The University of St. Martin is proud to present its final lecture as part of the Spring 2013 lecture series. In collaboration with the Human Rights Plaform of the Government of St. Maarten, the lecture will be held on the topic United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
The lecture is scheduled for Monday May 27th, 2013 at 6:30 – 8:30pm in the USM lecture hall.
The presentation will give an overview of the general human rights treaties process and procedure, provisions of CEDAW and CEDAW reporting procedure for NGOs and Government. The Prime Minister of Sint. Maarten, Sarah Wescot Williams and the Minister of Public Health, Social Affairs and Labor will be addressing the crowd on this topic.
CEDAW was adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly. It consists of a preamble and 30 articles, defining what constitutes discrimination against women and setting up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. By ratifying the Convention, countries commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including:
- to incorporate the principle of equality of men and women in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women;
- to establish public institutions to ensure the effective protection of women against discrimination; and
- to ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises.
Countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba, Curacao ,Sint Maarten and the Netherlands ) are party to the Convention and therefore legally bound to put its provisions into practice. The Kingdom also committed to submit national reports on measures the Countries have taken to comply with the treaty obligations. NGOs have the opportunity to monitor their respective Countries' performance in implementing CEDAW by submitting shadow reports.
As per 10-10-10, St. Maarten has to undertake the responsibility to adopt all necessary measures at the national level aimed at achieving the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Convention. For this reason , the country is required to submit its first report that will form part of the wider report of the Kingdom of the Netherlands by January, 2014.
