For Immediate Release:	December 21, 2000
Sponsor Organization:	Center for Reproductive Law and Policy
OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE WOMEN'S CONVENTION TAKES EFFECT DEC. 22
New York - On December 22, a new United Nations legal tool for battling human rights violations will take effect. Known as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the Women's Convention), this instrument will be used by women around the world to combat gender discrimination. The Optional Protocol to the Women's Convention will allow women whose rights have been violated and whose own governments have agreed to be bound to submit individual complaints to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. The Committee investigates their complaints and makes recommendations to the government on what steps it must take to redress the violations under the Women's Convention. The Optional Protocol also empowers the Committee to initiate its own inquiry into grave or systemic violations of women's rights. "Women fought hard to secure this tool to ensure that women's rights are respected as human rights by their governments," says Katherine Hall Martinez, Deputy Director of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy's International Program. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in October 1999, the Optional Protocol to the Women's Convention joins other complaint mechanisms created in relation to human rights conventions, such as the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and a similar mechanism under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. To date, 13 countries have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Women's Convention and 62 countries have signed it, demonstrating their intention to ratify. "Governmental violations of women's rights that this important instrument could be used to address include insufficient reproductive health care, forced sterilization and inadequate efforts to combat rape," says Martinez. The U.S. stands out as the only industrialized nation that has failed to ratify the Women's Convention which contains numerous provisions that bind states parties to support full realization of women's reproductive rights. These rights include their right to reproductive health and family planning, to decide the number and spacing of children, to full equality in marriage and family relations, and to be free from sexual and gender-based violence. The Women's Convention was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 18, 1979, and became effective in 1981. As of October 1999, 165 countries have ratified the Women's Convention. ### The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy is a legal advocacy organization dedicated to promoting women's reproductive health and rights through litigation, policy analysis, and public education.