Women in Latin America and the Caribbean - Cepal

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Affirmative action policies or special temporary measures, as they are termed in the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, are intended to achieve true or
effective equality by employing formulas of statutory inequality to eliminate the negative consequences
of de facto differences. 7
The Convention refers to this type of measure when it establishes, in article 3, that States parties
shall take in all fields, in particular in the political, social, economic and cultural fields, all appropriate
measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the
purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a
basis of equality with men. In addition, paragraph 1 of article 4 states that adoption by States parties of
temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women shall not be
considered discrimination as defined in the Convention. Rather, it should be construed as a means of
emphasizing that temporary special measures are part of a strategy to be pursued by States parties that is
necessary for the achievement of substantive equality of women with men in the enjoyment of their rights
and freedoms.
In the Spanish Constitution, the reference to sex seeks to put an end to the inferior position
historically attributed to women in the area of employment and working conditions. Thus, measures are
constitutionally legitimate only if they aim to counteract a real initial inequality and systematically
interpret the constitutional precept that prohibits discrimination based on sex in conjunction with other
constitutional precepts, in particular article 9.2, which obliges public authorities to ensure that conditions
of equality between women and men are “real and effective”. 8 Hence the idea that instead of facilitating
women’s access to the labour market by providing equal opportunities, compensatory measures are
needed to offset the imbalance that developed at a time when the prevailing notion was that the man was
the “head of the household” and that married women had to be freed from factory work (STC 19/89 of 31
January, f.5) (Torrente, 1999). In General Recommendation No. 25 on article 4, paragraph 1, of the
Convention, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women calls upon States parties
to “analyse the context of women’s situation in all spheres of life, as well as in the specific, targeted area,
when applying temporary special measures” (paragraph 27).
F. CITIZENSHIP
The debate on women’s citizenship was taken up at the Fourth World Conference on Women, which was
held in Beijing in 1995. The resulting Beijing Platform for Action incorporates various initiatives of the
women’s movement.
Like the ideas of democracy and the State, the idea of women’s citizenship connects up with
discussions in the liberal tradition (Jelin, 1996), the most radical perspectives that different social groups
have taken on rights (Bareiro, 1996a) and the extension of rights to encompass human rights, including
reproductive rights. The discussion on citizenship is now part of the debate on “the right to have rights”
(Bobbio, 1991) and transcends the concepts delimited in legal practice and public policies, whose
application is usually confined to people of a particular age group, with residence in a particular territory
and the ability to vote. Some authors have expanded the concept of citizenship to the point of eliminating
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General Recommendation No. 25 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women sets
out the meaning and scope of affirmative action or temporary special measures.
Ruling 28/92 of the Constitutional Court (STC) of 9 March 1992.