Nina, Katherine and Amelia from NAWO’s Young Women Alliance attended February’s CEDAW meeting at the United Nations in Geneva February

Read below to find out about their experience

Our second day at CEDAW has come to a close and yet again we are thoroughly worn out! On Monday we experienced our first real event in the UN, with the opening of CEDAW and the meeting of NGOs with the committee. It was great to see so many people from all around the world come together to campaign for the issues that they work tirelessly for.

It was, however, a noticeable contrast from today, when we saw Ukraine’s report on their implementation of CEDAW being skillfully picked apart by the committee. The Ukrainian delegation and the CEDAW committee went through 5 hours of detailed, thoughtful and respectful discourse exploring all the different ways that Ukraine can help ensure the rights of women. We were extremely impressed by the insightful questions posed by the committee, who raised important issues that required intensive knowledge of the problems women face all around the world.

Over the last few days we have met many wonderful people, and have enjoyed learning about the work many NGOs do both here in Geneva and across the world. Hopefully by this time tomorrow we will have made even more contacts who all seem to be happy to go out of their way to help us learn about what happens here.

The NAWO YWA team in Geneva – Nina, Katherine and Amelia