CEDAW/C/GC/36
(b) Integrate age-appropriate education on women’s human rights and
the Convention into school curricula at all levels;
(c) Undertake constitutional amendments and/or other appropriate
legislative action to ensure the protection and enforcement of the rights of girls
and women to, within and through education;
(d) Enact legislation that provides for the right to education, throughout
the life cycle, for all girls and women, including all disadvantaged groups of
women and girls;
(e) Eradicate and/or reform policies, institutional, administrative and
regulatory directives and practices that directly or indirectly discriminate
against girls or women within the education sector;
(f) Enact legislation that sets the minimum age of marriage for girls at 18
years and, in compliance with international standards, align the end of
compulsory education with the minimum age of employment;
(g) Review and/or abolish laws and policies that allow the expulsion of
pregnant girls and teachers and ensure that there are no restrictions on their
return following childbirth;
(h) Recognize rights in education as legally enforceable and that, upon the
violation of those rights, girls and women have equal and effective access to
justice and the right to remedies, including reparation;
(i) Monitor the implementation of the national, regional and
international provisions governing the right of girls and women to education,
ensuring the right to remedy where there are violations;
(j) Work with the international community and civil society towards the
enhancement and development of the right of girls and women to education.
VI. Addressing gender stereotyping
25. Discrimination faced by girls and women in education is both ideological and
structural. The ideological dimension is addressed in articles 5 and 10 (c) of the
Convention; States parties are to modify accepted social and cultural patterns of
conduct of men and women which are based on stereotyped roles for women and men,
which is of paramount significance in ensuring that women and girls can enjoy their
rights to, within and through education, and essential, as these discriminatory
practices not only are exercised at the individual level but also are codified in law,
policy and programmes and are therefore perpetuated and enforced by the State.
26. In article 5 (a), the structural dimension of discrimination is described as being
rooted in prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea
of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for
men and women. States parties are to adopt measures towards a real transformation
of opportunities, institutions and systems so that they are no longer grounded in
historically determined male paradigms of power and life patterns. The education
system is an example of an area for transformation that, once achieved, can accelerate
positive change in other areas.
27. In line with articles 5 and 10 (c) of the Convention, the Committee
recommends that States parties strengthen efforts and take proactive measures
to eliminate gender stereotyping in education that perpetuates direct and
indirect discrimination against girls and women by:
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