March 4-15, 2013 | United Nations Headquarters, New York City

Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) brought a delegation of three Members of Parliament to attend the first week of the 57th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that took place at United Nations Headquarters, in New York from 4-15 March 2013.

The delegation was composed by Dip. Minou Tavárez from Dominican Republic, Dr. Donya Aziz, Member of Parliament from Pakistan, and Ms. Marie Nordén, Member of Parliament from Sweden, who  participated as speakers in events addressing different types of violence against women and girls – this year’s priority theme at the CSW – from domestic, sexual and gender-based violence to female genital mutilation and early and forced marriage. 

On the opening day of the session, Dr. Aziz, Convenor of the Gender Equality and Population Program, and Ms. Shazia Rafi, Secretary-General of PGA, hosted a lunch in honor of PGA’s Delegates and Members of Parliament (MPs) from around the world attending the session. The lunch was attended by Amb. Herman Schaper, Permanent Representative of The Netherlands to the United Nations, and MPs from Denmark, the European Parliament, Finland, Gibraltar, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.

PGA has a firm commitment to Preventing and Eliminating Violence against Women and Girls and has mobilized parliamentarians to draft, introduce and enact legislation preventing this scourge and ending its impunity. Members of Parliament can take five concrete actions in their home countries:

1) Ratify CEDAW and its protocols aimed at eliminating VAW as well as relevant regional instruments like the Belém do Pará Convention, the Maputo Protocol or the Convention of the Council of Europe on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence.

2) Undertake a review and revision of legislation to remove all discriminatory laws against women, in order to ensure a consistent framework for the prevention of violence against women and girls. This should ensure women’s and girls’ human rights and gender equality are in line with international human rights standards.

3) Enact laws to end all violence against women as defined in the Beijing Platform of Action, making the act of violence against women a crime.

4) Allocate adequate financial resources to ending violence against women and girls. 

5) Exercise oversight functions to ensure the effective implementation of national legislative frameworks on eliminating discrimination and violence against women and girls.

Agreed Conclusions may be consulted here.

To read about specific actions Member States and Parliamentarians can take to Strengthen implementation of legal and policy frameworks and accountability as identified by this year’s Agreed Conclusions, please refer to relevant document under “Resources.”

For more information on PGA's Gender Equality and Population Program, please contact Mónica Adame, Program Officer, at monica.adame@pgaction.org