WOMEN AND ESCR - July 2010
Advocacy within UN Bodies - CEDAW and CESCR
The Women and ESCR group has made significant advances in consolidating our group and beginning the implement the projects identified in the previous newsletter. This group has identified a two-prong advocacy approach: (1) creating resource material to create greater awareness and new knowledge on women's ESCR, and (2) engaging directly with both the CEDAW and ESCR Committees, using the resource material described below to advocate for a more comprehensive integration of women's ESCR into their reporting sessions with States and eventually during communications brought under both treaties' Optional Protocols. Additionally, we have updated the women and ESCR group webpage in English and Spanish. We encourage you to visit this page to find out additional information on all the projects described below.
- Resource Material
We have continued to advance our work in development of resources on women's ESCR advocacy within UN treaty bodies by creating A Primer on Women's Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) for CEDAW and ESCR Committees´ members and NGOs, available in 5 languages. ESCR-Net, IWRAW-Asia Pacific, Malaysia and COHRE, Switzerland, released the Primer during the 45th session of the CEDAW Committee in Geneva on January 29th. The launch was accompanied by a thematic briefing with the CEDAW Committee members on the importance of highlighting women's ESCR in concluding observations and general comments and the Committee's role in advancing understanding of the importance of ESCR in women's lives. A full report of that briefing is available in English, and Spanish.
We are also in the process of finalizing shadow reporting guidelines on women's ESCR for the CEDAW and ICESCR mechanisms, which we will launch at the 46th CEDAW review session in New York on July 12-30, 2010. Once released, the guidelines will be available on ESCR-Net's Women and ESCR group webpage. Finally, we are moving forward with the creation of a manual for advocacy on women's economic, social and cultural rights, including possibilities for utilizing the Optional Protocols of both CEDAW and the ICESCR. We aim to finalize this resource by the end of 2010.
- Treaty Body Advocacy
ESCR-Net also continues to partner with IWRAW-Asia Pacific, Malaysia; Center for Reproductive Rights, US; Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Switzerland, as well as CLADEM in the Latin America region to advance advocacy work with the CEDAW and ESCR Committees. In January 2010, ESCR-Net in conjunction with the groups above organized a thematic briefing on women's ESCR with the CEDAW Committees. The aim of the briefing was to provide a deeper understanding of the ways in which lack of implementation of ESCR have a unique and disproportionate impact on women as well as some feedback on how the CEDAW Committee has so far dealt with ESCR issues as they affect women with speakers from Panamá and the Netherlands. The CEDAW Committee was quite receptive to this input. A report from the January event with the CEDAW Committee is available here.
Therefore, we will be continuing this effort in October with a follow up briefing with CEDAW and in November with a briefing with the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Additionally, to ensure both Committees are getting specific information related to women's ESCR so they can provide useful concluding comments, ESCR-Net is continuing to support national level women's rights and economic and social rights organizations in the development of shadow reports for these sessions which highlight women's ESCR issues.
GET INVOLVED !
If your organization is interested in being involved in these projects or has information to share with the CEDAW or ESCR Committees, please contact Rebecca Brown at: rbrown@escr-net.org. To share information or strategies with other Women's ESCR advocates subscribe to the Women and ESCR Discussion Group.
Caselaw Database
We continue to update the ESCR-Net caselaw database with cases related to women's ESCR. Since the last newsletter we have uploaded the following case:
For all our cases related to women's economic, social and cultural rights, click here.
GET INVOLVED !
If your organization has the capacity to more actively support the development of the case law database with relation to women's ESCR, please email Rebecca Brown at rbrown@escr-net.org. To share information or strategies with other Women's ESCR advocates subscribe to the Women and ESCR Listserv.