Some Pacific countries that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) have not reported on their progress for over 10 years.
This was revealed by the Regional Representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for the Pacific, Heike Alefsen, at a press conference on the upcoming Pacific Technical Cooperation Session of the CEDAW Committee set to take place in Suva next week.
“There are still some challenges,” she said.
“We have implementation and enforcement gaps even though most countries in the Pacific have ratified. There are still gaps in ensuring the provisions of the convention have actually been applied.
“We have gaps in terms of limited awareness and public engagement, only a few media representatives or a few women may know of the actual provisions of the Convention.
“This is something we’re hoping this session will help us to provide.”
Ms Alefsen said despite the challenges with country reporting, it was fortunate that the countries being reviewed next week – Fiji, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu – had managed to provide their reports in time.
“That’s already a great success.”
Ms Alefsen said they would not have enough time to adopt the concluding observations of next week’s session.
“So that will be done at the next session of the committee back in Geneva.”
The concluding observations will be available at the end of June and July.
