CEDAW a discrimination against Men!

CONVENTION TO ELIMINATE ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN(CEDAW):

Hey guys, my last article was on the topic 'society, religion and culture the tripartite relationship against feminism'. Although I wrote this article sometime ago, I believe it is a great piece that would add some spice to the one sided research expounded earlier on my blog. in this piece i intend discussing the very few instances the law is discriminatory against men. For a start .........

HOW IS 'CEDAW' DISCRIMINATORY AGAINST MEN? 

On 18 December 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It entered into force as an international treaty on 3 September 1981. Among the international human rights treaties, the Convention takes an important place in bringing the female half of humanity into the focus of human rights concerns. The spirit of the Convention is rooted in the goals of the United Nations: to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity, and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women. The present document spells out the meaning of equality and how it can be achieved. In so doing, the Convention establishes not only an international bill of rights for women, but also an agenda for action by countries to guarantee the enjoyment of those rights. 

As defined in article 1, discrimination is understood as "any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on .1 the basis of sex...in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field". The Convention gives positive affirmation to the principle of equality by requiring States parties to take "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"(article 3). In its approach, the Convention covers three dimensions of the situation of women. Civil rights and the legal status of women are dealt with in great detail. In addition, and unlike other human rights treaties, the Convention is also concerned with the dimension of human reproduction as well as with the impact of cultural factors on gender relations. The preamble of the Convention stresses "that a change in the traditional role of men as well as the role of women in society and in the family is needed to achieve full equality of men and women".
Article I 
For the purposes of the present Convention, the term "discrimination against women" shall mean any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. 
Article 4 
1. 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 present Convention, but shall in no way entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate standards; these measures shall be discontinued when the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment have been achieved. 
2. Adoption by States Parties of special measures, including those measures contained in the present Convention, aimed at protecting maternity shall not be considered discriminatory. 
Article 17 
1. For the purpose of considering the progress made in the implementation of the present Convention, there shall be established a Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (hereinafter referred to as the Committee). 

The struggle to see women rise up to the same level as men has been a long and tedious one over the years and even though some progress has been made the question begs to be asked if men are now also the victims of sexism. In paying attention to the plight of women we fail to recognize also the plight of our men. Is it ok to say that since women have suffered and still continue to suffer as compared to men then it is ok to ignore or at least for now not concentrate on the men? 
In my view the attention should be on how both men and women should be treated so as to enjoy all the fundamental rights that come with being a human being as opposed to making one side of the coin that is women enjoy the same rights as men. Why should the thresh hold or standard be that women should have the same rights as men instead of women should have rights as any human being would enjoy either male or female. If we are to agree that women should enjoy equal rights as men then whatever is being meted out to men that smells much like discrimination should also be enjoyed by women since we are after all drinking from the same cup. 
For example men have been at the bitter end of some of the laws and policies that in one way or form scream discrimination against men. Although women are discriminated against and sexism against women is widely acknowledged, few people take seriously the possibility that men are also discriminated against – which Benatar sees as fact. David Benatar, in his 2012 monograph The Second Sexism discusses a whole range of other ways in which men as men are disadvantaged. As evidence for sexism against men, he advances a number of different examples. One of his strongest ones is the issue of military conscription: it is virtually unheard of for women to be forcibly conscripted into a country’s armed forces, whereas this is common for men. 
Benatar thinks there are other spheres in which men get sacrificed and women get protected – such as in the old adage of ‘Women and children first’, when it comes to shipwreck etiquette, which he finds “inappropriate”. When it comes to capital punishment, he says there is “clear evidence of bias” towards putting men to death but not women. He cites the state of Virginia, where no women has been put to death in 100 years, despite the state having the second highest capital punishment rates in the US. 
Then there’s the issue of sexual assault. While he acknowledges that women are the primary victims of sexual violence, Benatar says men are nonetheless subject to discrimination in this area as well. He gives as an example the fact that some countries do not acknowledge the possibility of male rape under law. In other countries, penalties for sexual assault of males are less serious than female assault, and he cites studies which show there is less sympathy available for male sexual assault victims. (It’s hard not to think of South Africa’s infamous Pappa wag vir jou drunk-driving ad in this regard.) 
Men, for example, receive custody of children in only about 10 percent of divorce cases in the United States. As Jennifer Ludden reports, after divorce men can face burdensome alimony payments even in situations where their ex-wives are capable of working and earning a substantial income. Even in cases where temporary alimony makes sense—as when a spouse has quit a job to raise the children—it's hard to understand the need for lifetime alimony payments, given women's current levels of workforce participation. As one alimony-paying ex-husband says, "The theory behind this was fine back in the '50s, when everybody was a housewife and stayed home." But today, it looks like an antiquated perpetuation of retrograde gender roles—a perpetuation which, disproportionately, harms men 
Along the same lines, physical violence against men is often minimized or seen as normal. Benatar refers to the history of corporal punishment, which has much more often been inflicted on boys than girls. Society's scandalous tolerance of rape in prison seems like it is also related to a general indifference to, or even amusement at, sexual violence committed against men. 
Perhaps most hideously, men through history have been subject to genocidal, or gendercidal, violence targeted at them specifically because they are men. Writers like Susan Brownmiller have over the last decades helped to show how mass rape and sexual violence against women are often a deliberate part of genocide; similarly, there has been increasing awareness in recent years of the gendercidal results of sex-selective abortion and infanticide in places like India and China. But the way gendercide can be directed against men is much less discussed. One of the worst recent examples of this was in the Balkans war, where, according to genocide researcher Adam Jones, "All of the largest atrocities... target[ed] males almost exclusively, and for the most part "battle-age" males. " Similarly, in Rwanda according to Judy El-Bushra (as quoted by Jones) it was principally the men of the targeted populations who lost their lives or fled to other countries in fear. ... This targeting of men for slaughter was not confined to adults: boys were similarly decimated, raising the possibility that the demographic imbalance will continue for generations. Large numbers of women also lost their lives; however, mutilation and rape were the principal strategies used against women, and these did not necessarily result in death. 
in Federal University of Technology Minna, although cited without authority, female indigenes were offered scholarship wereas Men were expected to pay. this i dont see in anyway as Positive descrimination because descrimination is descrimination. 
The above arguments do not suggest that the CEDAW is not to be applauded for the good work done to protect women but the argument is that men should also be paid attention to because they also suffer some form of discrimination however subtle it is. The focus should be on sex discrimination which is when you are treated unfairly either because you are a man or because you are a woman rather than on ‘discrimination against women’. As much as it made sense some years back to fight for the liberation of women so they could enjoy as much rights as men enjoyed, I think the time has come for us to focus on how each sex can enjoy all the rights that are inherently yours whether as a man or a woman because we are first and foremost HUMAN BEINGS.