Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
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United Nations CEDAW/C/SR.1749 Convention on the Elimination Distr.: General 17 February 2020 of All Forms of Discrimination against Women Original: English Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women Seventy-fifth session Summary record of the 1749th meeting* Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, on Tuesday, 11 February 2020, at 10 a.m. Chair: Ms. Gbedemah Contents Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 18 of the Convention Combined fourth to seventh periodic reports of Latvia * No summary record was issued for the 1748th meeting. This record is subject to correction. Corrections should be set forth in a memorandum and also incorporated in a copy of the record. They should be sent within one week of the date of the present record to the Documents Management Section ([email protected]). Any corrected records of the public meetings of the Committee at this session will be reissued for technical reasons after the end of the session. GE.20-02098 (E) 170220 170220 CEDAW/C/SR.1749 The meeting was called to order at 10 a.m. Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 18 of the Convention Combined fourth to seventh periodic reports of Latvia (CEDAW/C/LVA/4-7; CEDAW/C/LVA/Q/4-7 and CEDAW/C/LVA/RQ/4-7) 1. At the invitation of the Chair, the delegation of Latvia took places at the Committee table. 2. Ms. Lībiņa-Egnere (Latvia), introducing her country’s combined fourth to seventh periodic reports (CEDAW/C/LVA/4-7), said that, at the international level, Latvian women were increasingly shaping the human rights agenda and occupying some of the highest posts in international and supranational organizations, including the United Nations, the European Commission and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). At home, women’s representation in high-level positions was no longer the exception, but a regular occurrence. 3. In the period since the previous dialogue with the Committee, Latvia had joined the European Union and experienced rapid growth. However, the 2008 economic crisis had hit the country hard, forcing the Government to make significant cutbacks in the public sector and to delay the implementation of reforms and plans. Although the austerity measures had not dented the Government’s commitment to protecting human rights, they had affected its capacity to meet some of its treaty reporting obligations. The current Government had reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening respect for human rights, reducing inequality by increasing women’s representation in public and political life and eliminating gender- based violence. 4. Article 89 of the Constitution of Latvia provided for the recognition and protection of fundamental human rights in accordance with domestic law and international agreements to which Latvia was a party, such as the Convention. Article 91 of the Constitution enshrined the right to equality before the law and prohibited discrimination of any kind. The laconic nature of those constitutional provisions allowed for dynamic interpretations that reflected changes in legal thought, context and international law. For example, in a recent case concerning gender disparities in the sentencing of men and women convicted of serious crimes, the Constitutional Court had referred to article 91 of the Constitution and to articles 4 and 5 of the Convention, and had found that, in the light of changes in society – in particular growing recognition of the equal role played by both parents in the upbringing of children – the differential treatment of male convicts was unconstitutional. 5. The country’s national human rights institution – the Ombudsperson’s Office – played an influential role in promoting and protecting human rights in Latvia. Its mandate included examining individual complaints of human rights violations, including discrimination against women; providing applicants with legal assistance in court; and carrying out independent research and public awareness-raising. The Government attached great importance to ensuring that the Office had sufficient resources to carry out its functions, reflected in a slight increase in its budget for the 2020 financial year. 6. With regard to violence against women, Latvia had made significant progress in establishing a legal framework aimed at preventing domestic violence and protecting victims. The Criminal Procedure Law and the Criminal Law had both been amended in order to, inter alia, strengthen procedural safeguards for victims of domestic violence and simplify reporting procedures. Perpetrators of domestic violence could be prosecuted even if no formal complaint had been lodged, which was crucial in cases where the victim was reluctant to file a complaint out of fear of reprisal. In addition, temporary protection measures for victims of violence had been introduced; State-funded legal aid had been made available for women victims, with no means testing; and police officers and judges had been offered specific training on recognizing different forms of domestic violence, including sexual, psychological and economic violence. Psychological abuse, stalking and female genital mutilation had also been criminalized. 7. Latvia had participated in a number of international projects aimed at preventing trafficking in persons. The objective of one such project, financed by the European Commission, had been to uncover the links between sham marriages and trafficking in 2 GE.20-02098 CEDAW/C/SR.1749 persons, establish a concrete definition of sham marriage as a form of trafficking and take measures to combat the phenomenon. An interdisciplinary working group, comprising representatives of State and municipal institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), had also been established to facilitate the exchange of information between public agencies involved in providing support and services to trafficking victims and to coordinate the implementation of the activities envisaged under the Guidelines for the Prevention of Trafficking in Human Beings 2014–2020. Those activities included conducting information campaigns to raise awareness of trafficking and providing training for professionals who worked with victims or potential victims of trafficking, such as police officers, border guards, prosecutors and social workers. 8. The Government understood that the full realization of women’s economic rights was essential for the achievement of its commitments under the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To that end, it had adopted a plan for the promotion of equal rights and opportunities for women and men for 2018–2020, which contained measures to promote equal rights and opportunities in the labour market and in education, eliminate gender-based violence and raise public awareness of gender equality. 9. Latvia consistently ranked among the top 20 countries for gender equality in the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report and was one of just six countries to have scored the maximum 100 points in the World Bank Women, Business and the Law index of 2019, demonstrating that women and men had equal legal rights in the measured areas. Since 2010, women’s participation in the labour market and in leadership positions had improved markedly. Women’s unemployment rate was now lower than that of men and almost 75 per cent of women aged 20–64 were in employment. Moreover, a third of businesses in Latvia were headed by women entrepreneurs, 53 per cent of scientists and engineers were women and Latvia had the highest proportion of women in leadership positions in Europe. 10. Although the steadily decreasing gender pay gap was close to the European Union average, the Government recognized the need to do more to encourage women and girls to train for and enter professions in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, which were still dominated by men. For that purpose, a competency-based curriculum was being implemented in order to encourage children to make career choices based on their talents and interests, while ongoing educational reforms sought to promote inclusiveness, equal opportunities and non-discrimination. Guidelines had also been developed in an effort to eliminate gender stereotypes from textbooks. Awareness-raising activities and other measures were also envisaged to foster changes in social attitudes. 11. The Government had worked hard to improve State support – such as access to childcare and paid maternity, paternity and parental leave – for working parents in order to enable parents, particularly women, to join the labour market. In recognition of the important role of men and boys in achieving gender equality, the Government had also introduced measures to encourage fathers to take paternity leave and reconcile work and family life, in particular by promoting shared parental and household responsibility and equal career opportunities. 12. As far as Roma inclusion was concerned, a number of projects had been set up to encourage Roma women to participate in public life as well as to foster cooperation and dialogue between Roma civil society, State institutions and employers. With regard to health, publicly funded health-care services were available to all, and medical institutions were required to ensure that their services were accessible to persons with disabilities. Women with disabilities had equal access to services, including mental health and sexual and reproductive health services, in the same quantity and of the same