[Work Plan]
Inter-American Comission of Women (CIM)
1. Activities Assigned
The Program assigns the following five specific activities
to the Inter-American Commission of Women:
• Conduct research on female
migration and its impact on family structure, the labor
market, and migration control, inter alia.
• Develop policies and programs
designed to protect migrant women and their families, in
particular women heads of household, and to combat violence
against women.
• Promote the implementation of
resolutions of the CIM and of the OAS General Assembly on
trafficking in persons.
• Recommend ratification by the
states of the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime and its optional Protocols,
and of the Optional Protocol to the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of
children, child prostitution and child pornography.
• Promote mechanisms for the safe
return and reintegration of trafficking victims and special
procedures to protect juvenile victims of trafficking.
2. Activities Carried Out
The first activity assigned by the Program to the CIM is to
conduct research into female migration and its impact on
family structure, the labor market, and migration control,
inter alia. Given the lack of human and financial resources
to conduct its own research, the CIM complied with the
request by carrying out a search of existing studies and of
research done by other bodies.
It identified research papers and recent international
forums on the gender dimension in migration, conducted by
agencies such as the Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the United Nations International
Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women
(INSTRAW), and the United Nations Commission on the Status
of Women (CSW). Since this documentation may contribute to
implementation of the gender equality-related objectives of
the Inter-American Program on migrants, copies, and source
details, were delivered to the Chair of the Committee on
Juridical and Political Affairs at the Special Meeting on
the Program, held at OAS headquarters on March 16, 2006.
Another assigned task has to do with migration and
trafficking in persons, a topic that the CIM has touched on
through its work on trafficking in persons and
gender-related violence. Following the restructuring of the
General Secretariat, however, the Coordinator for combating
trafficking in persons, who had been attached to the CIM
from the very beginning, was transferred to the Trafficking
in Person Section of the OAS Secretariat for
Multidimensional Security. This means that, in order to
comply with the assigned activities in this field, the
Trafficking in Persons Section and the CIM need to
coordinate actions based on the mandates already received
from the OAS General Assembly and the Assembly of Delegates
of the CIM.
3. Activities Being Planned
The Work Program adopted by the Assembly of Delegates of the
CIM for 2006-2008, reiterated the mandate to the CIM that,
inter alia, it develop policies and programs for protecting
migrant women and their families, especially women heads of
household, and to combat violence against women. In
addition, the Permanent Secretariat will continue, or
initiate, as the case may be, compliance with the other
tasks assigned to it in the Program on migrants and, in
consultation with the Principal Delegates, will continue to
lend technical assistance on the subject of gender to the
competent organs in the OAS responsible for migration
issues. The CIM also hopes to provide Principal Delegates
with information on the human rights of both female and male
migrants in order to facilitate their cooperation the
authorities responsible for implementing programs and plans
of action in this field in their countries.
4. Calendar
The Assembly of Delegates of the CIM, in November 2006,
adopted the mandates and elected new CIM officers for the
next two-year term. As soon as the Executive Committee holds
its first regular meeting, it will draw up the calendar of
activities to be disseminated to all OAS bodies.
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