HUMAN RIGHTS OF WOMEN
the United Nations Decade for Human Rights
Education, and create and promote a culture of
human rights, development and peace;
The Commission on the Status of Women
• Encourage and support broad-based national and
community-based dialogues that include women
and men, and girls and boys, from diverse backgrounds, on the meaning of human rights, on the
obligations thereby created and on gender-specific
discrimination and violations;
Reaffirms the Beijing Platform for Action adopted
by the Fourth World Conference on Women, in particular chapter IV.I on the human rights of women,
and the Vienna Declaration and Programme
of Action adopted by the World Conference on
Human Rights,
• Ensure that work, including, inter alia, work by treaty
bodies within their mandates to develop an understanding of the gender dimensions of human rights,
is compiled and widely disseminated, and that this
gender-sensitive interpretation of human rights is
fully integrated into all policies and programmes of
international and regional organizations;
Recommends that the Commission on Human
Rights give particular attention to the economic
and social rights of women in any discussions it
may have at its fifty-fourth session on the question of the appointment and mandate of a special rapporteur on economic, social and cultural
rights, or a specific aspect thereof; and invites the
Secretary-General to report to the Commission on
the Status of Women in 1999 on decisions taken
by the Commission on Human Rights on this issue,
and further recommends that the rapporteur on
economic, social and cultural rights, if appointed,
should make his or her reports available to the
Commission on the Status of Women,
• Make widely available reports of United Nations
mechanisms that deal with the human rights of
women, such as on discrimination and violence
against women, to the public, including the judiciary, parliamentarians and non-governmental
organizations;
• Support, encourage and disseminate research, and
Proposes, in order to accelerate the implementation
of the strategic objectives of chapter IV.I of the
Platform for Action:
collect gender- and age-disaggregated statistics
on factors and multiple barriers that affect the full
enjoyment by women of their economic, social,
cultural, civil and political rights, including their
right to development, and on violations that are
particular to women, and disseminate the findings and utilize the collected data in assessing the
implementation of the human rights of women;
A. C
reation and development of an
environment conducive to women's
enjoyment of their human rights and
awareness-raising
• Develop and implement national legislation and
policies prohibiting customary and traditional
practices that are harmful to women and that are
violations of women's human rights;
Actions to be taken by Governments,
non-governmental organizations, employers,
trade unions, the private sector and other
actors in civil society, as appropriate:
• Eradicate customary or traditional practices,
particularly female genital mutilation, that are
harmful to, or discriminatory against, women and
that are violations of women's human rights and
fundamental freedoms, through the design and
implementation of awareness-raising programmes,
education and training;
• Ensure universal awareness by all persons, women
and men, girls and boys of all human rights and
fundamental freedoms of women and children,
including the girl child, through comprehensive
human rights education in accordance with
1