NEW YORK — International Women's Day was celebrated March 8. Although progress has been made in achieving women's rights everywhere, we should not lose sight of the fact that widespread discrimination against women persists in law and practice, directly or indirectly, all over the world.
Public outcry and headlines tend to concentrate on egregious cases of female genital mutilation, punishment of rape victims, sexual slavery and degrading treatment of all sorts. But it is "lower-intensity" discrimination, often sanctioned by law, that condemns millions of women to daily hardship and suffering. Beyond sparse and mainly ritual condemnations, such pervasive conditions continue to fly below the international radar.
A recent United Nations-commissioned study underscores that this occurs despite the fact that the rights of women to equality and nondiscrimination are enshrined in a number of international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Charter and, most extensively, in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).