PLATFORM NEWSFLASH
The Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform
Working towards
equality and peace for women on a local, national European and international level
58 Howard Street, Belfast BT1 6PJ
niwep@btconnect.com
www.niwep.org.uk
___________________________________________________________________________________
States Parties to Women’s
Anti-Discrimination Convention
Elects 12 Experts to Serve on
Monitoring Committee
In
a secret ballot 181 of 183 States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
elected 12 of the 23 experts that serve on the Committee that monitors States’ compliance with the Convention,
with experts from Bangladesh, Japan
and Mauritius receiving the most votes.
The
12 experts, to serve in their individual capacities, would begin four-year terms on 1 January 2007, and would replace the
12 experts whose terms would expire on 31 December 2006.
The
experts would serve on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which monitors implementation of
the Convention in States that had ratified or acceded to it. Under an Optional Protocol to the Convention, they would
also be charged with considering complaints from individuals or groups of individuals of alleged violations of rights protected
by the Convention.
The new Committee members are: Ferdous Ara Begum (Bangladesh), Meriem Belmihoub-Zerdani (Algeria),
Saisuree Chutikul (Thailand), Dorcas Ama Frema Coker-Appiah (Ghana), Cornelis Flinterman (Netherlands),
Naela Gabr Mohamed Gabre Ali (Egypt), Ruth Halperin-Kaddari (Israel), Violeta Neubauer (Slovenia), Pramila
Patten (Mauritius), Fumiko Saiga (Japan),
Hazel Gumede Shelton (South Africa) and Dubravka Šimonović (Croatia).
The
Committee members who will continue to serve until their terms expire on 31 December 2008 included: Magalys Arocha Dominguez
(Cuba), Mary Shanthi Dairiam (Malaysia),
Françoise Gaspard (France), Tiziana Maiolo (Italy),
Silvia Pimentel (Brazil), Hanna Beate Schöpp-Schilling (Germany), Heisoo Shin (Republic of Korea), Glenda P. Simms (Jamaica), Anamah Tan
(Singapore), Maria Regina Tavares da Silva (Portugal)
and Xiaoqiao Zou (China).
To preside over the fourteenth
Meeting of States Parties, the Committee elected Andreas Mavroyiannis (Cyprus)
as Chairperson, as well as the following three Vice-Chairpersons: Meshak Kitchen (Zimbabwe),
from the group of African States; Birute Abraitiene (Lithuania), from the
group of Eastern European States; and Sean McDonald (Ireland),
from the group of Western European and other States.
2007
European Year on Equal Opportunities
for All
The European Commission
has designated 2007 as 'European Year of Equal Opportunities for All'.
Activities during the Year
are based on Article 13 of the Treaty and will concern equality and non-discrimination for all, including women. An article
on gender mainstreaming was included in the draft decision, which should oblige all actors to take gender equality into account.
The European Women’s
Lobby (EWL) is a member of the NGOs Advisory Group concerning the Year and the European Commission agreed that gender equality
would be fully mainstreamed into activities. The EWL stressed the importance of this issue.
The majority of activities
will be carried out at a national level by national co-ordinating bodies and in most cases will not be bodies created but
will be located in ministries.
A number of countries have
already nominated their national coordinating body: Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
Germany, Greece, The
Netherlands, Slovakia and Sweden.
Contact details of those as well as nominations of the ones missing are available on the following website as soon as they
are made public: http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/equality2007/nb_en.htm
The national bodies have
a very short time to prepare their national action plans and the list of activities they want to fund approximately 3 or 4
months at the most to define estimate starting from the end of June. The
EWL is encouraging its members to get in touch with the national bodies and enquire about funding and how and when possible
projects will be selected at national level. The Platform will be making enquiries
as soon as possible.
Consultation on UN Reform
The UN High -Level Coherence
Panel consultations with civil society on UN Reform was held in Geneva
on July 2, 2006. About 60 civil society representatives from around the world are expected to participate in the discussion
on the cross-cutting themes of gender equality, human rights and the environment. The Geneva consultations with civil society represent an important opportunity for women's rights
groups to lay out the organisational and systemic problems associated with the gender equality architecture throughout the
UN, both at the national and global levels.
Prior to the Panel consultations
women's groups have met to strategise on overall messages for the hearings. It will be a chance for women's groups to
get together to explore strategies and make more concrete recommendations about the structural changes that ought to happen
in order to turn gender equality, women's rights and women's empowerment goals into reality.
These discussions will
also constitute the basis of women's longer-term advocacy efforts leading to the 61st session of the UN General Assembly that
will begin on September 12, 2006 in New York. Member states
will negotiate the panel's recommended reforms to the current architecture, or at least recommended processes on UN reform
during the General Assembly in September.
The UN High -Level Coherence
Panel will complete its work in August 2006
and its recommendations will be presented to the General Assembly in
September
2006.
IN
BRIEF
Women and
Health in the EU
Ø The European Commission has outlined plans to plans to produce a report on women's health in the EU for publication during 2007
UN
Publications
Ø Information on the Secretary General of the United
Nations report on violence against women presented at the sixtieth session of the General Assembly can be found on www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw
Ø The publication Women 2000 and Beyond: Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women through ICT can be downloaded from www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/w2000-09.05-ict-e
Campaign for General Secretary to UN
Ø In the 60 years since the UN was founded
it has not once elected
a woman as its leader. Send a free message asking
the UN Security Council members to elect a woman leader in 2006 to: www.freechoicesaveslives.org/campaign/UN
New Human Rights Organisation
Ø
A new human
rights organisation dedicated to putting the power of the internet to work for the human rights community. FACE Human Rights will be a truly multilingual internet portal for global grassroots human rights organisers and organisations. The site will appear in dozens of languages, and provide a searchable online
database of grassroots human rights organisations. Contact: www.facehumanrights.org
Ø UN
Vacancy Announcements
For requirements, eligibility and
application deadlines, please visit
the United Nations website at UN Human Resources 'Galaxy' e-Staffing Systemat http://jobs.un.org. The system provides instructions on application procedures. Kindly be aware
that online applications are strongly encouraged to enable the UN to place your CV into a permanent database. Newsletters
