CEDAW Shadow Report Preparation

Background

The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (the Convention) is a unique instrument as it is formulated on the principle of equal rights between women and men in the private and public spheres. The basic principles of the Convention are namely: equality between women and men, non - discrimination, state obligation to eliminate discrimination, the conformity of domestic law and development policy with the standards prescribed by the Convention, should be promoted at all levels by government, the legislature and among development practitioners. The Shadow Report is presented to the CEDAW Committee for better insight into actual critical situation of women and girl children, and challenges thereof. The Shadow Reports have been critically evaluated and discussed by the Committee members which has in turn helped them in coming out with strong Concluding Comments for the effective implementation of the Convention. Shadow reports prepared by NGOs provide insightful information and are being used as a complimentary report to the Government as well as a recommendation to the Government for its strategic intervention. These periodic shadow reports have vastly improved the effectiveness of the monitoring process by providing the Committees with critical information that is absent from the official government reports. The parallel reports serve as an effective advocacy tool in the domestic context by providing a means of drawing public attention to the claims a state party makes in its report, and to help educate the media and the public about the State’s international human rights obligations.

Shadow Report preparation process
The CEDAW Shadow Report is to be submitted to the CEDAW Committee pursuant to the submission of the 4th and 5th Report of the Government of Nepal. Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD) which had coordinated the two earlier Shadow Reports is coordinating the preparation of this report too. This was unanimously decided by other organizations at a meeting. The preparation activities kick started in the month of September 2008 and following are the activities carried out so far:

• Creation of a basket fund for the Shadow Report preparation and collection of funds for the Shadow Report (September-November 2009)
• Advertisement in the national dailies and local papers of the development regions calling for interested groups working in the area of women' rights to join the Shadow Report preparation process. (October 2008)
• Identification and thrashing out of issues to be included in this Shadow Report. A total of 18 issues were identified out of which 10 are the CEDAW Convention articles 6-16 and the remaining ten issues are "new and emerging issues" in the context of the post-conflict situation of the country.
• Formation of an umbrella network called the "CEDAW Shadow Report Preparation Committee" which includes more than 45 organizations working in the area of women's rights. The Shadow Report preparation Committee is highly diverse and inclusive which includes organizations working with women with HIV/AIDS, women with disability, indigenous women, Muslim and Buddhist women groups, sexual minority groups, migrant women workers, single women, women in the media, internally displaced women, religion culture and women, to name a few. (December 2008)
• The Committee has decided to adopt the "life-cycle" approach in this Shadow Report which is a novel attempt. This report will bring out the actual situation of not just adult women but girl children and senior women citizens too. (December 2008)
• A two-day orientation workshop was organized on the 17-18 December 2008 to orient the Shadow Report Committee members about the principles of CEDAW, importance of reporting, reporting mechanism and guidelines of reporting.
• The orientation workshop also formed an expert writing group for the writing of the Report. Organizations have chosen the areas for writing on the basis of their expertise and area of practical experience. The second day of the orientation saw the preparation of a preliminary skeletal framework of the Report through extensive group work, discussion and group presentation on the 18 issues identified at the earlier meeting.
• Regional consultations in the five development regions to collect women's agenda. For this purpose, the following organizations have decided to be regional coordinators:
• Sancharika Samuha  for the Western Region. The consultation successfully took place on the 30th December 2008 in Pokhara.
• NGO Federation  for the Mid-Western Region. The consultation successfully took place on the 30th December 2008 in Nepalgunj.
• Jagaran Nepal  for the Eastern Region. The consultation successfully took place on the 5th January 2009 in Biratnagar.
• Legal Aid and Consultancy Centre (LACC) for the Far-Western region. The consultation successfully took place on the 9th January 2009 in Kanchanpur.
• Women's Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) for the Central Region except Kathmandu valley. The consultation is scheduled to take place on the 12th January 2009 in Janakpur.

TIME LINE FOR FUTURE ACTIVIES:

• Preparation of the second draft of the Shadow Report by February 2009 end which will include the agenda that came out of the 5 development regions and also a comparative study with the Draft report of the Government.
• Meeting with the Shadow Report Committee to finalize the draft contents and also discuss modalities for the National Consultation to be held in March 2009.  
• National Consultation in the second week of March which will formally give final shape to the draft Shadow Report
• Editing and Technical inputs on the Draft Shadow Report (April-May 2009)
• Publication of the Report in English (June 2009)
• Submission of the Report to the CEDAW Committee (July 2009)

Please feel free to contact the undersigned in case of any queries regarding the Shadow Report. Your suggestions and comments are valuable to us and interested persons may contact us at the following address:

Ms. Anu Lohani
Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD)
72, Adarsha Marg, Thapathali, Kathmandu
Ph  No: 4242683, 4233524
Fax No:4240627
email: anu_fwld@wlink.com.np,
fwld@fwld.wlink.com.np