VP Issues Update

This October, New Zealand is being audited on it's progress toward gender equality.

This is Aotearoa's ninth report to the UN Committee that monitors states' progress against the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

Civil society organisations are able to submit their comments. Earlier this month, BPW NZ authored and sent our submission. In just under the 3,300 word count, we reported on most of the articles - including exploitation, justice, health, education, economy, and more. You can check it out here.

Here is what our Executive Summary read:

New Zealand is lauded internationally as a place of strong gender equality, however advocacy groups, like BPW NZ, continue to be greatly concerned about the gender inequality that remains, particularly for Māori and Pasifika women. We see very slow (or non-existent) progress in realms such as poverty (Art. 11, 13), gender-based violence (5), women in leadership in the private sector (11), and the gender and intersectional pay gap (11). Government action in these areas has lacked the transformational change required.

There are two areas of significant societal change over the past quarter century, which have a significant impact on women and girls; however, the need for a gender lens has remained largely ignored in policy making in New Zealand. These are climate change (11, 12, 13) and online harm (7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13). Women and other vulnerable groups are not proactively supported to have a space in decision-making realms for those areas.

Furthermore, the New Zealand government has failed to adopt a culture of proactive gender-mainstreaming into policy-making other than the activities of Manatū Wāhine/Ministry for Women (15).

The following report is organised by Convention Article and speaks to the list of issues and questions prior to the submission of the ninth periodic report of New Zealand.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our report.

President Janet Gibb, VP Issues Siobhan Dilly

www.bpwnz.org.nz

Ngā mihi nui,

Siobhan Dilly

VP Issues

BPWNZ