18 February 2013
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women this afternoon met with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to
discuss the situation of the rights of women in Greece, Angola and the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The reports of the three
countries will be reviewed by the Committee this week, together with the
report of Cyprus.
An NGO representative said the principal
problem in Greece was that although the country had a good legislative
framework, the protection of rights in practice was lacking.
The
absence of effective free legal aid was a major obstacle for the victims of
trafficking in persons, domestic violence, rape and other forms of sexual
violence.
Other issues of concern included under-representation and
absence of minority Roma or Muslim women in post-primary education,
marriage of girls under the age of 18, anti-smoking legislation,
traditional patriarchal attitudes and gender-role stereotyping.
The speaker from Angola outlined key concerns for women’s rights in
the country, which included follow up of the implementation of the
provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women, access to education for young girls, access to justice for young
women in rural areas, maternal and child health care, and the domestic
violence law.
Speakers from NGOs said that in recent
years the discrepancy between declarative intentions in the adopted
legislation and the factual status of women in the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia had increased.
Of particular concern were the situation
in the area of tradition and family upbringing, violence against women,
employment, health care and the situation of rural women.
The
situation of Romani women in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had
not changed since the last examination of this State in 2006, and the
responsible State institutions had not implemented concrete measures
directed at Romani women and girls within the framework of the Decade of
Roma Inclusion and the two National Action Plans for Promoting the Status
of Romani Women of 2008 and 2011.
Speaking during the discussion
were representatives from Greek Helsinki Monitor, Open Society Foundation
Angola and Network of Women in Action, Association for Emancipation,
Solidarity and Equality of Women and Roma Center Skopje.
The
next public meeting of the Committee will be on
Tuesday, 19 February at 10
a.m., when it will begin its consideration of the seventh periodic report
of Greece (CEDAW/C/GRC/7).
The reports of Angola and
the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will be reviewed on Wednesday,
20
February and Thursday,
21 February respectively.
Statements by Non-Governmental Organizations
Greece
A speaker for Greek
Helsinki Monitor, said that the country had a good legislative
framework but the problem was the protection of rights in practice.
The legislation on trafficking in persons of 2002 was considered
satisfactory, but the State did not keep official statistics on the
eventual prosecution of perpetrators; a very small number of them ended up
serving long-term prison sentences as provided by the law.
One reason
for this effective impunity was that victims were not provided with free
legal aid and had to rely on non-governmental organization-provided legal
aid when available.
The legislative framework on domestic violence
was a positive development, but the police was not sufficiently trained in
assisting victims, there were no statistics on the cases and prosecutions
and very few cases were referred to trials and even fewer led to
convictions.
The absence of effective free legal aid was a major
obstacle for the victims of trafficking in persons, domestic violence, rape
and other forms of sexual violence.
The Committee should urge Greece
to introduce legislation on free and experienced legal aid for all victims
and competent interpretation and translation in the language foreign
victims understood.
Other issues of concern included
under-representation and absence of minority Roma or Muslim women in
post-primary education, marriage of girls under the age of 18, anti-smoking
legislation, traditional patriarchal attitudes and gender-role
stereotyping.
Angola
Open
Society Foundation Angola and Network of Women in Action, outlined key
concern for women’s rights in Angola, which included follow up of the
implementation of the Convention, access to education for young girls,
access to justice for young women in rural areas, maternal and child health
care and domestic violence law.
The Committee should address a strong
recommendation to Angola to make functional the 2006 multisectoral
Coordinating Council for Gender Issues and a team tasked with the follow up
of the implementation of the Convention.
There were reports of young
pregnant girls being prevented from attending colleges in order not to
influence other students, and the Committee should urge the State to
undertake measures that would effectively guarantee access to education to
all without discrimination.
On the issue of access to justice for
young women in rural areas, who suffered all kinds of violence, the
Committee should recommend that Angola create measures and establish a
legal protection of rights of young rural women and especially ensure the
victims’ right to effective access to justice.
The maternal and
child health sector was deprived of appropriate Government policies and
investments; special measures should be undertaken by Angola to protect
maternity rights as human rights.
Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia
Association for
Emancipation, Solidarity and Equality of Women took the floor and said
that there had been insignificant changes with regard to legal
harmonization and enforcement of the legislation and there were no changes
in the constitutional provisions that guaranteed human rights and freedoms,
while the notion of discrimination in the national legislation did not
include sexual orientation and gender identity as grounds for
discrimination.
The many reasons why the adopted legislation did not
produce the desired outcomes included insufficient respect for the Law on
Equal Opportunities for Men and Women and the 2008-2012 National Action
Plan for Gender Equality by the competent authorities, absence of
consultations that ensured the participation of all stakeholders in the
drafting of laws, and non-functional national equality machinery due to
inactivity, poor capacities and unclear roles and competencies.
There
was a lack of commitment for the provision of the required resources, in
particular financial ones, and for the implementation of planned gender
equality activities.
The discrepancy between declarative intentions
in the adopted legislation and the factual status of women had increased,
and of particular concern was the situation in the area of tradition and
family upbringing, violence against women, employment of women, health care
for women and the situation of rural women.
A representative of
Roma Center Skopje took up the issue of the situation of Romani
women in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia which had not changed
since the last examination of this State in 2006.
The responsible
State institutions had not implemented concrete measures directed at Romani
women and girls within the framework of the Decade of Roma Inclusion and
the two National Action Plans for Promoting the Status of Romani Women of
2008 and 2011.
The Government should design and implement concrete
measures supported with significant state funds for the purpose of
overcoming the social and human rights barriers of Romani women to access
the areas covered by the Convention.
The links between the National
Action Plan for Romani women and all other National Action Plans within the
Decade of Roma Inclusion and the Strategy for Roma should be clearly
detected and addressed in all future programmes for Roma and Romani
women. All relevant institutions should collect disaggregated data
and make them available to the public at large.
Such data should be
presented by the Government to the Committee and should cover the articles
related to education, employment, health, and public and political
participation with special focus on the Romani women.
Questions by Committee Members
An Expert took up the issue of the conditions of detention in
Greece and asked whether there was any information
about the position of women and children among asylum seekers and migrants
and whether their situation had improved.
In recent years the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS had increased in the country and the blame had been
cast on sex workers.
On Angola, an
Expert took up the issue of violence in rural areas and asked about the
distinction drawn by the speaker between rural and urban areas.
What
was the situation today with regard to the implementation of the provisions
of the Convention?
Concerning the legislative framework in the
country which was not in line with the Convention in the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a Committee Expert asked the
non-governmental organizations to comment on the prohibition of
discrimination in two separate pieces of legislation and the lack of
prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and
gender identity.
What were the most important areas for the
application of temporary special measures in the country today?
Could
the non-governmental organizations comment on the gap between Roma girls
and boys and other girls and boys in the country?
Response by non-governmental organizationAnswering questions onGreece, a representative said that it was important
to always keep the context in mind that Greece as a border country of the
European Union was the first to receive the influx of migrants.
It
was true that women and children faced more problems because most of the
facilities were not gender specific and it was possible to find migrant and
asylum seeking women and children who could be detained in police stations
together with men detained on criminal charges.
Minor migrant
children sometimes were not reported as minors in order to avoid the
consequences.
HIV/AIDS was on the rise in Greece, and the Government
of the time, in the run up to elections, saw it fit to arrest foreign women
prostitutes and to publicly broadcast their pictures and personal details,
with a request to men who had used their services to go and seek medical
help immediately.
Representative of the non-governmental
organization from Angola said that the Government
controlled all free space of expression and civil society organizations
worked with many constraints, including a lack of funds and resources
because many donors had left the country.
A video that had recently
emerged about violence in urban areas had shocked the public, but this was
a very visible example.
In rural areas, the problem of violence was
less visible because of the lack of electricity and social media and the
situation of women there was very grave as they faced violence on a daily
basis.
Representatives of organizations took the floor to
respond to questions posed by the Committee on the former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and said that there had been no
changes in the constitutional provisions in the country.
There had
been recent changes in the definition of discrimination through the
adoption of the new Gender Equality Law which gave a definition of
discrimination identical to that of anti-discrimination legislation.
Unfortunately, there had been no changes in the use of temporary special
measures and the only area where temporary special measures were being
applied was in political participation of women, but there was no clarity
on how those measures should be applied in practice.
Sexual
orientation and gender identity were excluded from the general
anti-discrimination law and the Gender Equality Law; the only law that
recognised sexual orientation was the Patients Law.
Without
disaggregated data non-governmental organizations would be unable to
establish the dimensions of discrimination faced by Romani women and girls,
for example in education.
The main points that should be underlined
concerning the Romani girls were early marriages and poverty which often
led to early marriages and school drop outs, and exact numbers of Romani
children and among them girls, and how many among them were without
personal identification.
In a series of follow up questions and
comments, Committee Experts asked Greece about the
situation of Muslim women in the country, what was their identity marker
and the difference between Muslims of Thrace and other Muslims in the
country, such as migrants
Could the non-governmental organization
provide more information about discrimination of people living with
HIV/AIDS in Angola?
In response, a
representative said there was a non-governmental organization representing
Muslim women of Greece and they considered
themselves of Turkish identity.
The difference between Muslims of
Greece and migrant Muslims were significant, from their right to exercise
religion, the right to religious education and other areas and in fact
those were two separate groups and there was very little communication
between them.
There was a law on HIV in
Angola which had provisions on discrimination; the
problem in Angola was not the absence of laws but their
implementation.
One of the issues of people living with HIV was the
stigma and discrimination they suffered within family and society.
