Conservative NGOs Caution Governments Against Women’s Rights Treaty

By Austin Ruse | December 10, 1999

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)  UN gender czar Angela King just completed a five day tour of Middle Eastern countries, during which she tried to persuade them to adopt what many see as a radical convention on women's rights. King told the Daily Star that in Arab countries, only 3 percent of "power roles" are held by women. This is the type of statistic the Convention on the Elimination of All Kinds of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was intended to address.

     King also complained that of the 26 nations who have not signed the convention, "the highest concentration" is in the Middle East. Many Muslim countries signed the CEDAW treaty with reservations based on the Islamic law called Sharia, a system that western feminists consider a violation of human rights. Reservations allow a country to sign only parts of a document.

     On the heels of King's trip, conservative NGOs are telling Middle Eastern governments not to sign the 1979 convention, believing the treaty body has been "hijacked by radicals" who are "reinterpreting the convention in ways unintended by the drafters." Kathryn Balmforth, civil rights attorney and director of the World Family Policy Center, points out the strategy of UN radicals are similar to those in the United States who "cannot win elections" and so turn to the courts for non-democratic relief.

     "Some Muslim countries have signed with reservations to defend their domestic religious and cultural life," says Balmforth. "By signing CEDAW they have exposed themselves to an endless round of browbeating from feminists on the commission."

     The problem, as conservatives see it, is that when conventions are passed, governments are forced to report to treaty bodies charged with measuring governmental progress. These treaty bodies, made up not of governmental delegates but by experts almost exclusively drawn from feminist ranks, have taken broad powers to re-interpret the conventions as they see fit.

     Balmforth believes the CEDAW committee is most hostile to motherhood and to religion. "When national governments pass laws protecting motherhood, they are whipsawed by the CEDAW committee, which accuses them of paternalism, or of perpetuating damaging stereotypes," says Balmforth. She says the CEDAW committee has "ridiculed governments for portraying motherhood as a noble calling."

     In some of its more controversial pronouncements, CEDAW criticized one government because only 30 percent of its children under three years old were in day care while the rest were being cared for by family members. The CEDAW committee also ordered China to legalize prostitution, even though the treaty explicitly condemns the trade. Moreover, the committee ordered the government of Libya to reinterpret the Koran to make it fall more within committee guidelines.

     Most of the world's governments have signed the convention, although the United States government is not expected to. That leaves mostly Muslim states to be targeted by King and her radical allies. Balmforth warns, however, "signing this document is like signing a blank check and hoping no one will use it."

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