fyi.
----- Original Message -----
From: Christina Ryan
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:20 AM
Subject: [wwda-discuss] Final bulletin from UN CEDAW session
Hello WWDA women, we have finished our work here in New York for Australia's country report to the CEDAW Committee at the UN. I do hope you've been enjoying the updates. This is the last one before we start doing some work back in Australia to follow up on what has happened here.
Day 8 - Wednesday 20 July - Australia's country review
This is the big day for the government delegation, and another huge day for our NGO team. We start out a bit nervous as we are not really sure how much the Committee will pick up on our issues and we know that the government is in caretaker mode, due to the federal election, so we expect the government delegation to be non-committal in their answers.
We are also nervous as this day represents the culmination of a large amount of lobbying work and planning and today will tell us if we got it right.
Each member of our delegation has been assigned different issues to watch, so that we can keep track of whether we are getting the right questions asked. I am looking after violence, and women with disabilities. We also have a team member who is keeping notes of all proceedings and keeps tabs on which Committee member asks questions about particular issues, this will help us to target who to give further questions to as needed throughout the day.
We got word late yesterday that we may have trouble with the level of concern we are showing about the status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. This is a real blow as we cannot put these issues on the back burner and feel very strongly that they must be prominent. Overnight we have done some groundwork to ensure that these issues are not sidelined.
The format for the day of a country report is simple. The country in question (Australia today, Turkey, PNG and Albania later this week) delivers an oral statement. This takes about 45 minutes. The Committee then works through CEDAW asking questions relevant to the different Articles. When a country has reported before the Articles are taken in blocks, so Article 1 - 3, Article 4 - 6, etc. If a country is reporting for the first time then they work through each Article separately: PNG is reporting for the first time on CEDAW implementation so they will have a long day.
The country oral statements are usually a bit bland, and they try to highlight any positives over the last 4 years. Australia does have a few positives to outline including paid parental leave, signing the Optional Protocol to CEDAW, funding the 6 women's Alliances, and the new human rights framework that has been flagged. Many countries struggle to come up with positives, so this is a good start and the Committee notices it.
Finally the oral statement is over and the questions begin. We are pleasantly surprised to discover that our work has been for a reason. Many of the questions reflect parts of our Shadow Report, some come directly from us, and others come directly from issues we have raised. The Committee has heard us and is using our work to question the government. We are stoked!
The morning covers a lot of machinery questions. Machinery is the mechanisms that support human rights, so questions come about the Committee's previous recommendations and what has happened to them, about the decision not to proceed with a Human Rights Act, about the concept of an Equality Act or equality provisions within an Human Rights Act, about coordination mechanisms with the states and territories to ensure a common purpose, etc.
They are very good questions and the Committee has absorbed a lot of information in a very short time. They are all surrounded by enormous mounds of paper and reports, including ours, and read constantly throughout the day.
Questions are asked in both English and the native languages of Committee members, so we spend all day putting our headsets on and off to make sure we don't miss anything.
The Committee wants to know why Australia still has 2 reservations to CEDAW. One is the maternity leave provisions and the government agrees that this will now be reviewed (clearly with paid parental leave about to start it is no longer necessary), and the other is the reservation on women in combat roles.
The Committee always ask a block of questions about the section they are looking at, and then the country answers the block of questions. So, our government delegation must keep track of all the questions and ensure that they respond. Sometimes a question has been asked an hour earlier. If a Committee member feels that they haven't had an answer they can ask a follow up question, just in case the answer was missed deliberately. Sometimes this is the case, sometimes it's just missed because there is so much to keep track of.
We are very pleased to hear questions about the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act and the NT intervention. This gives us the critical information that we have been looking for: the Committee is interested in the status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Our overnight concerns have not been realised.
Further questions are asked about moving the Office for Women out of the Prime Minister's Department, which is where it is expected to be. The Committee also wants to know about the resources for OFW and whether they are adequate. Other questions are asked about the consultations for the Human Rights Framework and how inclusive they were.
Throughout the morning, time and again, we hear our questions being asked. It is just amazing and we know that we have done a good job in getting the right information to the Committee. This is just terrific.
Our questions about violence and quotas for boards come through, including the critical question about banning the sterilisation of women with disabilities. By this stage our team is working well together and we all congratulate each other on particular questions. We are a very diverse team and represent many of the areas of continuing disadvantage for Australian women. Acknowledging the build up to get here, and the success for each population group as a question is asked, really illustrates how much we have all supported each other to reach this point. It really has been a team effort and this has strengthened us enormously.
The violence questions are about access, cultural and disability appropriateness, and for rural and remote women just general availability. The National Plan on violence gets several questions, including on how to measure its success independently (another success for us).
Refugee and immigrant women, including asylum seekers, are considered, and the rate of domestic homicide is also examined. There is a real focus on how statistics are gathered generally, how they are disaggregated (divided up) and whether this is being used to provide a gender analysis of services and programs.
One of the Committee members drills down on trafficking and what sorts of supports are provided to victims of trafficking, including repatriation to countries of origin. This also includes questions on paedophiles operating in the region and how they are dealt with.
We break for lunch and our team has a strategy meeting to work out what has been asked, what has been missed so far, and how we can still get some questions in front of interested Committee members to ensure transparency from the government. We are particularly concerned that rural women's services haven't yet been covered well or older women, so we target a particular Committee member who has a strong interest in these 2 areas.
We are not supposed to approach individual Committee members, but somehow they come to us, so we don't have to worry. Somehow the rules and the actual process aren't the same thing, so we push our boundaries as much as possible without annoying anyone. We also have our lunch at our desks, which is a bit naughty as the conference room is a no food zone. We are quick and feel subversive.
The afternoon session continues like the morning, blocks of questions and blocks of answers. Except the government doesn't really answer anything, but this is expected and not unusual. There are very few concrete answers that provide real information.
The one thing we seem to get a solid and concrete answer on all day is that the government will not ban non-therapeutic sterilisation. They will continue to rely on the courts and guardianship tribunals to be "good judges" of when it is okay to sterilise a young woman. Our team just sits there and looks at each other in horror. I send a quick email back to the WWDA office to let them know and realise we have our first election issue coming out of this CEDAW session.
Afternoon questions cover participation and representation, employment (we get more questions in for women with disabilities here), the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women in peace building, the number of Indigenous women in leadership roles, education and access, more about data collection and what is done with it, health and Closing the Gap, pay equity, discrimination including pregnancy discrimination, etc. The range of questions is vast and one of our team is charged with noting them all and compiling a list. We will ensure this is distributed in the near future as part of our follow up to being here. We know that it's a good range of questions, and we are even more aware that many of the questions have been directly generated by our team and the Shadow Report.
Some of the disability specific questions include: the one on banning sterilisation, ones about access to violence services, employment supports and subsidies, social security availability, housing discrimination and accessibility, accessibility of health services, and support for parenting. This is a good list and covers just about everything women with disabilities have raised in the Shadow Report. Where we are not mentioned specifically we are wrapped up into "minority groups" access and inclusion, which the Committee often does to ensure the government isn't just developing policies and programs which assist advantaged women. The Committee really does focus on women living in continuing disadvantage and we have recognised this over the past week as we have observed several country reports. This is where the real work continues in improving the status of women and the Committee knows it.
Traditionally governments don't answer in any detail, or are very vague and evasive. Ours can't answer some things as they are in caretaker mode, others questions they just gloss over or claim credit for work being done by NGOs that they are funding.
This is okay, for the Committee and us it is really about knowing that the issues exist and that they are either being addressed or are still remaining as "challenges".
At the end of the session we feel that we have done everything we could, and that it came off. We succeeded in raising the issues, the Committee members came over and thanked us for our work, during the questions they often acknowledged us and what we had contributed, but most of all we have had all of our critical issues raised. We make sure we keep track of what we have done and how it worked so that it can be used by others in future, both from our country and others.
Our day finishes with the International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) debrief. This happens every day and we report back on how we went, and the Turkish women report back on how their lunch time briefing went. We make suggestions on how things might have gone better, or things that worked well and could still be improved. Everyone is exhausted. The days are very intense and we are all focusing at a level that is very draining over many hours.
Finally, our delegation gathers some picnic items and heads off to Brooklyn to see Rufus Wainwright supported by Louden Wainwright. We have a great time at a great concert and do something that isn't air conditioned, and doesn't involve the UN. It is our last night together and a real celebration of some very good work.
Day 9 - Wednesday 21 July
The next morning we gather for a team debrief before everyone goes their separate ways. Most are heading home today and have to gather some souvenirs and gifts. We share ideas about what worked well, how our team worked, how the IWRAW training impacted on us both as individuals and as a team, and what we need to do when we get back to follow up on our work here.
There will be a lot to do!
We take a final group photo in the conference room. This might be the last time for a long time that all 7 of us are together.
We finish up by having a quick conversation with our country rapporteur in the corridor just to tidy up some processes like when we can expect the Concluding Observations to be released and how to get a copy of them.
There is nothing more we can do. We wish the Turkish women good luck for their big long day and head off to the UN Bookshop. It's all over for now!
cheers
Christina
Christina Ryan is representing Women with Disabilities Australia on the Australian NGO delegation to the UN CEDAW Committee. Christina acknowledges the support of the Bendigo Bank (ACT Branch), International Women's Rights Action Watch (Asia Pacific), Senator Sue Boyce, Advocacy for Inclusion, and the YWCA of Australia.
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