Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
In a sense, the social patterns overlap with the cultural patterns as culture is a set of patterns and the social life remains embedded in them. The social and cultural patterns considered together provide a sound foundation for the equality of the sexes conversation regarding the CEDAW as the document is intended to frame the thinking about the equality of women through not only the prevention but ultimately the elimination of violence against women.
As one reading prior related articles in this series, we can see a continual development of the ability of women to have formal national and international recourse for their protection from violence, and in particular gender-based violence. The means by which we can protect ourselves means that we can participate in all areas of a society without fear of injury or death because of who we are; in these cases, the fact of women being women becomes a basis for discrimination and violence.
It seems like a strange phrasing to even think of violence against the person on the basis of their sex to me, but it does not mean I can neglect the nature of the world and some of the – in Abrahamic terminology – fallen nature of human beings; where in the case of the female of the species, they undergo and have undergone centuries of violence against them simply for being women.
Thus within this context of a set of social and cultural patterns of the conduct of men and women, we are having a set of re-imaginings and, in fact, this creates a sense of terror as the dismantling of the systems of the past while, at the same time, providing something exhilarating where we can attempt to restructure and reimagine the forms of human relationships bounded by our natures.
With these modifications in the socio-cultural patterns, we can see the development of a more wholesome sense of life for everyone, whether atheist or theist or what-have-you; our natures bound us, but they do not by necessity have to bind us. As Article 5(a) states:
- 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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Image Credits: Pixabay