LAHORE: The recommendations of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw) Committee are a timely response, especially the ones focusing on women from the religious minority communities, to the current impasse reached in parliament regarding proposed bills.

This was stated by Peter Jacob, the executive director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), while referring to the recommendations given by the committee a few days ago specifically for Pakistan following the 75th review session held recently in Geneva. The committee is a monitoring body that measures the compliance levels of individual statesthrough Cedaw.

Mr Jacob said that in the committee`s report, particularly interesting from the perspective of minority women were the concerns raised under Article 48 whereby the committee enjoined the state party to `provide collected information on women facing intersecting forms of discrimination disaggregated by sex, age disability, ethnicity, religion and geographical location`.

`In terms of legislative change, in Para 50, it also calls upon the government to adopt new matrimonial laws for Christian marriages whereby equal rights are granted to the husband and wife on the question of divorce,` said Mr Jacob, who has beentrying a push a bill for legislation.

Earlier, the CSJ along with other civil society organisations prepared a report titled, Discrimination Lingers On, focusing on the challenges faced by minority women and girls in Pakistan.

The report substantiated trends of violence against women from religious minority communities through a combination of governmental and non-governmental sources to apprise the committee of ongoing forced conversions, forced marriages, abduction, sexual violence and other crimes.

The Cedaw, which operates under the UN, provides an international legal framework to protect, promote and fulfil women`s rights with 189 states party to the convention. Staff Reporter