Women's Rights in the Netherlands - an update

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) recently published the list of issues and questions prior to the submission of the seventh periodic report of the Netherlands. What does this mean?

The document provides guiding issues and questions for the Dutch government to report about and send it to CEDAW within half a year.

CEDAW used input from three (shadow) reports with information about women's rights in the Netherlands for developing its list:

1. NNID, Dutch organisation for sex diversity, Transgendernetwerk Nederland, COC Nederland

2. College voor de Rechten van de Mens

3. Dutch CEDAW Network

Beyond Gender Neutrality: in words and in action

For the shadow report of the Dutch CEDAW Network I was part of the writing team jointly with Petra Snelders and Luna Vollebregt. We connected with and received rich information from Dutch civil society organisations and NGOs. With support from members of the Dutch CEDAW Network we selected and merged the information into the shadow report: 'Women's Rights beyond gender neutrality: in words and in action'.

Many thanks to all 76 CSOs/NGOs for endorsing the shadow report. And thanks for the input that we received during an online consultation to highlight four issues in our Oral Statement:

1. the (in)security of women (e.g. an increase of sexual intimidation and hate speech against women),

2. the lack of gender-sensitive policies,

3. the (non-)implementation of the Convention, and

4. the importance to sustainably involve of women's organisations in government policy.

More background information (in Dutch) is available in a blog from the writing team.