Come Support Women’s Rights Around the World!

This Wednesday, November 2^nd, two subcommittees of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Senator Boxer and Senator Casey, are holding a hearing on “Women and the Arab Spring: Spotlight on Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.” The hearing will examine the critical role women have played in the Arab Spring, how they can continue to participate as these countries establish new governments, and what the United States can do to be supportive.

One key way for the U.S to show its support for these women’s efforts is for the Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a comprehensive women’s human rights treaty. One of CEDAW’s primary goals is to ensure that women are able to exercise the full rights of citizenship and emerge as leaders in their own societies. The United States is one of only six countries that have not yet ratified the treaty, putting it in the company of Iran, Somalia, Sudan and two small Pacific Islands. In many of the 187 countries that have ratified CEDAW, it has been used to reduce sex trafficking and domestic abuse; provide access to education and vocational training; ensure the right to vote; ensure the ability to work and own a business without discrimination; ensure inheritance rights; improve maternal health; and end forced marriage and child marriage.

The women of the Arab Spring and activists for women’s rights around the world constantly ask why the United States, which prides itself on its commitment to those rights, has failed to ratify CEDAW. Their opponents use our failure to ratify to question the seriousness of the U.S. commitment to women’s rights. The United States should seize this moment to affirm its support for women’s rights and our support for women of the Arab Spring by ratifying CEDAW.

So, come show your support for U.S. ratification of CEDAW! The scheduled witnesses are Melanne Verveer and Tamara Wittes from the State Department, Mahnaz Afkami from the Women’s Learning Partnership, and Manal Omar, Director of Iraq, Iran and North Africa Program at the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the hearing is on Wednesday, November 2, 2011, at 2:30 pm in Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 419.