GENEVA, Switzerland, February 13, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Gabon’s record on women’s rights will be examined by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on Tuesday 17 February in meetings that will be webcast live.
Gabon is one of the 188 States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and so is required to submit regular reports to the Committee of 23 independent experts on how it is implementing the Convention.
The Committee will engage in a dialogue with the delegation from the Government of Gabon on questions relating to the promotion and protection of women’s rights in the country, and will also hear from NGO representatives. The session will be from 10:00 – 17:00 in Conference Room XVI, Palais des Nations, in Geneva. The live webcast of the session can be viewed on http://www.treatybodywebcast.org/.
Among the possible issues to be discussed are: absence of comprehensive strategy to combat violence against women; gender stereotypes and harmful practices; steps to increase women’s political participation; measures to address persisting high rates of maternal mortality and lack of access to healthcare, in particular among disadvantaged groups of women; legal provisions regarding abortion; discriminatory legal provisions related to polygamy, different minimum age of marriage for girls and boys; customary laws that discriminate against women with regard to their right to inheritance.
Gabon’s written report and more information can be found here: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=901&Lang=en.
The concluding observations on Gabon and the other States being reviewed – Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Tuvalu, Denmark, Kyrgyzstan, Eritrea and Maldives – will be published on 6 March here: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=901&Lang=en
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