Pennsylvania NOW's Letter to US Senate Judiciary Committee on CEDAW

The following is the letter I just sent to the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law in strong support of the international Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).  It will be delivered to the subcommittee by the National Women's Law Center as part of a package of testimonial letters and petitions to the members of the subcommittee during a public hearing to be held on CEDAW this Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. in Room 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510.  The members of this committee are Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Committee Members Russ Feingold (D-WI), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Al Franken (D-MN), Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Ted Kaufman (D-DE), Lindsey O. Graham (R-SC), and John Cornyn (R-TX).

For information on how you can send your own statement to the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, see my previous blog on November 13, 2010.  It is titled CEDAW Hearing Scheduled. Your Action is Needed.

11/15/2010

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Re: Ratification of CEDAW without disabling Restrictions, Understandings, and Declarations (RUDs) or any further delay.


Senate Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510


Dear Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Coburn, and Members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law:


On behalf of the over 13,000 contributing and dues-paying members of the National Organization for Women here in Pennsylvania, we are writing to you today to express our strong support for ratifying the international Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).


We thank the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law for convening this hearing and turning its attention to CEDAW. CEDAW was first proposed 35 years ago and was written with the assistance of the US Government. Yet we have yet to ratify this critical treaty that affirms the fundamental principles of human rights and equality for women around the world, including here in the United States. CEDAW has been ratified by 186 countries, including all other industrialized nations, with the exception of the United States. In fact, the United States is one of only seven United Nation-member countries that has not ratified this critical human rights treaty. The other six member countries are Iran, Somalia, Sudan and three small Pacific Island nations. It is long past time for the US to ratify this treaty.


Promoting and protecting human rights is fundamental to America's core values. Under the leadership of Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, the U.S. ratified similar treaties on genocide, torture, race, and civil and political rights.


While progress has been made in advancing women’s rights in recent decades, women continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, sexual and domestic violence and lack of access to basic health care and equal education. In countries where CEDAW has been ratified, it has made significant improvement to the status of women. U.S. ratification of CEDAW would lend weight to the treaty and solidify our status as a leader in the global human rights committee.


In this age of globalization, the fate of our nation is more closely intertwined with that of the rest of the world than ever before. The United States can enhance our longstanding role as a global leader for women’s rights and human rights if we engage with the community of nations that has ratified CEDAW in determining how best to achieve progress for women and girls.


Attached to this letter are the signatures of 515 people who signed our petition supporting the US ratification of CEDAW without disabling Restrictions, Understandings and Declarations (RUDs) or any further delay. A total of 334 of these signatures were collected online through Facebook at our Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund cause site. These signatures represent people from four countries (India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States). Within the United States, we collected these online signatures from people living in 33 different states. The remaining 181 signatures were gathered at a Ni-Ta-Nee NOW (the local chapter of NOW in Centre County, PA) tabling event at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts held in State College, Pennsylvania in July.


Thank you again for holding these hearings. Show your support for women in Pennsylvania, the United States, and around the world by showing your support for CEDAW.


Please send this treaty to the floor of the Senate with a message of strong support for ratification of CEDAW without disabling Restrictions, Understandings and Declarations (RUDs). Please ratify CEDAW without any further delay.


Thank you.


Sincerely,
Joanne L. Tosti-Vasey, Ph.D.
President
Pennsylvania NOW, Inc.

CEDAW Hearing Scheduled. Your Action is Needed.

CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) will, after a hiatus of eight years, finally receive another hearing in the US Senate.  Passage by the US has been pending for 35 years.

The US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law will be holding a hearing this coming Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2 p.m. in the Dirsken Senate Office Building, Room 226. This will be the first hearing on CEDAW since 2002 and the first time ever that the Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on a human rights treaty. The hearing is open to the public.

We would like to see the room filled with supporters of CEDAW, so if you can make it to Washington, DC for this important hearing to show your support, please do so. If you will be attending, please notify Erica Swanson at the Leadership Conference on Human and Civil Rights so that she can get a count of supporters and have a sticker for you to wear in the room; that way, the Senators will know you are supporting the treaty. Her email address is swanson@civilrights.org.

Note, if you can't make it to the hearing, you can listen in.  Just go the this page at 2 pm on Thursday, November 18, 2010 and click on the "Webcast" button.

You may also submit testimony to the subcommittee. I will be submitting testimony on behalf of PA NOW along with the signatures of 515 people who signed on this summer through our Facebook Causes page as well as a printed petition we distributed at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in State College in July.

The formal deadline for receiving statements on your support of CEDAW is one week after the hearing. You should address these to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510. The fax number for the Majority members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law office is 202-228-4461 and the phone number is 202-224-6884. The phone number for the Minority members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law office is 202-224-5972 (there is NO fax number listed for the minority committee members on the Judiciary Committee Subcommittee website.

Members of the the Subcommittee include:

MAJORITY MEMBERS:
Dick Durbin (D-IL) Chair
Russ Feingold (D-WI)
Arlen Specter (D-PA)
Al Franken (D-MN)
Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD)
Ted Kaufman (D-DE)

MINORITY MEMBERS:
Tom Coburn (R-OK) Ranking Member
Lindsey O. Graham (R-SC)
John Cornyn (R-TX)

Thank you for your support. Now lets push for full passage without any reservations or restrictions.

Fall Pennsylvania NOW Times and Voters' Guide

The Pennsylvania NOW Times Fall issue is now available online.  The newsletter includes:

• Our Voters' Guide
• Legislative Updates - what passed and what didn't during the 2009-2010 Pennsylvania General Assembly session.
• Unshackeled - story about Pennsylvania outlawing the shackling of incarcerated pregant women.
• Anti-Abortion Bill Condemned - article about a bill introduced by Senator Don White that would outlaw abortion coverage, even when medically necessary, in the new health care insurance exchanges.
• Police Failure to Investigate Rape - story about what happens when police fail to properly investigate allegations of rape.
• Chapter Exchange

Women's Equality Day, the ERA and CEDAW

August 26, 2010 was the 90th anniversary of women receiving the constitutional right to vote in the United States.  It is now known as Women's Equality Day. Today, women have more opportunities than ever before. For many, the right to vote is equated with full equality for women.  However that is only one step in the process. 

As Terry O'Neill, National President of NOW states, "When history books and the media celebrate women's successful fight for the right to vote, they often imply that women now have constitutional equality. The fact is, sex discrimination against women is not unconstitutional, and statues prohibiting it have no constitutional foundation. It is time to write women into the Constitution by ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment."

In the United States, we need to pass and include the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) in the US Constitition.  We can start by calling on our representatives at the state and federal level to advance the ERA. Women can do their part by voting in 2010. We must vote for candidates who believe that equality is a basic human right -- candidates who believe in reproductive freedom, who support equal rights for lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered people, who are dedicated to eliminating racism and violence, who promote economic justice, and who believe that women must be included in the U.S. Constitution.

And we can do the same for women throughout the world by urging the US Senate to ratify the 30-year-old UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, commonly known as CEDAW.  The US helped draft this treaty.  It has been ratified by 185 countries, including all industrialized nations, with the exception of the United States. While progress has been made in advancing women’s rights in recent decades, women continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, sexual and domestic violence and lack of access to basic health care and equal education. In countries where CEDAW has been ratified, it has made significant improvement to the status of women. U.S. ratification of CEDAW would lend weight to the treaty and solidify our status as a leader in the global human rights committee. U.S. ratification would lend weight to the treaty and the principle that human rights of women are universal across all cultures, nations and religions and worthy of being guaranteed through international human rights standards.


So in that vein, the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund has been gathering signatures through Facebook Causes to ratify CEDAW. The petition will be sent to President Obama and the Senate petitioning that they "support human rights by prioritizing and passing the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) without restrictions or reservations."  As of the end of the day of Women's Equality Day, 180 people from 21 states had signed the petition in the last month.   We'd like to thank all of the signees.  And if you haven't signed the petition and are on Facebook, go to our Cause page at http://www.causes.com/causes/316675 to add your name.  If you are not on Facebook, you can sign a similar petition at the National NOW ACtion Center at http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5996/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1364.

Women's Equality Day, CEDAW, and Facebook

Women's Equality Day is August 26 in the United States.  It was instituted in 1971 by Bella Abzug.  It commemorates the passage of the 19th amendment to the US Constitution that grants the right to vote to women.  We also use this day to commemorate other achievements and efforts to achieve equality for women.  Like the passage of Title IX that helps insure equitable access to education for girls or the inclusion of gender in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was reconfirmed with the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.  It is a day to honor women's rights.

We believe that women’s rights are human rights.  What better way to honor that history than to urge the United States Senate to ratify CEDAW -- the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women.  CEDAW is the most comprehensive international agreement on the basic human rights of women and girls.

Ratifying CEDAW would lend weight to the treaty and the principle that human rights of women are universal across all cultures, nations and religions and worthy of being guaranteed through international human rights standards.  Until the U.S. ratifies CEDAW, it can neither credibly demand that others live up to their obligations under the treaty, nor that it is a leader in the global human rights community.

CEDAW has been ratified by 185 countries, including all industrialized nations, with the exception of the United States. While progress has been made in advancing women’s rights in recent decades, women continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty, sexual and domestic violence and lack of access to basic health care and equal education. In countries where CEDAW has been ratified, it has made significant improvement to the status of women. U.S. ratification of CEDAW would lend weight to the treaty and solidify our status as a leader in the global human rights committee.

So in honor of Women's Equality Day, the Pennsylvania NOW Education Fund has created an online Facebook petition urging the US Senate to ratify CEDAW without restrictions or reservations.

If you have a Facebook account, you can sign the petition (and add your “Cause” supporting this action). This petition drive ends on August 26, 2010—Women’s Equality Day. The signatures will be sent to the National NOW Action Center to be added to the signatures they are delivering to the US Senate and to President Obama.

So take a moment, sign the petition, and spread the word in honor of Women's Equality Day!