APPENDIX 13
Memorandum submitted by Womankind Worldwide
WOMANKIND Worldwide is a UK charity committed
entirely to women's development and women's rights worldwide,
supporting women's groups in four continents across the globe.
WOMANKIND is a registered charity and holds special consultative
status with the ECOSOC of the United Nations.
Further to the Foreign Affairs Committee's invitation
to submit a short memorandum on the Human Rights Annual Report
1999, WOMANKIND Worldwide would like to make two recommendations
for consideration by the Committee, which have also been made
by CHANGE. They are:
1. To encourage the FCO to use its position
to put pressure on the United States to ratify CEDAW. The United
States are currently one of only two United Nations member states
NOT signatories (Somalia being the other) to CEDAW, a convention
ratified in the UK. This would be in line with the government's
commitment to hold human rights "at the heart of its foreign
and development policy" and would represent an achievement
for women's rights worldwide.
2. To encourage the UK government to ratify
the CEDAW Optional Protocol immediately making plain its further
commitment to women's human rights, strengthening the CEDAW convention
and providing a positive example for other countries.
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