A/HRC/57/60
Nations Committee on the Elimination
(CEDAW/C/PSE/CO/1, para. 15c),
of
Discrimination
against
Women
183. During the reporting period, the Facebook page entitled “Mass Movement against
CEDAW” issued statements and made posts on social media seeking to stigmatise women’s
rights organisations, particularly those cooperating with the UN Committee on the Rights of
the Child and the CEDAW Committee. Some of these posts called for these organizations to
be treated as “criminal traitors” for receiving foreign funding and alleged that receipt of the
funding required condemning Palestinian resistance.
184. According to information received by OHCHR, on 30 August 2023 the Palestinian
Scholars Association in partnership with the de facto Ministry of Awqaf and Religious
Affairs, the Islamic Sharia College and the Sharia and Law College at the Islamic University,
the Council of Islamic Judiciary, and the Liberation Party, organized a conference in Gaza
entitled “International schemes to demolish the Muslim family – CEDAW as a model.”
Following the conference, the organizers published a list of 28 recommendations, including
a call to relevant domestic authorities to refrain from granting new licenses to women’s
associations that they allege bear a secular character and promote principles that allegedly
contradict Islamic law, such as CEDAW. The conference organizers also called for a
complete boycott of feminist organizations, associations, and CEDAW advocates that
promote conventions and treaties that, in their view, violate Islam, calling on all institutions,
official and unofficial, not to accept invitations from or to host said organizations, nor to meet
them in the context of public or private programs, activities, trainings, or workshops.
185. There are concerns that these recommendations may impact the ability and
willingness of women human rights defenders to engage with the United Nations in the field
of women’s rights, including on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of
all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and that they aim to punish women’s rights
organizations for their work on women’s rights, including in cooperation with the United
Nations.
GE.24-14259
69