Question of integrating the human rights of women into the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations.

Question of integrating the human rights of women into the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations

Commission on Human Rights resolution 1995/86

1. Calls for intensified effort at the international level to integrate the equal status of women and the human rights of women into the mainstream of United Nations system-wide activity and to address these issues regularly and systematically throughout relevant United Nations bodies and mechanisms;

2. Encourages the efforts made by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, within his mandate established by the General Assembly in resolution 48/141 of 20 December 1993, including his efforts to coordinate the activities of relevant United Nations organs, bodies and mechanisms dealing with human rights in considering violations of the human rights of women;

3. Encourages the further strengthening of cooperation and coordination between the Commission on Human Rights and the Commission on the Status of Women;

4. Also encourages closer cooperation and coordination between the Centre for Human Rights and the Division for the Advancement of Women;

5. Further encourages the strengthening of cooperation and coordination among all human rights treaty bodies, special rapporteurs, representatives, experts, working groups, and other mechanisms of the Commission and the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities concerned with the human rights of women, and in particular:

(a) Requests that they regularly and systematically include in their reports information on violations of the human rights of women;

(b) Encourages the emphasis by the persons chairing the human rights treaty bodies, in the report on their fifth meeting (A/49/537, annex), that the enjoyment of the human rights of women should be closely monitored by each treaty body within the competence of its mandate;

(c) Welcomes in this regard the initiative by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to enhance cooperation with the other human rights treaty bodies;

(d) Endorses the recommendation by the persons chairing the human rights treaty bodies that each treaty body consider amending its reporting guidelines to request gender-specific information from States parties to allow qualitative analysis and review of the human rights of women in periodic reports;

(e) Requests that special rapporteurs, representatives, experts and chairpersons of the working groups of the Commission on Human Rights, in future meetings on enhancing cooperation and exchange of information, address violations of the human rights of women;

(f) Calls on the mechanisms mentioned above to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women;

6. Calls upon the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in convening a meeting of persons chairing the human rights treaty bodies and working groups, as well as special rapporteurs, representatives and experts, to consider, in coordination with the Commission on the Status of Women and the Division for the Advancement of Women, ways in which the human rights of women can be integrated into the reports and work of organs, bodies and mechanisms across the United Nations system and to report on progress made on this issue at the Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing in 1995, and to the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-second session;

7. Recommends that the Fourth World Conference on Women consider the question of means of integrating the human rights of women into the mainstream of United Nations system- wide activity;

8. Also recommends that the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Secretary-General of the Fourth World Conference on Women, the Preparatory Committee for the Conference and the Commission on the Status of Women, within the framework of their respective spheres of responsibility, take the necessary steps to ensure an appropriate role at the Conference for relevant special rapporteurs and working groups of the Commission, as well as relevant treaty bodies, in promoting the integration of efforts to protect women's rights into the mainstream activities of all United Nations human rights mechanisms and system-wide United Nations activity, thus contributing to the successful achievement of the goals of the Conference;

9. Encourages improved cooperation among the specialized agencies and funds of the United Nations system, particularly the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Population Fund in order to promote the human rights of women through a systematic and periodic exchange of information, experience and expertise;

10. Urges the United Nations organs, bodies and specialized agencies whose activities deal with human rights to train relevant United Nations personnel and officials, particularly human rights and humanitarian relief personnel, to assist them to recognize and deal with violations of the human rights of women and to carry out their work without gender bias, and requests the Centre for Human Rights to take action in this regard;

11. Requests Governments and the United Nations to include in their human rights education activities information on the human rights of women;

12. Encourages States to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by the year 2000 and to limit the extent of any reservation they enter to the Convention, to formulate any reservations as precisely and as narrowly as possible, to ensure that no reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of the Convention or otherwise contrary to international law and to review their reservations regularly, with a view to withdrawing them expeditiously;

13. Renews its call to Governments to include gender-disaggregated data, including information on the de jure and de facto situation of women, in the information they provide to special rapporteurs, treaty bodies and to all other United Nations bodies and mechanisms concerned with human rights, and notes that in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, the World Conference on Human Rights called on all special rapporteurs, working groups, the treaty bodies and other mechanisms of the Commission and the Subcommission to make use of such data in their deliberations and findings;

14. Decides to continue its consideration of the question as a matter of priority at its fifty-second session.