CEDAW: Written Statement Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law

Written Statement of the Center for Reproductive Rights
Submitted to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law

For November 18, 2010 Hearing on:
“Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)”

Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Coburn, and Members of the Subcommittee:

The Center for Reproductive Rights (the Center) is pleased to submit this statement in strong support of ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Founded in 1992, the Center is a global human rights organization that uses constitutional and international human rights law to promote women’s equality by establishing and protecting their access to reproductive health care and their control over reproductive health decisions as fundamental rights that all governments around the world must respect, protect, and fulfill. We have partnered with local lawyers and advocates in more than 50 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The Center has UN consultative status, and has been engaging with UN treaty bodies and other human rights mechanisms, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee), for the past 15 years. We publish a series of briefing papers that analyzes how the CEDAW Committee and other treaty monitoring bodies have addressed reproductive and sexual health,1 and we have submitted numerous shadow letters (reports prepared by non-governmental organizations to provide additional information about a country’s human rights violations) to the CEDAW Committee.

Download the full statement below.