriate measures to modify social and cultural patterns of conduct with a view to preventing and eliminating in the public and private spheres patriarchal and gender stereotypes, negative social norms, attitudes and behaviours, and unequal power relations that view women and girls as subordinate to men and boys and that underlie and perpetuate discrimination and violence against women and girls;

Calls upon States to take steps:

Urges States to guarantee women’s equal enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, to take all appropriate steps to eliminate discrimination by any actors, State or non-State, by ensuring equal opportunity through temporary positive measures, where appropriate, including accommodation for gender-specific needs and equal enjoyment of benefits, by recognizing, reducing and redistributing women’s disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work and by taking steps to facilitate the transition of informal workers, including those engaged in informal paid care and domestic work, to the formal economy, and to extend rights to non-discrimination, paid parental leave and childcare provisions;

Encourages States to prioritize the allocation of funds, both internationally and domestically, to support women’s full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, including by mainstreaming gender equality in the process of conceiving, planning, approving, executing, analysing and ordering budgets, to ensure that their legal and policy commitments bear results, and to implement active and sustained measures to promote good practices in the eradication of discrimination and the promotion of women’s and girls’ empowerment, including measures focused on attitudinal and behavioural change that cultivate an environment in which good practices in achieving gender equality in law and practice can thrive;

Calls upon States:

Also calls upon States to implement policies to engage, educate, encourage and support men and boys:

Further calls upon States to ensure access to justice and accountability mechanisms and remedies for the effective implementation and enforcement of laws aimed at preventing and eliminating discrimination against women and girls, taking into account the multiple, intersecting and aggravating forms of discrimination, including by informing women and girls about their rights under relevant laws, training law enforcement officers and monitoring how they address discrimination and gender inequality, improving the legal system and taking steps to remove all barriers to access to legal counselling, assistance and remedies;

Calls upon States to progressively realize the full enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive health, and to eliminate legal, administrative, financial and social barriers that hinder universal access to available, accessible, acceptable, timely, affordable and quality health services for women and girls through gender-responsive national strategies and public-health policies and programmes that are comprehensive, affordable and better targeted to addressing their needs;

Urges States to ensure the promotion, protection and the fulfilment of all human rights and the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the outcome documents of their review conferences and of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in this context, and to promote, protect and fulfil the right of all women to have full control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality and sexual and reproductive health, free from discrimination, coercion and violence, including through the removal of legal barriers and the development and enforcement of policies, good practices and legal frameworks that respect the right to decide autonomously in matters regarding their own lives and health, including their bodies, and to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health, services, information and education, including for family planning, safe and effective methods of modern contraception, emergency contraception, prevention programmes for adolescent pregnancy, maternal health care, such as skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care, safe abortion where not against national law and the prevention and treatment of reproductive tract infections, sexually transmitted infections, HIV and reproductive cancers and the integration of sexual and reproductive health into national strategies and programmes;

Also urges States to create and support an enabling environment for the full participation of women’s civil society organizations and women human rights defenders in the creation, design and implementation of all relevant legislation and policies relevant to the human rights of women, as well as when adopting and implementing good practices conducive for the sustainable application of equality and empowerment measures for women, and also to consider the application of the good practices framework for the creation and maintenance of a safe and enabling environment for civil society developed in the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,⁷ with a gender-responsive perspective that takes into account the unique position and challenges faced by women human rights defenders;

Calls upon all States to continue to develop and enhance standards and methodologies at the national and international levels to improve the collection, analysis and dissemination of gender statistics and sex- and age-disaggregated data by strengthening national statistical capacity, including by enhancing the mobilization, from all sources, of financial and technical assistance for enabling developing countries to systematically design, collect and ensure access to high-quality, reliable and timely data disaggregated by sex, age, income and other characteristics relevant in national contexts;

Also calls upon all States to cooperate with and assist the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice in its task, to supply all necessary available information requested by it and to give serious consideration to responding favourably to its requests to visit their country to enable it to fulfil its mandate effectively;

Invites relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, in particular the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, the treaty bodies and other special procedures, within their respective mandates, and civil society actors, including non-governmental organizations, as well as the private sector, to cooperate fully with the Working Group in the fulfilment of its mandate, and requests the Working Group to continue to engage with the Commission on the Status of Women, including by participating in its work and formally reporting;