CEDAW Article 11(2)(c)-(d) for Women’s Rights
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/25
Article 11 2. In order to prevent discrimination against women on the grounds of marriage or maternity and to ensure their effective right to work, States Parties shall take appropriate measures:
(c) To encourage the provision of the necessary supporting social services to enable parents to combine family obligations with work responsibilities and participation in public life, in particular through promoting the establishment and development of a network of child-care facilities;
(d) To provide special protection to women during pregnancy in types of work proved to be harmful to them.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)Gender equality from numerous documents and movements, and constitutions, and international goals, amount to one of the most important targeted objectives in universal ethical terms around the world. Some may have questions about the forms and principles, and ethical precepts, that this might take into the future.Also, the examples in history to bolster a case for the need for change, for a better shared future. In Article 11(2)(c) of the CEDAW or the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), the stipulations for gender equality or equality of the sexes speak to the need for an encouragement of supports through social services.Those social services that are possible for the better support of parents to be able to combine both their work and family responsibilities, duties, and obligations. Those then get tied into the participation in the public life of a country. It is hard for many parents to fulfill that role alone. Even further, it is difficult for parents to be able to perform on the job in professional life at the same time.
Those extra supports can help ease the burden for many parents who feel as if they need to perform on a consistent basis while the times at home can be more inconsistent and even lead to different forms of stress to impact mental and even physical health. Any social services and supports to help them be able to fulfill their familial obligations would be a welcome assistance – no doubt.
It is in this context that the first portion of this stipulations provides the basis for specific and general measures to be implemented for the greater well-being of both parents and families and so for the increased performance and out of the home of the entire society with two people working and also raising the next generation well.
Also, the stipulations do not stop there. They continue to speak to the promoting of the establishment for the creation of a child-care network or something able to manage the needs of families and children through a professional network. It can come in a variety of forms, but it should include a series of facilities in order to create a solid foundation for these informal and formal networks to take place.
Furthermore, there is Article 11(2)(d) stating the need for special protection of women during pregnancy in different types of work. Women who are growing an organ of their body inside of themselves will have a difficult time as the physical demands become ever-greater near the end of the second and in the third trimester of the pregnancy.
Work will need to accommodate the needs of these women in order to create a workplace viable and friendly to the women there. However, if in the past, these were not even considerations; indeed, many places around the world to do not even consider these as serious issues.
But if you look at the case for women who have dreams and want to pursue them, then you can see the different challenges involved in wanting to pursue a professional life as well as wanting to have a family.
The demands of a pregnancy are numerous and the physical demands of life become amplified with a pregnancy because of the additional physical demands on the woman’s body. That is, the needs of a woman come into play who is pregnant. This is much more different for the women who are not pregnant and working.
They have fewer complications in the physical demands of their lives with the lack of a fetus inside of them. Of course, it is only after a certain point that the physical demands become much more difficult than normal for a will-be mother as time progresses.
The questions that may arise in her mind could be as simple as carrying things up steps and who to ask for help, to simply asking the employer for a blanket break from any physical activity except the standard work that would typically require little to no physical demands at all.
These are important to bear in mind for the women within the Canadian workforce and others who have ratified the CEDAW. The basis for equality is in the documents from the international community who have stipulated the fundamental basis of the Golden Rule or Utilitarianism (Mill-ian) with an expansion into the other half of the human species.
Women should have equal consideration and rights in the world of work. Without those considerations, the world of work can see less equal, less diverse, and not as equitable for the women in contrast with the men only or mostly based on their sex.
The sexes, or the genders if you prefer, can work together with only a modicum of change to the workplace. To suggest or recommend otherwise would seem childish on one end, the other end would be the segregation of talent, so not only an immature choice but also an economically foolish choice.
Lastly, the purpose of an equality movement and gender equality stipulations and goals is to set a more positive future for the next generations grounded, once more, in the Golden Rule ethic stated before, which then makes the movement towards more gender equality also a moral choice.
Whether asking for more maturity in the workplace, economically intelligent decisions in terms of organizational structures and accommodations, or ethical choices in terms of the equality of the members of a society to live their fullest lives, the ability for women, when pregnant, to be able to work fully or have reasonable accommodations is the minimal standard to implement for the desired future of greater equality.
One not shared by all, but one set about in international documents for the entire international community, in part or whole depending on the document. It becomes a collective effort. Why not begin to lead the way more, Canada?–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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