Extract from a message to opening plenary of the 2001 conference by Mrs Graça Machel
....My continent Africa has many widows, of all ages, in all conditions and degrees of poverty, isolation and need. In my own country Mozambique, the civil war left a legacy of hundreds and thousands of widows and fatherless children. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has devastated family life across the continent leaving uncountable numbers of orphans and placing an additional burden on older women, many of them widows, who have to take on the care of sick and dying children and grandchildren in need.
These brave and resilient women symbolise a situation which cuts across culture, religion and nationality.
Reporting on Widows to CEDAW
As most of our readers will probably know, governments that have acceded
to or ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) have to report to the Secretary General of the United
Nations on the measures they have adopted to give effect to the Convention.
This obligation is stated in article 18 which bind States Parties to submit
a report on the legislative, judicial and administrative measures which they
have adopted to give effect to the Convention, as well as the difficulties
they have encountered in implementing its provisions, within one year after
ratification or accession. Thereafter, States Parties must submit periodic
reports at least every four years, or whenever the Committee requires. In addition
NGOs can submit Shadow reports which challenge the government’s report
by providing different information, or placing a different emphasis on, for
example, the implementation of measures taken by the government.
In the guide to reporting under the Convention, entitled Assessing the Status of Women, each of the articles is described and then commented upon, and questions provided which should be answered so as to assess the legal and actual status of women. The commentary and questions take into account the Committee’s interpretation of the meaning of obligations accepted under the Convention.
What we give here are the relevant articles, the actual wording of the Convention (in italics), and where relevant, the comments of the writers of the guide. Where we have not included an article in full, we have indicated this by . . . We give some of the questions provided by the guide to help people writing their country report to the CEDAW Committee. Not all of them contain the word widows but are relevant to their position. Because the Convention deals with discrimination, the aim of the questions is to bring to light differences in treatment, rights, and obligations of women as against men. We are not reproducing the comments which preface each article with the exception of Article 16 where it is reproduced in part.
More than half the manual is composed of Annexes (9 in all) which explain in greater detail the meaning of the articles, give guidance on the form and content of reports from governments which have signed the convention (States Parties) and give the terms of the Optional Protocol to the Convention.
The Manual is grounded in the premise that independent groups and organisations have a crucial role in monitoring implementation of the Convention. They can assist their government in preparing the periodic reports to the Committee, or they can comment on or criticise the official report or prepare an independent ‘shadow’ report on implementation.
The guide is entitled Assessing the Status of Women was produced by the Commonwealth Secretariat, the United Nations (the Division for the Advancement of Women, Department Economic and Social Affairs) and the International Women’s Rights Watch in 2000.
Article 1: Definition of Discrimination against Women
Article 2: Obligations to Eliminate Discrimination
Article 3: The Development
and Advancement of Women
Article 14: Rural Women
Article 15: Equality Before
the Law and in Civil Matters