UN report highlights problems faced by New Zealand women
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E-mail Xinhua, July 31, 2012
A United Nations committee Tuesday issued a string of concerns over women's rights and equality in New Zealand and called on the government to take action to redress problems faced by women.
The United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) also noted the "limited distribution of its previous concluding observations and recommendations" to the New Zealand Parliament and "the lack of systemic Parliamentary oversight to ensure accountability on women's rights and gender equality."
Among its concerns and recommendations, CEDAW listed in its report:
-- A lack of sufficient legal protection of equal pay for equal work.
-- Inadequate knowledge of women's rights under the convention and insufficient training of judges and lawyers.
-- The government's tightened funding and proposed eligibility criteria for legal aid, affecting women's access to the justice system.
-- A lack of adequate resources for the Ministry of Women's Affairs.
-- Negative and exploitative representation of women in the media, and cyberbullying, particularly against teenage girls.
-- "Continued high and increasing levels of violence against women" and insufficient statistical data on violence against women.
However, New Zealand's Women's Affairs Minister, Jo Goodhew, who presented the government's four-yearly progress report to the CEDAW Committee in New York earlier this month, said the committee had "commended New Zealand for having the fundamentals in place for the continuing advancement of women."
"The committee has expressed its appreciation for the comprehensive report on women in New Zealand presented by the delegation, and acknowledged New Zealand for implementing a number of positive legislative and policy reforms for the advancement of women," Goodhew said in a statement.
"For example, the committee has noted that women now comprise the majority of tertiary students, the gender gap for median hourly earnings has reduced and health outcomes for New Zealand women continue to improve," she said.
"The committee has acknowledged the legislative changes made in 2009 which enable the courts to issue protection orders on behalf of victims of domestic violence, although it also says that more needs to be done to reduce New Zealand's rate of family violence."
She said the committee had also made "recommendations for improvement in a number of areas," which she would discuss with her government colleagues and officials.
However, the opposition Green Party called on the government to reconsider the impact of its policies on women in light of the report.
"The government needs to look find solutions to the criticism it has received in the 2012 CEDAW report," Green Party women's affairs spokesperson Jan Logie said in a statement.
The government could start with modernizing the Equal Pay Act in order to meet its international obligations.
"While it has been illegal in New Zealand to pay men and women differently for doing the same job since 1972, this is still happening," she said.
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (CTU) said the CEDAW report was a direct warning to the government on its changes to employment and collective bargaining rules planned for later this year.
"This high ranking UN committee made a specific recommendation that an independent evaluation should be carried out of changes to industrial relations and collective bargaining to ensure that changes do not negatively affect women's employment and trade unions rights," CTU president Helen Kelly said in a statement.
""The fact the that these issues are taken seriously at the international UN level shows their importance and the risk to New Zealand's international reputation these law changes pose."
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