FAFIA’s full CEDAW toolkit is available to download in pdf format. An accessible version in html is also available.

The First CEDAW Impact Study, an in-depth analysis of the impact of countries’ ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was designed as a pilot study in ten countries that are United Nations members states. Its aim was to gather qualitative and quantitative data from grassroots women and groups in order to develop better measurements of the implementation of human rights guarantees from the perspective of women’s rights activists.

The study was published by the Centre for Feminist Research and the International Women’s Rights Project, with the guidance of the United National Division for the Advancement of Women, UNIFEM, and expert members of an International Advisory Committee. While the study was conducted 8 years ago, most of the information is still quite relevant to the Canadian context.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is an expert body established in 1982 and is composed of 23 experts on women’s issues from around the world.

The Committee’s mandate is to monitor the progress for women made in countries that are States parties to the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The Committee holds meetings twice annually, in order to review national reports submitted by the States parties within one year of ratification or accession, and thereafter every four year. The Committee also makes recommendations on issues affecting women, to which it believes the States parties should devote more attention.

The Optional Protocol (OP) comprises two mechanisms, one of which is a communications procedure that allows individual women or groups of women to submit, directly or through a representative, claims of rights violations under the CEDAW. The second mechanism is an inquiry procedure, through which the CEDAW Committee launches an investigation into grave or systemic violations.