Gholam Sakhi Forouzesh
The Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is the most important
international document for elaboration of women rights and ensuring the gender
equality between men and women. This document obliges the States parties to
consider certain measures for ensuring the women rights and to end
discriminations against women. These measures include legislative measures,
reform of customs and culture, criminalization of discrimination and even some
temporary programs in favor of women (positive discrimination). Since the CEDAW
has been drafted mainly with the western countries approach to women rights and
has recognized the equal rights for men and women for all issues, acceptance of
the whole document is difficult for Islamic states. Some of the articles of the CEDAW are not in harmony with Sharia. This is the reason that some Islamic
countries who are State parties have accepted CEDAW with reservations. Some
Islamic States have reservations on specific articles and have not accepted the
content of those articles while others, for more caution, have considered more
general reservations and have accepted the implementation of CEDAW while it’s
not in contradiction with Sharia. Other States parties have reacted and
objected to these reservations and have raised questions about the intention of
Islamic countries regarding the implementation of the content of CEDAW.