A/HRC/28/41
reprisals perpetrated against interlocutors of special procedures. The Coordination
Committee also informed participants on how it had systematically raised the issue with the
Secretary-General, the High Commissioner, the President of the Council, States and civil
society.
D.
Thematic issues
Women’s human rights and Human Rights Council resolution 26/11
1.
60.
Discussions focused on Council resolution 26/11 on protection of the family and the
subsequent panel discussion, and were led by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working
Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice.
61.
Mandate holders appreciated the emphasis on the structural problems of care
responsibilities and the need to redistribute them between women and men, the family and
the State. They also appreciated the fact that, in the panel discussion, there was general
acceptance that families were diverse and as such, there should be no discrimination, and
that violence in the family should be eliminated.
62.
Resolution 26/11 made, however, no reference to women’s right to equality within
the family, and participants in the panel discussion had erroneously equated the protection
of the family with the protection of the rights of individual members of the family, which
does not secure the right of women to equality in the family. Women and men had a wellestablished right to equality in all aspects of family life, as reflected in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
63.
Furthermore, it could not be said that children had, like women, the right to equality
in the family: under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children were entitled to be
free from abuse, have their voices heard and be respected, and this was not equivalent to
women’s right to equality with men in all aspects of family life. What should be guaranteed
was the equality of girls with boys in the family.
64.
The Chairperson of the Coordination Committee made a statement on behalf of the
mandate holders on this issue (see annex X).
2.
Sustainable development goals
65.
Several mandate holders pointed out that they wished to continue their own efforts
to integrate human rights into the sustainable development goals, especially with regard to
putting greater emphasis on accountability for human rights. Participants in the discussion
acknowledged that, although the outcome document of the Open Working Group on
Sustainable Development Goals22 put greater emphasis on human rights than the
Millennium Development Goals, gaps and weaknesses remained and had to be addressed.
Mandate holders agreed that much would depend on the way indicators to measure
achievement of the targets under each goal were formulated. It was suggested that the
mandate holders should endeavour to inform the discussion on indicators to make them
human rights-sensitive.
66.
Some mandate holders explained how the current formulation of sustainable
development goals did not address all the human rights dimensions related to their
individual mandates. For example, the right to adequate housing was not reflected to the
22
A/68/970.
13
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