II. GENERAL COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

•          CEDAW General Recommendation 19 (Eleventh session, 1992): Violence Against Women, A/47/38 (1992) 5 at paras. 11 and 12.

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Articles 2 (f), 5 and 10 (c)

11. Traditional attitudes by which women are regarded as subordinate to men or as having stereotyped roles perpetuate widespread practices involving violence or coercion, such as family violence and abuse, forced marriage, dowry deaths, acid attacks and female circumcision. Such prejudices and practices may justify gender-based violence as a form of protection or control of women. The effect of such violence on the physical and mental integrity of women is to deprive them of the equal enjoyment, exercise and knowledge of human rights and fundamental freedoms. While this comment addresses mainly actual or threatened violence, the underlying consequences of these forms of gender-based violence help to maintain women in subordinate roles and contribute to their low level of political participation and to their lower level of education, skills and work opportunities.

12. These attitudes also contribute to the propagation of pornography and the depiction and other commercial exploitation of women as sexual objects, rather than as individuals. This in turn contributes to gender-based violence.

•          CEDAW General Recommendation 23 (Sixteenth session, 1997): Women in Public Life, A/52/38/Rev.1 (1997) 61 at paras. 12, 20(c) and 44.

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12. Stereotyping, including that perpetrated by the media, confines women in political life to issues such as the environment, children and health, and excludes them from responsibility for finance, budgetary control and conflict resolution. The low involvement of women in the professions from which politicians are recruited can create another obstacle. In countries where women leaders do assume power this can be the result of the influence of their fathers, husbands or male relatives rather than electoral success in their own right.

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20. Factors which impede these rights include the following:

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(c) In many nations, traditions and social and cultural stereotypes discourage women from exercising their right to vote. Many men influence or control the votes of women by persuasion or direct action, including voting on their behalf. Any such practices should be prevented...

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44. States parties should explain the reason for, and effect of, any reservations to articles 7 or 8 and indicate where the reservations reflect traditional, customary or stereotyped attitudes towards women's roles in society, as well as the steps being taken by the States parties to change those attitudes. States parties should keep the necessity for such reservations under close review and in their reports include a timetable for their removal.

•          CRC General Comment 4 (Thirty-third session, 2003): Adolescent Health and Development in the Context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, A/59/41 (2004) 102 at para. 24.

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24. In light of articles 3, 6, 12, 19 and 24 (3) of the Convention, States parties should take all effective measures to eliminate all acts and activities which threaten the right to life of adolescents, including honour killings. The Committee strongly urges States parties to develop and implement awareness-raising campaigns, education programmes and legislation aimed at changing prevailing attitudes, and address gender roles and stereotypes that contribute to harmful traditional practices. Further, States parties should facilitate the establishment of multidisciplinary information and advice centres regarding the harmful aspects of some traditional practices, including early marriage and female genital mutilation.

•          ICESCR General Comment 16 (Thirty-fourth session, 2005): Article 3: The Equal Right of Men and Women to the Enjoyment of all Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, E/2006/22 (2005) 116 at paras. 11 and 19. For text of General Comment, see EQUALITY AND DISCRIMINATION - GENDER DISCRIMINATION - General.

•          CEDAW General Recommendation 25 (Thirtieth session, 2004): Article 4, Paragraph 1: Temporary Special Measures, A/59/38 part I (2004) 78 at paras. 7, 10 and 38. For text of General Recommendation, see EQUALITY AND DISCRIMINATION - TEMPORARY SPECIAL MEASURES (AFFIRMATIVE ACTION).