HRI/GEN/1/Rev.9 (Vol. I)
12. Having regard to their obligations under article 8, States parties should inform the Committee of
measures taken to eliminate trafficking of women and children, within the country or across
borders, and forced prostitution. They must also provide information on measures taken to
protect women and children, including foreign women and children, from slavery, disguised,
inter alia, as domestic or other kinds of personal service. States parties where women and
children are recruited, and from which they are taken, and States parties where they are received
should provide information on measures, national or international, which have been taken in
order to prevent the violation of women’s and children’s rights.
13. States parties should provide information on any specific regulation of clothing to be worn by
women in public. The Committee stresses that such regulations may involve a violation of a
number of rights guaranteed by the Covenant, such as: article 26, on non-discrimination; article
7, if corporal punishment is imposed in order to enforce such a regulation; article 9, when
failure to comply with the regulation is punished by arrest; article 12, if liberty of movement is
subject to such a constraint; article 17, which guarantees all persons the right to privacy without
arbitrary or unlawful interference; articles 18 and 19, when women are subjected to clothing
requirements that are not in keeping with their religion or their right of self-expression; and,
lastly, article 27, when the clothing requirements conflict with the culture to which the woman
can lay a claim.
14. With regard to article 9, States parties should provide information on any laws or practices
which may deprive women of their liberty on an arbitrary or unequal basis, such as by
confinement within the house (see general comment No. 8, paragraph 1).
15. As regards articles 7 and 10, States parties must provide all information relevant to ensuring that
the rights of persons deprived of their liberty are protected on equal terms for men and women.
In particular, States parties should report on whether men and women are separated in prisons
and whether women are guarded only by female guards. States parties should also report about
compliance with the rule that accused juvenile females shall be separated from adults and on
any difference in treatment between male and female persons deprived of liberty, such as access
to rehabilitation and education programmes and to conjugal and family visits.Pregnant women
who are deprived of their liberty should receive humane treatment and respect for their inherent
dignity at all times, and in particular during the birth and while caring for their newborn
children; States parties should report on facilities to ensure this and on medical and health care
for such mothers and their babies.
16. As regards article 12, States parties should provide information on any legal provision or any
practice which restricts women’s right to freedom of movement, for example the exercise of
marital powers over the wife or of parental powers over adult daughters; legal or de facto
requirements which prevent women from travelling, such as the requirement of consent of a
third party to the issuance of a passport or other type of travel documents to an adult woman.
States parties should also report on measures taken to eliminate such laws and practices and to
protect women against them, including reference to available domestic remedies (see general
comment No. 27, paragraphs 6 and 18).
17. States parties should ensure that alien women are accorded on an equal basis the right to submit
arguments against their expulsion and to have their case reviewed, as provided in article 13. In
this regard, they should be entitled to submit arguments based on gender-specific violations of
the Covenant such as those mentioned in paragraphs 10 and 11 above.
18. States parties should provide information to enable the Committee to ascertain whether access
to justice and the right to a fair trial, provided for in article 14, are enjoyed by women on equal
terms with men. In particular, States parties should inform the Committee whether there are
legal provisions preventing women from direct and autonomous access to the courts (see