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New Zealand continued to uphold its proud record in women’s empowerment, with a high ranking in the Global Gender Gap report for 2011, its continuing efforts to increase female leadership in politics and the private sector and its solid progress in closing the gender pay gap, members of that country’s delegation told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today.

Minister for Women’s Affairs Jo Goodhew, who led the delegation, noted that women held 32 per cent of the seats in Parliament and 41 per cent of appointments on State sector boards. As for the private sector, the Government, women and business leaders were working together to increase the proportion of women on the top 100 company boards to 25 per cent by 2015. Companies listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange would be required to provide a breakdown of the gender of their board members and senior management.

Presenting her country’s seventh periodic report to the Committee, which monitors the compliance of States parties with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Minister said that since New Zealand had no formal written constitution, domestic law incorporated provisions of the Convention rather than one single constitutional law. The gender pay gap had declined from 12 per cent to 9.6 per cent in 2011 for median hourly earnings, she said, adding that, to close the gap further, the Government was focusing on sustainable change instead of further legislation, since there was already a robust legislative framework surrounding pay equity.

Expressing concern about the absence of Māori non-governmental organizations from the delegation, Committee members asked a number of questions about the status of Māori women and their access to services. The rate of death from cervical cancer among Māori women was three times that of their non-Māori counterparts, they pointed out, noting that language and cultural barriers were preventing minority women from accessing cervical cancer and breast cancer screenings. Māori women also risked losing benefits if they did not attend school. The expert members also sought to know how Māori women’s rights were protected within New Zealand’s innovative “Whānau Ora” approach to social sector services.

Describing New Zealand as a trailblazer on women’s rights, the Committee’s 23 expert members pressed the delegation to set higher standards for women’s leadership in politics, and to consider adopting special temporary measures. Expressing regret that the country in which women had first enjoyed the right to vote did not yet have an equal ratio of men and women in positions of political power, they asked about training women to take up high positions through seminars and workshops. In private sector leadership as well, New Zealand should aim for parity instead of settling for just 25 per cent representation, they said.

Pointing out that three out of eight women Cabinet Ministers were Māori, the delegation said the distance between New Zealand and New York had deterred some non-governmental organizations from participating in the Committee’s current session. Since Māori women were the heads of their households, they would not miss out on social services provided through the “Whānau Ora” approach, which reframed how Government and other providers interacted with individuals, by seeing them as part of a whānau — a family or wider collective. Breast cancer and cervical screening programmes were currently trying to address the disparity between ethnicities by reaching out to them through television advertisements.

The numbers of women in political leadership positions were not what they should be, the delegation acknowledged, stating also that there was “no appetite for temporary special measures” to redress the situation. While the non-governmental organization Rural Women prepared women for local political bodies, training was also offered inside political parties so that women felt confident about their credentials. Additionally, the youth parliament programme targeted budding parliamentarians.

“But I accept your challenge” to improve the representation of women in New Zealand’s political offices and state sector, the head of the delegation declared. New Zealand looked forward to implementing the best practices from other nations, and to working with the Committee to better implement the Convention, she added.

The Committee will reconvene at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 19 July 2012, to take up the combined fourth and fifth periodic reports of Samoa.

"New Zealand Continues to Uphold Proud Pioneering Record on Women's Empowerment, Delegation Tell Anti-Discrimination Committee | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases." United Nations. United Nations, n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

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