Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
The CEDAW or the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women directs attention to the equality of the sexes or in the terminology of the defunct Millennium Development Goals and the replacement for 2030 Sustainable Development Goals “gender equality.” It is an important document for the implementation of gender equality goals or targeted objectives throughout the world, whether the developed or the developing world.
The important of the CEDAW comes from its broad-based statements about the equality of the sexes. In particular, the need for the reduction and eventual elimination of discrimination against women in all its forms. With respect to Article 10, it is one of the longer stipulations within the CEDAWdealing with the appropriate measures to be taken by the governments bound to the document for the elimination of discrimination of women in education.
As Article 10(e) discusses the nature of the inequality, one can observe the general stipulations about the need for the same opportunities in terms of access to the continuing education programmes. That is, on the fundamental principle of equality, there may not by necessity be an equal amount of men and women in each and every discipline.
However, we should expect there will be a general equivalence in the provision for the education for women and men to enter into a field, especially in the continuing education areas for those who may need to upgrade their skills and technical abilities. It can be harder for older learners in a working environment and in a learning environment, but the continuing education programmes provide a wonderful example of the areas for equality in terms of the further vulnerable peoples in the world.
Continuing education is for an adult population who want to work their up in the world, it is a much more difficult situation for their compared their counterparts who may have been able to afford the education or the time for the education earlier in life. So for the equality of the sexes to take place in one of the most important information eras in the Computer Age, we need to develop greater equality in access to the educational programmes around the world.
These are listed as and so include the adult and functional literacy programmes, especially as they may be aimed at the reduction in the gap in education. Throughout the world, there is a definite gap in the literacy rates between the sexes or the genders. In particular, it is less pronounced in the developed world or the advanced industrial economies, but, in fact, may reflect the opposite with boys and men reading less and being less literate than their sisters.
It is a complex world with a mixed situation now. In the developing world or the non-advanced economies, we see the reverse, which reflects the long-term historical trend for the sexes with women far behind the men in terms of their educational attainment and in due part to their reduced access to the educational world. It produces a set of barriers, meant to be, for the women in the society compared to the men.
The other issue is the ways in which the women may be prevented from attaining their full potential in the world of education, especially continuing education within the context of Article 10(e), because of the family, the community, or the society, even the religion, because these can provide some socio-cultural and familial restrictions of the possibilities of women with the power more often invested in the men.
It is intriguing to note that the emphasis for the equality of the sexes in this document orient around the earliest possible time. It is emphasizing the urgent need to close the gap in the educational access and attainment across the board for the women and girls with the boys and the men of the world, especially, as an extrapolation from international data, in the less advanced nations of the world.
Because in those nations, we can find the general decrease in success of the women in the educational system compared to the men. Not due to some biological and intellectual inferiority on average but, rather, from the inculcation of a set of values that determines women and girls as automatically less than and in submission to the men in their lives, the goal is to close the continuing education gap for the betterment of everyone through the inclusion of the other half of the human species, which is a long-term process apart from any known advanced civilization time.
It will take your help, dear reader, and the hard work should pay off if we submit ourselves to the better advancement of humankind.
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3 and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash