First 100 Days of UN Women

In a recent announcement, UN Woman head together with GEAR representatives called on civil society organisations to make suggestions and recommendations for the first 100 days of work. The recommendations should provide what civil societies hope to see in terms of direction, focus, measures for successes and structures when working at national and regional levels.

IWRAW Asia Pacific responds to this call for recommendations in the statement below:
IWRAW AP Statement on UN Women

Vacancies at IWRAW Asia Pacific

We are looking for an individual with strategic thinking and management strengths with at least 10 years of related work experience, half of which should have been spent in this region. Applicants need to possess an honours/postgraduate degree in social sciences or law with a keen interest and involvement in NGO work and women's rights. She must also be willing to be based in Kuala Lumpur for at least 2-3 years and travel extensively.

Please refer to this advertisement for further details

Tell us how you did it! Strategies for Ratification of CEDAW and the Optional Protocol to CEDAW

Dear friends,

As you would know, IWRAW Asia Pacific is the coordinator of a Global Campaign towards the ratification and use of the Optional Protocol to CEDAW - Our Rights Are Not Optional! Global Campaign for the Ratification and Optimal Use of the OP CEDAW. An important part of the work under the campaign is to support women's groups lobbying for ratification of the OP CEDAW.

To help us better do this, we would like to document the various experiences of women's groups around the world who have lobbied for their government to ratify the OP CEDAW. How do we push a women's agenda with our governments and convince them that ratifying an international instrument on women's rights is a good thing to do? Your experiences will help enrich the work of other women's groups pushing for ratification and will be included in a publication of IWRAW Asia Pacific which we will publish this year - your contribution in this publication will be recognised.

Whether you have successfully managed to convince your government to ratify the OP CEDAW or you are still trying, we hope you will take the time to answer these questions in as much detail as possible:

Part 1:

1. If your country has ratified the OP CEDAW, did your organisation or other women’s groups in your country advocate for the ratification?

2. If your country has ratified the OP CEDAW, what do you think really motivated the government to ratify?

3. What is the ratification process in your country and how did you influence this process?

4. What strategies did you use (or are you using) to push for ratification? e.g. petitions, targeting of key ministry officials such as foreign affairs, justice national machinery for women, friendly MPs, media, community awareness raising/building up grassroots support, etc

5. Which organs/parts of government did you engage with? Before engaging, what sort of preparation did you have to do?

6. What arguments did you use to convince the government that they should ratify? What worked and what did not work?

7. What other actors did you engage with? Why did you choose to engage with them?

8. Which actors opposed your work and on what grounds? And which helped?

9. What were some of the obstacles you faced in pushing for ratification?

10. What were the opportunities that supported ratification in your context?

11. How long did it take for your government to decide to ratify the OP CEDAW (length of the campaign)? If your government has still not ratified, how long have women’s groups been lobbying for the government to ratify?

12. If your state has now ratified:
a. What are the additional benefits to your advocacy on women’s rights that have come about from your OP CEDAW ratification campaign? For example has the government taken any steps to more effectively implement the Convention, train judges and law enforcers on their obligations, make women more aware of their rights etc?
b. What steps do you think need to be taken to enable women to use the OP CEDAW in your country?

13. If your state still refuses to ratify, what reasons are they giving and what are the follow-up actions you will be taking?

Part 2:

How did you and your organisation benefit from the Global Campaign on the Ratification and Use of the OP CEDAW in carrying out your advocacy at the national level for the ratification of the OP CEDAW?

We would also welcome experiences of successful lobbying for ratification of other instruments relating to women's rights including CEDAW as well as your experiences lobbying for the removal of reservations to CEDAW.

If you have any papers or publications already written on this subject please do send these to us also.

Are there other individuals and organisations which you recommend we contact that could contribute to this study and publication? Please do send their contact on to us.

Thank you all very much in advance for your contribution to this important study.

We look forward to hearing from you soon

43rd CEDAW Session, IWRAW Asia Pacific Thematic Briefing

At the 43rd CEDAW session this past January 2009, we jointly organised a thematic briefing on women and armed conflict for the CEDAW Committee, with WILPF, IWTC and the Movement of Indigenous Women Tz´ununija, Guatemala.

This is part of our effort to highlight and make linkages between CEDAW and various issues as well as social movements. This is the second thematic briefing we have organised at CEDAW, with the first one on sexuality rights held at the 42nd CEDAW session.

A report of the thematic briefing on women and armed conflict is set out below, in this email. Attached in the email, are background pieces prepared by IWRAW Asia Pacific, WILPF and IWTC.

During the 53rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women, IWRAW Asia Pacific and the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) co-organised a workshop in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of CEDAW.

Celebrating 30 Years of CEDAW: Achievements and Continuing Challenges Towards the Realisation of Women's Human Rights was held on 9th March 2009. Speakers at the workshop were: Sunila Abeysekera (IWRAW Asia Pacific), Charlotte Bunch (Centre for Women’s Global Leadership), Dubravka Šimonovic (CEDAW Committee member), Lee Waldorf (UNIFEM), Rhonda Copelon (Human Rights Law Clinic, New York University), Sindi Medar-Gould (Boabab for Women’s Human Rights), Heisoo Shin (former CEDAW Committee member), Rebecca Brown (ESCR-Net) and Grace Poore (IGLHRC)..

Click here for the report

We are trying to update our collection of gender equality laws from around the globe and we hope you will be able to supply us with these or point us to any resources. An English version is preferred, but please do send versions in your original language or any other language as well.

Therefore we would like to know:

If you are sending any large documents please send them to iwraw-ap@iwraw-ap.org so as not to burden the listserv. We will eventually be placing them all on our website for public access.

This is an alert to let you know that IWRAW Asia Pacific will be participating at this years AWID Conference which happens from November 14-17, 2008, at the Cape Town International Convention Center. This years theme is "the power of movements".

For your information we will also be holding several workshops within the AWID programme . You can find the full AWID programme here. We enclose a list of events IWRAW Asia Pacific is organising or participating in,below.

We will also be launching several of our publications and we join several Asia Pacific NGOs in a joint book launch. We would also be interested to find out whom amongst you will be participating this year, so we can get in touch and meet up! See you soon!

The Board of Directors of IWRAW Asia Pacific is very pleased to introduce our new Executive Director, Ms Sunila Abeysekera, who assumed duties on April 14, 2008. She takes over from Ms. Tulika Srivastava, who had assumed responsibilities for directing IWRAW Asia Pacific during a one year transition period from 2007-2008.

Sunila, who is from Sri Lanka, is well known to most of you as a feminist activist. She has been actively involved in working for women’s rights and human rights in the Asian region and globally over the last twenty five years. She has been a resource person and trainer on women’s rights and human rights, conflict transformation and peace building, working with IWRAW Asia Pacific and with many other organisations around the world. She has also written and published on issues of women and conflict, and on reproductive rights and sexual rights issues.

Sunila is closely associated with the Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development (APWLD), SANGAT (the South Asian Network of Gender Activists and Trainers), the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum Asia), The Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights and is a key partner in the Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders and in the Feminist Dialogues process. She is a member of the global Civil Society Organizations Committee of the UNDP Administrator and was awarded the UN Human Rights Prize in 1998 for her work on human rights in the Asia-Pacific region.

Sunila is a part of many vibrant civil society organizations in Sri Lanka, and is one of the founders of INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre and of the Women and Media Collective in Sri Lanka.

We are confident that Sunila will lead IWRAW Asia Pacific effectively towards fulfilling its vision and mission of advancing the protection of women’s human rights across the world.

We invite you to join us in welcoming her.

Thank you for your continued support to IWRAW Asia Pacific.

IWRAW Asia Pacific has been following the review of Indonesia, Philippines and India closely. No doubt those of you who were at the review would have met our representative, Rea Chiongson.

We are sharing with you the reaction of various NGOs via press releases and statements made throughout the review, in relation to the review of Indonesia, Philippines and India. We hope you will find this information useful and it can help to inform your work and follow up advocacy back home.

We would also like to refer you to the “UPR Monitor” prepared by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR). The UPR Monitor provides a brief review of the main documents provided as the basis for each country under review, and highlights the main issues discussed in the interactive dialogue, the questions put to the State, and the recommendations made. This can be accessed by country at http://www.ishr.ch/ (click on the following: Human Rights Monitor – Council Monitor – Universal Periodic Review – 1st session).

Please do keep us updated on any follow up activity to the UPR.

In solidarity,
Lisa and Wei San
IWRAW Asia Pacific