WASHINGTON - November 19 - NOW applauds Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for chairing a first-ever Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Eight years have lagged since the last hearing for the human rights treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.

"Women around the world have waited more than 30 years for the U.S. to ratify this treaty. In an age when women can be stoned to death for surviving rape, and women are 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty worldwide, it is unconscionable for a vocal reactionary minority to keep our country sitting on the sidelines. This hearing can be a significant step forward with very much deserved pressure on the Senate," said NOW Action Vice President Erin Matson, who attended the Nov. 18 hearing on Capitol Hill.

To date, 185 countries have ratified CEDAW, and even though the United States helped draft the treaty, it is the only industrialized country that has yet to ratify. The other six countries that have refused to ratify CEDAW are Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Nauru, Palau and Tonga.

CEDAW is the most comprehensive international agreement on the basic human rights of women and girls. U.S. ratification would lend weight to the treaty and the principle that women's human rights are universal across all cultures, nations and religions, and worthy of being guaranteed through international standards.

Matson noted: "Until the U.S. ratifies CEDAW, it can neither credibly demand that other countries live up to their obligations under the treaty, nor claim that it is a leader in the global human rights community."

The next step toward ratification is for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to hold a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If the treaty is approved by the committee, it must then be brought to a full vote on the Senate floor. Women in the U.S. and around the world stand to benefit greatly under CEDAW ratification, so NOW is using its RATIFY WOMEN! national action campaign to call on the committee chair to: "Hurry, Kerry!"

"Women around the world want to know: Are Senators for women's human rights, or are they against them? It's well past time for a floor vote," said Matson.

NOW's call comes with an additional appeal -- that CEDAW be ratified without the Reservations, Declarations and Understandings (RDUs) that prior administrations and conservative senators attached to the treaty. These RDUs, in essence, are loopholes that would undermine key provisions, and their presence creates a watered-down U.S. version of the treaty. The RDUs convey a lack of commitment to ending discrimination against women and specifically claim no responsibility for the U.S. to undertake efforts to expand maternity leave, improve access to health care services for women, or take more effective efforts to address sex-based pay discrimination, among other objectives designed to promote women's equality.

"Ratifying CEDAW with debilitating RDUs attached would hurt the cause of women's rights worldwide," said Matson. "NOW urges ratification of a strong, clean CEDAW to display this nation's commitment to improving human rights for women in all areas covered by this important treaty."