Gender, Human Rights and the Law

The Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality 2005 – 2015 (PoA) recognizes that women and girls experience different forms of discrimination and disadvantage during various life-cycle stages and that their gender intensifies these disadvantages and discriminations. In advocating a rights-based approach to address such gender-based violations, the PoA calls for the employment of gender sensitive laws, customs/practices and mechanisms to ensure gender justice.

Work in the area of gender and human rights builds on work carried out in the late 1980s and through to the 1990s, which focused primarily on violence against women and on judicial reform. There was also a focus on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In addition, a number of judicial colloquia were convened and addressed the human rights of women and the girl child.

Technical assistance was provided to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for the development of model legislation in the areas of citizenship; domestic violence; equality for women in employment; equal pay; inheritance; maintenance and maintenance orders; sexual harassment and sexual offences.

During this period, key manuals and resource material on addressing violence against women were produced. These focused on police training, curriculum for legal studies, annotated bibliography, regional studies on sexual exploitation of children, use of human rights standards for promoting women’s rights and comprehensive manuals to deal with violence against women.

As a way forward and in order to build on previous work, an expert group meeting on gender and human rights was convened in 2004. The meeting discussed and identified critical issues for action in the decade 2005-2015. The concepts, issues, and recommendations from this meeting provide the framework for the current work on gender and human rights.

From July 2004 to June 2006, work in the area of gender and human rights has sought to consolidate previous work and initiate new work in the area of ‘gender, culture and the law’.

The main achievements of the project have been: 

1. strengthening the gender and human rights work within the Secretariat through joint working amongst relevant divisions; 
2. launching the Gender and Human Rights book at the UN in March 2005; 
3. papers to the Commonwealth Law Ministers Meeting 2005 and Commonwealth Lawyers Association meeting 2005; and
4. convening the West Africa Colloquium on Gender, Culture and the Law in Cameroon.

During 2006-2008, interventions will address the gender, rights and

policy dimensions of the following issues:

• women’s socio-economic situations in relation to gender, culture and the law
• state of the girl child
• situations of women migrants, particularly as a result of trafficking in women and girls, and 
• women’s access to and ownership of land.

The main activities will comprise conceptualisation; brokering partnerships; commissioning work including research; working on publications; and workshops/ meetings.

By addressing the gender, policy and rights dimensions of such issues as culture and the law, migrant women, particularly trafficked women, and the girl child, the Gender

Section aims to build a body of recommendations that can be advocated at policy and programme levels.

Each of the issues will be examined through regional, sub-regional or pan-Commonwealth meetings/ workshops/colloquia. All activities will be undertaken in partnership with the national machineries for women in the respective countries

and related line ministries/departments, particularly law and justice, and human rights commissions and specific government agencies.

Adequate measures will be taken to include women’s rights organizations and other CSOs/ networks to provide substantive inputs and information based on ground realities regarding women’s rights. In addition, consolidation of previous work will be carried out through commissioning a review of the CARICOM Model Legislation.