As a State Party to The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Japanese government reported on the implementation status of the CEDAW to the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (The Committee) through its 4th (1998) and 5th (2002) periodic report*. The Committee reviewed these reports as the monitoring body of the CEDAW on 8 July 2003. This feature reports JCLU's intensive actions to acquire effective concluding comments by the Committee.
On December 22, 2002, the JCLU, and other human rights and women's rights NGOs based in Japan, launched the gJapan NGO Network for CEDAW (JNNC)h with an aim to coordinate and encourage NGOs to lobby the Committee. The JCLU also started a new project for the CEDAW and supported JNNC through the project. The first task of JNNC, with its 46 affiliated NGOs, was to prepare for NGO briefing at the Pre-sessional Working Group by the Committee.
As a part of normal procedure to monitor the State Parties' implementation status of the CEDAW, the Committee raises questions, called, gList of Issues (LoI)*,h to the State Parties regarding the governmental report. The State Parties have to reply to them in about two months. Then, the Committee dialogues with the government based on the response at its consideration.
To draft the LoI, the Committee invites NGOs to its pre-sessional working group and hears NGOs' opinions on women's rights in Japan. This time the working group for the LoI addressed to the Japanese government was held on February 3 at the United Nations Head Quarters in New York. The JCLU presented its position on the implementation status of the CEDAW in Japan with five other NGOs under the coordination of JNNC.
The JCLU presentation* focused on: 1. Establishment of National Human Rights Commission 2. Discriminatory Remarks by Public Authorities and 3. Introduction of male midwives.
Many questions were posed by the Committee experts to NGO presenters. Among them, experts showed their interest in the independence (or lack of it) of the National Human Rights Commission, and in discrimination against part-time labour and trafficking of women.
In the same month, the Committee sent the LoI, which consisted of 31 questions, to the Japanese government. Reading the LoI, JNNC wrote its own response* from the critical perspective of the NGOs and sent them both to the Committee and the government. The JCLU contributed by writing response related to the National Human Rights Commission.
Most NGOs as well as the JCLU finished their NGO reports and one page summaries of these reports by June. The summaries were combined as the Summary Report from NGOs in Japan*Eand sent to the Committee by JNNC. This practice was implemented at the request of the Committee which always becomes burdened with huge amounts of NGO reports. Among NGOs in Japan, the summary report was recognized as an effective tool to highlight their concerns to Committee Experts. But this was the first trial in regards to the CEDAW.
The JCLU's first report for the CEDAW* consisted of the following sections. Each section is a Proposal of Recommendation to the Government to be adopted by the Committee.