Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),
1979 (entered into force 1981)
Brief Overview
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women(CEDAW/Convention) is an
international legally binding human rights instrument that sets out globally accepted principles on women’s rights.
CEDAW obliges State parties to eliminate all gender based discrimination against women and achieve effective
equality between males and females in the enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms in the civil,
political, social, economic and cultural fields.
Relevance to Mixed Migration
The Convention enshrines the principal of equality between male and females in accessing and enjoying their
fundamental human rights and freedoms. Flowing from this, CEDAW applies to all females whether they are asylum
seekers, refugees and migrants, regular or irregular, in the country of transit and destination. It also applies to
females in the country of origin as citizens and returnees. In requiring the equal treatment of men and women, the
Convention recognizes the vulnerability of females as a group who are frequently discriminated against through cultural
and societal norms and practices.
Having recognized the vulnerability of females, the Convention goes further to provide specific protection to females in
the mixed migration flows such as;
Article 6 of the Convention places an obligation on States parties “to take all appropriate measures, including
legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women”. Implicit in this
article is the recognition of the significant proportion of females in international migration that is more often than not
exploitive of this group.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the monitoring body of the implementation of the
CEDAW established by Article 17, issued a general recommendation (No. 26) that dealt with the issue of women
migrant workers. The Committee recommends measures that countries of origin, transit and destination should take to
ensure that women migrant workers, documented or not, can access and enjoy their basic human rights on an equal
basis as men.
In noting that a documented female migrant worker could easily become undocumented and therefore put at a
greater risk of exploitation, the Committee recommends that States take greater care to provide protection measures for
this group1.
The recommendation of multilateral and bilateral agreements between states to manage migration of women with the
aim of protecting their rights, combined with the guarantee of enjoyment of their rights provided for in CEDAW, may
result in more women migrating for work purposes legally.
State Parties
At the current time there are 187 State parties to CEDAW.
State parties in the Horn of Africa; Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Yemen.
1
Committee’s General Recommendation No. 26