Gender Stereotypes in South Asia: Legal Perspectives by U.N. Based Mechanisms

Abstract

Stereotypes on gender have long been deeply rooted as societal norms in the culture. However, the global phenomenon is that in any given time, or in several instances of women's lives, either in their professional lives or in their personal lives, gender stereotypes cause them to be victimized. U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) could be recognized as the cornerstone of protection of women's human rights. South Asian region and Sri Lanka have been commonly subjected to the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women's (Women's Committee) frequent comments on achieving substantive equality through taking progressive steps to eliminate gender stereotypes. In light of the aforesaid phenomenon; it is timely to recommend Women's Committee to adopt a General Recommendation on eliminating Gender Stereotypes. The main objective of the research is to seek whether an effective legal framework will be able to address prevailing gender stereotypes that hinder substantive equality of women. The secondary objective is to apply relevant legal measures in the aforesaid model to eliminate such Gender Stereotypes in order to achieve substantive equality. The scope of the research is an analysis of the jurisprudence of international human rights law on gender stereotypes. To establish the aforementioned facts, the author adopts the desk research method in the paradigm of legal research methodology to examine the theoretical framework by reviewing of secondary data. The author limits herself to U.N. Human Rights mechanisms on gender and women's human rights law.