How can the universalist principles of CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, become a reality for women in their daily lives? For 30 years, those of us engaged in women’s rights advocacy have worked to answer this question as we try to inform, inspire, and communicate the ways that different communities around the world are struggling to reform and transform discriminatory laws and practices.

Lina Abou Habib (CRTD.A)

As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of CEDAW, I want to reflect on some of the evolving challenges we face as well as the hope I see for our future.

In both the Global North and Global South, CEDAW remains an important advocacy tool, providing a common framework and language for women to press for equal rights. Yet, CEDAW remains non-mandatory and is largely ignored by many governments. Even among those that have ratified the convention, there is no political will to make real changes and to provide necessary resources. CEDAW also has yet to be integrated into mainstream education, so many young people know nothing about the underlying issues.

The specific challenge varies from one country to the next. Lebanon and Bahrain, for example, have both signed and ratified CEDAW, but included significant reservations that make its implementation practically impossible. Women activists are continuing to press for change by demanding that governments honor their pledge to women and make national laws conform to CEDAW’s provisions. In our own work, we have specifically targeted nationality laws, which deny women the right to transmit citizenship—and the social, economic, and civil rights that it confers—to their families. This is in clear violation of the spirit and provisions of both CEDAW and each country’s constitution.

In 2006, a group of activists in the Middle East/North Africa region launched the “Equality without Reservation” campaign. Their clever pun presents a clear vision of what equality should look like: unfettered and respected! It also points to the need to lift reservations on CEDAW, so we are not just paying lip service to women’s rights. Although still in its early stages, the Equality without Reservation campaign shows how critically important CEDAW still is and how a lot of work remains to ensure its full implementation.

So, how do we engage tomorrow’s activists in addition to today’s policy makers?

Just two weeks ago, I asked senior students in my Introduction to Gender and Development course whether they had ever heard of CEDAW. None of them had, so I asked them to look it up, read about it, and come back with questions and observations for discussion during our next session. And so they did. In just three short days, the students not only read about CEDAW, they also researched Lebanon’s position vis-à-vis the convention, and designed a poster for the benefit of their colleagues and faculty members! I was stunned.

Through this process, the students taught me some valuable lessons as well. First, I learned a sad truth: unless a young person is active in the women’s movement, she/he is likely to go through her/his entire academic, professional, and public life without ever hearing of CEDAW. But I also learned that, with just a little guidance and encouragement, young women and men are likely to discover in this document a useful and inspiring framework for what their citizenship rights ought to be.

In celebrating thirty years of CEDAW, let us remember, then, what we are still striving to accomplish as well as the promise that the document continues to hold. By signing with innumerable reservations, many states have made CEDAW inapplicable. By failing to include it in our educational curricula, states have made sure that only a select few will know about such an important document. By failing to invest in it, states have created a status quo where there are insufficient resources for equality.

Yet, and in spite of these difficulties, women activists the world over continue to rally behind the convention, making sure that signatories are held responsible for its implementation and that violations are communicated and made public. As we work to make equal rights a reality for all women, let us continue to find ways to bring new advocates into the fold.

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