Article 15 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/01
Article 15
1. States Parties shall accord to women equality with men before the law.
2. States Parties shall accord to women, in civil matters, a legal capacity identical to that of men and the same opportunities to exercise that capacity. In particular, they shall give women equal rights to conclude contracts and to administer property and shall treat them equally in all stages of procedure in courts and tribunals.
3. States Parties agree that all contracts and all other private instruments of any kind with a legal effect which is directed at restricting the legal capacity of women shall be deemed null and void.
4. States Parties shall accord to men and women the same rights with regard to the law relating to the movement of persons and the freedom to choose their residence and domicile.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
The nature of the world appears morally neutral but human beings in their interpersonal relations and societal functions provide bases upon which to found morality or better-and-worse ways in which to relate to one another. The fifteenth article of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) represents a basis for further equality of the sexes in the domain of law and civil life.
In Article 15 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), a number of stipulations exist to cover the legal and civil rights of women in different domains. Women lack these equal rights on a number of dimensions, which denotes the importance of this area for progress.
Article 15(1) directs attention for women to have equality with men before the law. It amounts to a simple statement but a large stipulation on the historical front because women lacked equal rights with men before the law. Indeed, in many religious systems, women were chattel or property of the men.
In the level of analysis of the state of the “States Parties,” the governments of the world had a keen interest in the guarding of women’s chastity to ensure virginity and the proper heralding of sons for the royalty or the family; women were not people by any reasonable modern metric.
In fact, in a democratic system, this can be seen in the ways in which women were reduced to the level of non-persons even in advanced democracies without the right to vote. For an individual to be considered a legal person, the women should have the right to vote, as with the men.
Article 15(2) speaks to the rights of women in “civil matters.” That is, if a woman is represented in a legal capacity, then the women holds the right to exercise her capacity in an equivalent manner. This means that, across the board, women deserve the equal chance or opportunity for contracts and administration of property to the men in their country. This is at “all stages of procedure in courts and tribunals.”
In Article 15(3), the contracts and other private documents with a legal effect shall be usable by the women for a legal capacity; and if they restrict the woman in a sense of restricting her in some way, these become not truly representative of the equal rights inhering in the lives of the women of the world.
It remains important in the context of a woman being able to freely have the same legal representation and capacity as the men in the society, too. Article 15(4) states the important rights relevant to moving around and living. A woman reserves the same right as the men in their lives to move from place to place, house to house, and home to home.
The areas of the world in which women are restricted and have ratified the Convention become, immediately, in violation of the CEDAW in this article and subsection. This becomes relevant not only to the movement of the woman but also to the places in which a woman can live and set about her orderings of life.
A woman should, as a man already, for the most part, can be able to exist wherever she deems most appropriate for her life, barring some financial or another barrier. In that case, the woman should garner the appropriate funds in some way to make the proper travel arrangements and also in the long-term living quarters arrangements as well.
The proper place for women is the proper place of men: wherever they feel is best for them in a legal, travel, and living capacity.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3 and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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