Providing a legal framework for equality between men and women

Handbook for parliamentarians on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol

Democracy and an equal participation of both men and women in all fields of society go hand in hand. For the IPU, the establishment of equality and a true partnership between men and women is essential to any true democracy and benefits society as a whole. "Indeed it would be folly to imagine that a society can prosper while discriminating against one half of its population. Equitable gender relations are crucial to the construction of a fair and just society," said the IPU Secretary General.

With this in mind, the IPU has for some years now strongly promoted ratification and universal respect of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which contains provisions protecting and promoting women's rights. More recently, its focus has included fostering support for its Optional Protocol, which provides for a system of individual and group complaints and empowers its monitoring body - the CEDAW Committee - to investigate grave or systematic violations by States party of the rights enshrined in the Convention.

It falls to Parliaments to ensure that the goals set in these instruments are indeed met in their countries, without which they would remain mere commitments on paper. Dr. Najma Heptulla, President of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union stressed that "Governments and Parliaments have to take more sustained efforts to provide for a legal framework which promotes equality in all fields".

To assist Parliaments in meeting this challenge, the IPU and the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women produced a handbook for Parliamentarians on the CEDAW and its Optional Protocol. The handbook aims at helping members of Parliament, men and women, to become familiar with the contents of the Convention and its Protocol and with its mechanisms, and at encouraging parliamentarians to take necessary measures to transpose the fundamental principles set out in the Convention into domestic law.

The handbook was produced with the financial support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and will be launched in English, French and Spanish and distributed to all Parliaments, as well as to the United Nations Commission for the Status of Women, the CEDAW Committee and all other bodies and organisations dealing with the promotion of women's rights.