Last Saturday morning, enthusiastic participants gathered at AWARE to attend a public CEDAW Forum. The forum is part of AWARE’s efforts to raise awareness on CEDAW and to encourage everyone to play a bigger role using the CEDAW process to support other women in our country. The forum was graced by AWARE’s President, Ms Nicole Tan, who gave the opening address.

The day started with short presentations from our invited speakers, Ms Kelly Then from LGBT advocacy group Sayoni and Mr John Gee from migrant workers’ rights group TWC2. These speakers shared the main points of their CEDAW Shadow Reports as well as their experiences as participants for the 49th Session of CEDAW at the United Nations.

AWARE’s CEDAW committee member and Vice-President, Ms Halijah Mohamad also talked about the CEDAW Reporting Process and AWARE’s lobbying efforts to raise key issues to the UN CEDAW Committee Members.

After lunch, there was a sharing session on the United Nations’ just-released Concluding Observations (July 2011) on singapore’s compliance with CEDAW. This document highlights the UN CEDAW Committee Members’s concerns on issues such as:

• The prevalence and persistence of patriarchal attitudes in Singapore
• The continued prevalence of trafficking of women and girls
• The lack of statistical data on domestic and sexual violence

The UN CEDAW Committee also made suggestions as to how the Singapore government can enact measures and initiatives to further promote gender equality and protect women’s rights. Some of these suggestions reiterated recommendations rmade by the Committee in previous Concluding Observations (August 2007). This is a clear indicator that the State has not acted upon the Committee’s recommendations.

For example, on the issue of the National Machinery for women, the Committee repeated its 2007 recommendation that the State should elevate the status and strengthen the mandate of the Office of Women’s Development.

Following the session, participants were divided into groups for a short workshop on Moving CEDAW Forward. This is an opportunity for participants to brainstorm ideas that will make CEDAW more accessible to all.

Each group had a different topic to discuss:

• Group 1: Public education on CEDAW
• Group 2: Outreach
• Group 3: Identifying the top 3 issues for research and advocacy
• Group 4: How to form a CEDAW coalition?

Each group came back with great ideas. Group 1 suggested we conduct talks on CEDAW in schools and universities. Group 2 suggesting that we set-up creative productions on CEDAW, while Group 3 identified the need to increase political participation of women. Group 4 suggested establishing a secretariat for CEDAW.

It was heartening and inspiring to see participants actively engaging with CEDAW. We hope that everyone who attended gained a better understanding of CEDAW and walked away with new insights and perspectives on the Convention.