PWESCR - The momentum of struggles
around economic integration and globalisation is growing just as economic
injustices become increasingly acute and visible. In this political climate,
governments, international financial institutions and corporations have adopted,
in most cases, a gender-neutral version of equality that treats economic policy
as unrelated to the advancement of women’s rights. A gender-neutral approach distorts
reality and fails to frame women’s issues in the context of inequality and
discrimination. Women of all ages experience inequalities within and
outside their homes. Women constitute 70% of the world’s poor and two-thirds of
the world’s illiterate. Women are continually denied access to basic healthcare,
housing, education and work. Moreover, they suffer from the burdens imposed by
gender-based hierarchies and subordination that restrict them from enjoying
their human rights.
In recent years, people across the world, particularly those most vulnerable to ESCR violations are increasingly demanding ESCR for themselves, for their families and their communities. Human rights mean little if individuals do not have economic autonomy. Women’s oppression and the dominance of patriarchal structures, whether within the family or in community, is sustained largely because of their lack of access to economic and social resources. In today’s social, economic and political climate, there is a danger that human rights may slide into irrelevance unless women understand them, governments recognize their corresponding obligations, and courts and corporate actors have content to address the threats that neo-liberal economic policies and discriminations pose to women's advancement within the home, community and society at large.
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ESCR-NET
Women's Economic, Social & Cultural Rights
http://www.escr-net.org/EngGeneral/wg_women.asp
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Link for UN International Law as:
*International Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights
*International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights
*First and Second Optional Protocols to the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights
*CEDAW
*CEDAW Optional Protocol
http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/
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Distr. E/CN.4/2006/WG.23/2 |
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Sixty‑second session
Open‑ended working group on an optional protocol
to the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights
Third session
Geneva, 6-17 February 2006
I.
COMMUNICATIONS PROCEDURE
A.
Introduction
[i] Communications procedures exist in relation to the following international human rights treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) through its Optional Protocol; the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD, art. 14), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT, art. 22), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) through its Optional Protocol, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW) (art. 76). At the regional level the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter all contain communications procedures.
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