#cedaw

Qasim Rashid at Let's Address This:

Children today have it tough, between grades, drugs, alcohol—and apparently, the threat of child marriage. This isn’t hyperbole. To this day in 2025, thousands of children are forced into child marriage in the United States—and Republicans seem to want to keep it that way. With several thousand documented child marriages every single year—some involving as children as young as 10—we need need legislative solutions and penalties for those who exploit children. But where do we begin?

[...]

Who Is Perpetuating This Injustice?

Because while child marriage is a nationwide problem, Republican states lead the way. Nine of the top 10 states leading rates of child marriage are GOP run states. They are as follows:

1. Nevada (0.671%) 2. Idaho (0.338%) 3. Arkansas (0.295%) 4. Kentucky (0.262%) 5. Oklahoma (0.229%) 6. Wyoming (0.227%) 7. Utah (0.208%) 8. Alabama (0.195%) 9. West Virginia (0.193%) 10. Mississippi (0.182%)

This epidemic persists under the radar, often defended and protected by lawmakers, particularly within the Republican Party, who cite tradition, religion, and a shocking misinterpretation of maturity and readiness. The latest absurd argument is that child marriage is better than abortion—notwithstanding that states that ban abortion also suffer at least a 24% increase in maternal mortality and have the highest rate of infant mortality as well. Facts just aren’t the Republican’s thing—controlling women and children, is. West Virginia and Wyoming Republicans have also launched efforts to protect child marriage. And in New Hampshire, as recently as 2018, child marriage was legal for girls as young as 13 and boys as young as 14. This is particularly concerning because about 86% of child marriages are of young girls to male adults. Worse, efforts to ban child marriage in New Hampshire faced opposition from legislators when 174 Republicans voted against a bill to ban child marriage.

Missouri tells a similar story, where Republicans continue to block attempts to raise the marriage age by arguing for “parental rights and traditional values,” regardless of the immense harm to children.

[...] And the fact is, this hypocrisy extends beyond child marriage. The Republican Party, which often claims to champion the protection of children, also supports policies that endanger and undermine the well-being of minors. They are proponents of child labor laws, opponents of free school lunches for children, adversaries of the child tax credit, and critics of Medicaid expansion, which disproportionately benefits low-income children. 

This Qasim Rashid, Esq. Substack piece on America’s child marriage epidemic is a must-read.

This week's Giggle v Tickle appeal in the Federal Court has again shown that the Australian Human Rights Commission is interpreting our Sex Discrimination Act to enable precedence to be afforded to males who claim to have a gender identity over the sex-based rights, safety and dignity of Australian women.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Ms Reem Alsalem, in her position paper on the interpretation of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979), states:

"Where tension may arise between the right to non-discrimination based on sex and non discrimination based on gender identity, international human rights law does not endorse an interpretation that allows either for derogations from the obligation to ensure non-discrimination based on sex or the subordination of this obligation not to discriminate based on sex to other rights."

Women and girls experience oppression and discrimination based on their sex, and it is this experience to which the Act must respond if it is to achieve the commitment to Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on which it was founded.

Girls and women were never even consulted when our rights were removed with the 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act that were supported by both major parties.

On 23 August 2018, acting under Article 7(1) of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), [Rosanna Flamer-Caldera] submitted a claim to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (‘CEDAW Committee’). The applicant complained that same sex activity between consenting adults is a criminal offence under the Sri Lankan Penal Code. [...] On the 23 March 2022 the CEDAW Committee handed down a landmark opinion finding that the state had violated a number of the Convention’s provisions.

Criminalisation of Same Sex Conduct under CEDAW

In Flamer-Caldera the CEDAW Committee found violations of articles 2(a), (c)-(g), 5 (a), 7 (c), 15 and 16 in conjunction with article 1, and in light of general recommendations no. 19, 33 and 35 of the Convention. The Committee found that the State party had subjected the author to direct and indirect discrimination ‘emanating from the Penal Code of 1883 as amended’. The Committee contextualised this within the broader discriminatory environment in which women live, stating that ‘certain groups of women, including lesbian women, are particularly vulnerable discrimination through civil and penal laws, regulations and customary laws and practices’. The Committee also noted that Ms Flamer Caldera was a well-known in Sri Lanka for being a lesbian and activist for LGBTI rights and that this put her ‘under constant risk of arrest, detention and investigation of her private life’ given that the law continues to be enforced. For these reasons the Committee found violations of Article 2(a) and (d)-(g) of the Convention which inter alia calls on states to repeal discriminatory laws and to take appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination.

Discriminatory Laws and Gender Stereotyping

The Committee held that the State party had also violated Article 2 (c)-(f) of the Convention in conjunction with general recommendations no 19 and 35 of the Convention for failing to respect and protect the author’s right to life free from gender-based violence. The Committee drew attention to how gender-based violence against women, takes multiple forms and that states should repeal provisions that allow, tolerate or condone forms of gender-based violence against women (echoing the words of general recommendation no 35). The decision thus contributes to the Committee’s growing jurisprudence on gender-based violence against women including lesbians following their earlier decision of ON and DP v Russia (2020). Further the Committee held that Article 15(1) of the Convention had been infringed since ‘criminalisation is incompatible with the author’s right to complain of the abuse and threats to which she has been subjected’ since it makes her vulnerable to arrest and prosecution for approaching the police or law enforcement to file complaints of threats or harassment.

Article 5(a) of the Convention places an obligation on State parties to eliminate prejudicial stereotypes. With respect to this case the Committee noted that ‘decriminalization of consensual same sex relations is essential to prevent and protect against violence, discrimination and harmful gender stereotypes’. The Committee found the State to be in violation of this article as it had not effectively refuted or indicated any measures taken to eliminate the prejudices to which the author had been exposed as a woman, lesbian and activist.

The Right to Participate as a Human Rights Defender and LGBTI Activist

Significantly, the Committee held that article 7(c) of the Convention which ensures women’s participation in civil society organisations had been violated. This finding is the second time in two years that the Committee has held that states have violated the rights of human rights defenders and their right to participate in activism (see also Abaida v Libya, CEDAW/C/78/D/130/2018 decided April 2021). The Committee held that the State in this case had ‘failed to protect the author against, and [has] partaken in, harassment, abuse and threats against the author’s work’ promoting LGBTI communities’ rights in Sri Lanka.  

Protecting Non-Heterosexual Relations

One of the key findings in this case, which will be of particular interest to scholars who are ‘queering international law’ and to those who work on LGBTI rights is the finding in paragraph 9.7 that the criminalisation of same sex sexual conduct between women breaches the rights under article 16 of the Convention which relates to marriage, family relations, autonomy and choice. The Committee states that the ‘rights enshrined in the Convention belong to all women, including lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex women’ and that it applies to ‘non-heterosexual relations’. [...]

Recommendations

Exclusive: United Nations slams the UK for failing to properly implement the convention signed by Mrs Thatcher to eliminate all discrimination against women

The UN committee monitoring progress by the UK to implement the UN Convention to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls (CEDAW) ratified by Margaret Thatcher in 1986 has severely criticised the foot dragging by the British government under Boris Johnson to fully implement it. CEDAW in session; Pic Credit UN News In a strongly worded report the Geneva based organisation…

Lesbian Rights in the Declaration of Women’s Sex-Based Rights

Guest post by Tina Minkowitz

Tina Minkowitz is a human rights lawyer who mostly works on the rights of people with disabilities, in particular for the abolition of forced psychiatric interventions. Her LLM thesis Female Autonomy vs Gender Identity: a critical analysis of gender identity in CEDAW jurisprudence and the Yogyakarta Principlesis available online and may also be of interest to…

Ensenada, B.C.- domingo 28 de septiembre de 2025.- La Red de Mujeres Unidas por Baja California, encabezada por su presidenta Vanesa García y su vicepresidenta Daniela García Salgado, presentó una iniciativa de reforma al Código Penal del Estado para sancionar con mayor severidad los matrimonios y uniones forzadas de niñas, niños y adolescentes. La propuesta surge tras el llamado de la activista…