On 22 June, the IPU and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), organized a parliamentary roundtable Parliaments and women’s rights: Implementing CEDAW, realizing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for all.
The hybrid event at the House of Parliaments, IPU’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, brought together dozens of MPs from around the world, both in-person and online, to discuss how parliamentary action can remove barriers to gender equality in all walks of life.
The event was part of the Human Rights 75 Initiative, which marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the roundtable, the IPU and the OHCHR also launched the 2023 edition of the Handbook for Parliamentarians on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Chairing the event, Cynthia López Castro, Mexican MP and President of the IPU Forum of Women Parliamentarians, said “We need more women in the high-level positions, so they have this vision of gender equality and have more sensibility. I think the big challenge for a woman is to raise her hand, believe in herself and say yes, I want to be there. Trust women and give them a chance to participate by creating quotas. To achieve gender equality in Parliament is to have equal representation, to have the same opportunities, and the same rights.”
Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said “Only 26.5 per cent of parliamentarians are women and in just 36 countries we have a woman head of State or Government. The type of hatred and misogyny we see against women in public and political life is mindboggling, and it is extremely important that we are vigilant about it, identify why it is happening and that we try to counter it.”
Nicole Ameline, CEDAW Committee expert and IPU focal point, said “Parliamentarians are essential drivers of the paradigm shift towards gender parity in all spheres of life. The CEDAW Committee and the IPU have been working closely together to make sure parliaments as institutions and individual MPs can fulfil their transformative role, and advance women’s rights both in laws and in the minds.”
Mr Martin Chungong , IPU Secretary General, said “Despite progress and the near universal adoption of the Convention, no country can yet claim to have fully achieved gender equality. Indeed, gains in women’s rights and gender equality are at serious risk of being reversed by multiple crises.”
At the roundtable, participants were also invited to endorse concrete transformative pledges and recommendations that will feed into the December 2023 Human Rights 75 Initiative High-Level Event.
