Press Release
Contact: Dr. B.Tsering (President, TWA): tibwomen@yahoo.com
Mrs. Tenzin Bhuti (Vice President, TWA): 91 (1892) 221198 / 221527
TWA’s participation in international forums such as CEDAW is critical to safeguarding the rights of women in China, Tibet and in exile. One of the core objectives of TWA is to garner international support to the issue of Tibetan Women and to this end, TWA sensed it imperative to hold ties with International Women’s Organizations and to use the U.N platform to achieve the same.
CEDAW is essentially an international bill of rights for women and a framework for women’s participation in the development process. The most concise document adopted during the U.N Decade for Women, it is the result of several decades of work by the U.N Commission on the Status of Women and Internal women’s organizations. Now an internationally accepted treaty ratified by over ninety countries, the convention spells out internationally accepted principles and standards for achieving equality between women and men. The convention was adopted by the U.N General Assembly on December 19,1979, and came into force as a treaty on December 3, 1981, thirty days after the twentieth member nation ratified it. The purpose of CEDAW is to review reports from ratifying countries on implementation of the Convention.
The International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) is a collaborative project that grew out of a series of workshops on the Convention held at the 1985 Nairobi world conference on women. IWRAW is the focal point for an international network of activities and scholars who facilitate and monitor compliance efforts under the Convention. IWRAW Asia Pacific facilitates and monitors implementation of the Convention in countries of the Asia Pacific region that have ratified the Convention.
It was set up in 1993 to work towards the realization of the human rights of women through the use of CEDAW and other international human rights instruments.
IWRAW Asia Pacific is mentoring an international programme called “From Global to Local” from 7-25 August 2006. This programme will be held in New York in conjunction with the United Nations 36th Session on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). TWA president will participate at the
“From Global to Local Programme” and this is an effort to reach out to a global audience through multilateral forums such as CEDAW as well. The first week of the meeting will see five representatives from China namely Ms. Lu Pin, Media Watch for Women, Ms. Zhang Qi, Network for Combating Domestic Violence, Gong Yanling, Gender Resource Group and Guo Jianmei, Women’s Law Studies and Legal Aid Center will seek participation.
TWA`s presence at the U.N CEDAW meeting at the United Nations Head Quarters at New York holds great significance, as Beijing will present its 83 page report on the completion of the CEDAW convention on August 10, 2006. TWA president will present the “NGO Alternative Report on the Status of Tibetan Women in Tibet”. The soft copy of the report is now available at www.tibetanwomen.org.
