Inquiry procedure

The inquiry procedure may be initiated if the CEDAW Committee receives reliable information indicating grave or systematic violations by a State party of any of the rights contained in the Convention.

Inquiries may only be conducted with respect to States parties that have recognized the competence of the Committee in this regard. Check if a State party has made this declaration in the section ‘Declarations and reservations’.

The following resources provide more information on inquiries:

• List of all CEDAW inquiry reports
• Overview of the inquiry procedure for all treaty bodies

When submitting information for an Inquiry under Article 8 of the Optional protocol, the submission should:

• Indicate the State party alleged to be violating rights under the Convention;
• Be written in one of the United Nations languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish);
• Provide a factual description of the alleged violations and indicate the rights under the Convention which are alleged to have been infringed by these violations and, where possible, should indicate the extent to which infringement of these rights by the State party is grave or systematic;
• Consist of a maximum of 7000 words excluding annexes. The document should be written in a succinct manner without use of abusive language and must contain supportive data, in annexes, which may be referred to in the body of the submission;
• Contain relevant documents, in an official United Nations language, that support the submission. All annexes to the submission should be numbered consecutively and indexed by the date of the document and each should be accompanied by a short description; and
• Not be exclusively based on reports disseminated by mass media.

The sources of information should ensure that:

• The submission is, preferably, in a typed format but if handwritten, it should be legible
• Basic personal information is provided on the individual(s) or the non-governmental organisation(s) which they represent such as name, postal address, phone number and email address; and
• If they do not wish their personal identity or that of the non-governmental organization which they represent to be disclosed, this should be indicated in the submission.

Contact information

Sources of information can submit information under the inquiry procedure to the following email address: ohchr-cedaw@un.org