Girls & Women

This legal factsheet explains the specific legal obligations international human rights law imposes on states to eliminate harmful gender stereotypes and wrongful gender stereotyping.

General recommendation No. 19 on violence against women, adopted by the Committee at its eleventh session in 1992, states that discrimination against women –as defined in article 1 of the Convention- includes gender-based violence, that is, ‘violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately’, and, as such, is a violation of their human rights.

This general recommendation provides an authoritative interpretation of Article 10 on the right to education of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour, Confidence tries to determine why 15-year-old boys are more likely than girls, on average, to fail to attain a baseline level of proficiency in reading, mathematics and science, and why high-performing 15-year-old girls still underachieve in areas such as mathematics, science and problem solving when compared to highperforming boys. In 2012, 14% of boys and 9% of girls surveyed by the PISA exercise did not attain the PISA baseline level of proficiency in any of the three core subjects.

The objective of the present joint general recommendation/general comment is to clarify the obligations of States parties to the Conventions by providing authoritative guidance on legislative, policy and other appropriate measures that must be taken to ensure full compliance with their obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child to eliminate harmful practices. 

This guidance aims to provide a comprehensive, one-stop resource on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV), including clear, knowledge-based operational guidance, diverse case studies drawn from examples of promising practice and recommended tools for the education sector and its partners working to eliminate gender-based violence. It distils programme knowledge based on existing global literature, promising practices, expert recommendations and practitioner consensus. 

See chapter six for information on gender equality in education.

This research report examines how international human rights treaties and UN human rights mechanisms (i.e., human rights treaty bodies and special procedures) have addressed gender stereotypes/stereotyping. The report seeks to:

The second edition of the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report) presents the latest evidence on global progress towards the education targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.