Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

This conference is pretty cool--it brings together experts on various countries to discuss issues of women living in different parts of the world. Countries report on their recent progress in accordance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and others have a chance to respond to the reports. The dialogue allows experts to point out continuing problems and suggest new approaches to solving what are often historically entrenched disparities in the treatment of men and women. It's especially interesting because it seems to be a textbook academic approach (conference with a bunch of experts) with very realistic, tangible effects.

I read the report on Namibia, whose challenges include keeping women's issues at the forefront of public interest (ah! we can sympathize with that), rectifying contradictions between customary/traditional and common law, and increasing the rate of reports for violence committed against women.

There are also reports on Kazakhstan, Poland, Vietnam, India and Nicaragua.