CEDAW/C/GC/32
legally recognize such intersecting forms of discrimination and their compounded
negative impact on the women concerned and prohibit them.
7.
The Committee notes that the experiences of women during displacement,
from asylum to integration, return or settlement in a third country, in addition to
those of stateless women, are shaped by the action or inaction of various actors.
States parties bear the primary responsibility for ensuring that asylum-seeking
women, refugee women, women nationality applicants and stateless women within
their territory or under their effective control or jurisdiction, even if not situated
within their territory, are not exposed to violations of their rights under the
Convention, including when such violations are committed by private persons and
non-State actors. 4
8.
In the context of asylum, refugee status, nationality and statelessness, the
obligation to respect requires that States parties refrain from engaging in any act of
discrimination against women that directly or indirectly results in the denial of the
equal enjoyment of their rights with men and ensure that State authorities, officials,
agents, institutions and other actors acting on behalf of the State act in conformity
with that obligation. 5 States parties also have a due-diligence obligation to take the
legislative and other measures necessary to prevent and investigate acts of
discrimination against women that are perpetrated by non-State actors, to prosecute
and adequately punish perpetrators of such acts and to provide reparations to
women who are victims of discrimination. The obligation to protect requires States
parties to, among other things, take all appropriate measures to ensure that State and
private actors do not unlawfully infringe on the rights of women. The obligation to
fulfil encompasses the obligation of States parties to facilitate access to and provide
for the full realization of women’s rights. It also requires States parties to promote
de facto or substantive equality with men through all appropriate means, including
through specific and effective policies and programmes aimed at improving the
position of women and achieving such equality, including, where appropriate,
through the adoption of temporary special measures in accordance with article 4 (1)
of the Convention and general recommendation No. 25.
III. Relationship between the Convention, international human
rights law and international refugee law
9.
The Convention is part of a comprehensive international human rights legal
framework that operates simultaneously with international refugee law and the laws
relating to the status of stateless persons and the reduction of statelessness. There is
an important overlapping interrelationship between international human rights law,
including the Convention, the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
and the 1967 Protocol thereto, and the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of
Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The
shared objective of the two protection regimes should ensure the complementary
and cumulative protection of refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons.
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4
5
14-64766
General recommendation No. 28, and general recommendation No. 30 on women in conflict
prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations.
General recommendation No. 28, para. 9.
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