Part I The human rights of women and girls The Working Group is required to submit an annual report focusing on best practices related to the elimination of laws that discriminate against women or are discriminatory to women in terms of their implementation or impact. Other special procedures with strong relevance to the rights of women and girls include: • Special Rapporteur on sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography • Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children • Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, its causes and its consequences. A number of other special procedures, including those focused on migrants, health, housing, food, poverty and education, have a strong gender dimension to their work. 3.4.3. Commission on the Status of Women The Commission on the Status of Women was established by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1946 to prepare recommendations and reports to ECOSOC on promoting women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. The Commission also makes recommendations to the ECOSOC on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in relation to women’s rights. It may also receive communications from individuals and groups concerning discrimination against women. The Commission is the principal global policy-making body dealing with gender equality and the advancement of women and girls. It meets annually in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide. The Commission consistently engages in issues that are directly related to the human rights of women and girls and, while outside the human rights system, it plays a central role in guiding and promoting the United Nation’s broader agenda around the rights of women and girls. The Commission on the Status of Women has played a significant role in the development of international conventions. In contributing to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Commission successfully argued against references to “men” as a synonym for humanity, and succeeded in introducing more inclusive language. The Commission drafted the early international conventions on women’s rights, as well as CEDAW and its Optional Protocol. The Commission helped bring violence against women to the forefront of international debates. These efforts resulted in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 1993. The Commission also served as the preparatory body for the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, which adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. After the conference, the Commission was mandated by the General Assembly to play a central role in monitoring implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and advising the Economic and Social Council accordingly.72 NHRIs contribute to the work of the Commission but do not yet have formal participation rights, as they currently do with the Human Rights Council. NHRI involvement in the Commission is explored in more detail in Chapter 8.72 72 UN Women, “A Brief History of the CSW”; available at www.unwomen.org/en/csw/brief-history. Chapter 3: The institutional framework for women’s and girls’ human rights | 33