Gender equality long overdue / U.N. set to rap govt stance.

Gender equality long overdue / U.N. set to rap govt stance on women's rights, marriage law, education

Mihoko Tsukino / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Yomiuri

The U.N. watchdog panel on gender equality is poised to issue recommendations to Japan in which it will address this nation's delay in implementing policies to bring about equality between men and women.

The government should humbly accept the findings of the expert U.N. panel known as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and lawmakers are urged to buckle down and begin implementing a wide range of gender equality measures.

The pact that sets out the principles covering equality of the sexes--officially called the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women--was adopted by a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in 1979. Japan ratified the convention in 1985.

Known as the women's rights version of the Bill of Rights, the convention stipulates the equality of women and men in political and public activities, calls for the prohibition …