Article 3 States Parties shall take in all fields, in particular in the political, social, economic and cultural fields, all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Now, of the documents covered in the last week or so including 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, and the Istanbul Convention Article 38 and Article 39.
The purpose of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women is based on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). It is a set of independent experts who function as a body. That body is responsible for the monitoring of the implementation of the convention.
There are, internationally, 23 experts from around the world who have specializations in women’s rights. Inside of the convention, there are several instantiations, important ones, of women’s protections and the need for their equality.
There are other prominent documents devoted to the fundamental human rights and protections of the bodies of women. As stated in some other recent work, the documents around the world are integral to the maintenance of the increased equality and freedom for women.
In the opening section of Article 3, the standard operators are the states or the “States Parties” with the emphasis on the individual country and its duties and responsibilities for the protection of the individual citizens. With respect to the domains of discourse for these protections, we find the cultural, economic, political and social areas. These are important.
With the protections of the equality of women, we cannot simply espouse in one area on the international stage representative of a nation. The goal is to protect women in the areas of the culture, e.g., the media and in the home. The economic life of the individual woman, e.g., the access and possibility to be involved in some fashion within the world of work.
A big factor in the goals – for example, the former Millennium Development Goals and the ongoing Sustainable Development Goals – in the international stage are for the benefit of men and women through the economic empowerment of women. That includes the access to jobs and the lack of discrimination against women based on their wanting to have those jobs as women.
Women in overt and covert ways have been pushed out of the working world for a long time now. The means to improve the family and the community come from the empowerment of women because, especially in developing countries or community conditions, women will far more likely contribute the earned monies to the building of both the home life and the community.
Women build the communities and families through the investment of those funds more than the men, unfortunately for the image of the men; however, this is statistically the case. With respect to the political areas, women have similar problems of being pushed out. “Why are you here? What is your purpose? Shouldn’t you be in the home? Don’t you want a family? Politics isn’t for women…”
Women have relayed these messages based on conversations with older generations as to what is expected and considered appropriate of them. In many instances, the women lack the ability to build themselves because of the continual onslaughts on their sense of self and wellbeing. Take, for example, a prominent and respect minister in Canadian society.
The Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna – who I like as a politician and a tough, respectable, upright, and moral person – works on dealing with climate change and dealt in a mature manner with the deliberate defaming, with the title “Climate Barbie,” and misinformation spread about climate change by Rebel Media and then calling out attempts to misinform the public on abortion rights (by Conservative MP Ted Falk). In both cases, an honorable calling out of deliberate misinformation – or potential ignorance – and deliberate defamation by title through a conservative MP and a news outlet run by Ezra Levant. Someone made an executive decision for the defamation.
Even within progressive Canada, we find differential treatment and difficulties in the maintenance of a political life for female politicians. The social life is another important part of the equality of women provided in Article 3 because of the need to give an equal treatment for women within interpersonal and intimate relations. Individual relationships will be integral to the changes needed in societies for the equality of the sexes with an admixture of traditional roles depending on the preferences of the couple without the typical veto power of men provided by culture and religion in home life.
The third article continues on in the similar vein to the other documents within the international stage with the importance of the all measures and the appropriate means including the legislation of the legal traditions and political life to document, list, and enforce the equality of the sexes, especially as this regards the “full development and advancement of women.”
This becomes a sticking point for many people involved in the political world with the nature of the political system geared towards the men and the majority of the economic weight held in the hands of the men in most societies, where women also lack the ability to pursue a basic education. The areas are broad swathes of important access and climbing points in the society for women to be able to develop in their full capacities.
The basis of these advancements and empowerment of women in these important domains of discourse or areas of operation of the society – cultural, economic, political, and social – mean women can earn equality in a more rapid pace with men in the society, where the emphasis becomes less on the equality of the sexes – an important referent – but more on the equality of women with men because the men held the power, influence, finances, and rights far ahead of women and so the equality entails a trajectory of women with the men in the society.
With the instantiation of the rights in the society for the ability to exercise those rights by women and for the enjoyment of the human rights of the women and for the acquisition of the fundamental freedoms with the men in the society based on the principle of equality, the nature of the relations between the sexes can be further developed and maintained with the force of law and legal documentation on the national and, in this case, the international arena.
- 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.
- The Istanbul Convention Article 38 and Article 39.
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
- 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).
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Image Credits: Pixabay