Blog post written by IHRC Student Attorney Benita Bentlage.
Santa Clara University’s International Human Rights Clinic is working in collaboration with Santa Clara County’s Commission on the Status of Women to help support the county in passing a local ordinance adopting the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as guiding principles for the county. In furtherance of this project, I travelled with clinic director Francisco Rivera to Sacramento to attend “California Women’s Conference 2016: Advocacy in Action”, in which members of the Association of California Commissions for Women presented the work they are doing in their communities and, more importantly, shared their best practices and experience with other members. I was able to hear two of the panel presentations.
Cover of Conference Brochure
In the first panel, “Cities for CEDAW: Gender Equity Policy and implementation at the Local Level”, commissioners from Los Angeles and San Francisco discussed the process of becoming a CEDAW city and described actions their city commissions took to implement CEDAW successful and lasting. I found the panel particularly helpful for learning more about the impact CEDAW can have and how to successfully implement CEDAW.
The Los Angeles Commissioners stressed the importance of developing a gender study as a first step to successfully implementing CEDAW. Specifically, a gender study is necessary to understand the city’s current status of gender equity. This follows from their motto: “When it’s not being measured, it’s not being monitored”. To carry out and finance their gender study, the Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women (“CSW”) partnered with Mount St. Mary University. Accordingly, Los Angeles was able to release its first report on the status of women and girls in Los Angeles at a relatively low cost.
A second important component for the successful implementation of CEDAW in Los Angeles is the fact that the mayor’s office mandated every city department general manager to develop and implement a “Gender Equity Action Plan” within each department (e.g. the fire department, police, etc.). Additionally, department general managers are required to designate a Gender Equity Liaison within the department, thereby ensuring some institutional structure, permanence, and continuity in implementing the gender equity action plan. The mayor includes the gender equity action plan in the job performance review for these liaisons, thereby giving departments an incentive to adequately implement the plan. Hence, Los Angeles has successfully implemented its CEDAW ordinance by carrying out a gender study and implementing a gender equity action plan through department directors and gender equity liaisons.
San Francisco used similar strategy. First, San Francisco integrated gender equity and human rights principles into all aspects of government. Next, San Francisco published reports on issues such as domestic violence and human trafficking. This allowed the city to analyze what the problems are and how to address those issues. Finally, San Francisco acknowledged that although most actions could probably be done even without enforcing CEDAW, those actions gain credibility through the CEDAW lens and the CEDAW ordinance provides an institutional mandate.
IHRC Student Attorney Benita Bentlage at “California Women’s Conference 2016”
The second panel, “Breaking Cycles, Rebuilding Lives: The Santa Clara County initiative to address the needs of women in the jail system”, highlighted the great work the Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women has done on behalf of women in the county jail. For example, Santa Clara has published studies and reports that identify the different needs men and women in jail may have, and develop policy and practice accordingly. The panelists discussed several issues, including the use of shackles on pregnant women and how women in jail have less access to books than men, and they described how the CSW addressed those problems.
Overall the panels provided valuable insight on the implementation of local government initiatives to strengthen women’s rights. Furthermore, we learned how treaties like CEDAW can build a credible institutional framework for women’s rights, and we hope to use this information to continue our efforts to pass a local CEDAW ordinance in Santa Clara County.
IHRC Student Attorney Benita Bentlage in front of the state capitol building in Sacramento.
