Do You Know About CEDAW?

On December 18, 1979, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); an international agreement designed to codify standards that would eliminate all forms of economic, political, and social discrimination against women and hold nations around the world accountable for injustices visited upon them.  Despite the overwhelming support that CEDAW has garnered around the world, to date, the United States has not ratified the Convention. For many, this would call into question the U.S. commitment to specify, guarantee, and protect the rights of women in our country.  In response to the inaction of our federal government, a few national women’s organizations such as the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/New York (NGO/CSW NY), have begun to organize grass-roots movements to bring CEDAW to the local level.  One such effort is the Cities for CEDAW campaign which hopes to recruit 100 cities by December 2016. In our state, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a resolution in 1999 to support the passage of CEDAW at the federal level. In 2009, WomenNC was founded with one of its main goals being to engage in efforts to pass CEDAW.  Raleigh is the first city to launch a CEDAW Cities campaign in NC (in May of 2015). A coalition consisting of six women’s advocacy groups, local politicians, and residents was created for the express purpose of forwarding the “CEDAW City” agenda for Raleigh. I wrote to the WomenNC organization and I heard back from one of their staff.  She stated that she is very optimistic that Raleigh the first city in North Carolina to be named a CEDAW City – and predicts it will be soon! Keep your fingers crossed!

http://citiesforcedaw.org/