over the past decade. Governments have been asked to submit responses to a UN
Questionnaire on Implementation of these agreements. Canada released its national
response in July 2004. 1
Non-governmental organizations from around the world have also
been asked to reply to the UN Questionnaire. These submissions will be compiled
into an NGO alternative global report. To prepare FAFIA’s response, we
have drawn on FAFIA’s 2003 alternative report on Canada’s compliance
with the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW), entitled Canada’s Failure to Act: Women’s
Inequality Deepens;2 the B.C. CEDAW
Group’s report on B.C.’s compliance with CEDAW, entitled British
Columbia Moves Backwards on Women’s Equality; 3
and a new report prepared for FAFIA by award-winning economist Armine Yalnizyan,
entitled Beijing + 10: A Gendered Analysis of 10 Federal Budgets.4
Northern governments have been asked, in their reports to the
UN, to focus on the following four areas: Women and the Economy, Women and Poverty,
Violence against Women, and Institutional Mechanisms.
In this report, FAFIA provides: 1) a description of the impact
of social program restructuring on women in the decade between 1995 and 2005,
with selected examples to illustrate Canada’s approach to women and the
economy, women and poverty, and violence against women during this period; 2)
an evaluation of the effectiveness of some Canadian institutional mechanisms
for advancing the equality of women; and 3) examples of discrimination against
Aboriginal women, in the law and in the operation of the justice system, that
contribute directly to the poverty of Aboriginal women, and to their vulnerability
to violence.
1 Status of
Women Canada, Canada’s National Response to the UN
Questionnaire to Governments on Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action
(1995) And The Outcome of the Twenty-Third Special Session of the General Assembly
(2000) (Ottawa: Status of Women Canada, 2004) (date accessed: 15 November 2004)
[hereinafter Canada’s National Response].
2This report is available on the FAFIA website. [hereinafter FAFIA CEDAW Report].
3 B.C. CEDAW Group, British Columbia Moves
Backwards on Women’s Equality, Submission of the B.C. CEDAW Group to the
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
on the occasion of the Committee’s review of Canada’s 5th Report (date
accessed: 1 November 2004) [hereinafter B.C. CEDAW Report].
4 Yalnizyan, A. Canada’s Commitment
to Equality: A Gender Analysis of the Last Ten Federal Budgets (1995-2004) (Ottawa:
Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, 2005).
