Annex 1
About HRCM
Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) was first established under a
Presidential Decree on December 10, 2003. On August 18, 2005, the Human Rights
Commission Act (6/2006) was ratified, thereby making HRCM the first independent
and autonomous statutory body in the Maldives. The amendments brought to the
Human Rights Commission Act in August 2006 broadened the mandate and powers of
the HRCM, making it compliant with the Paris Principles. With the ratification of the
Constitution of the Republic of the Maldives in August 2008, the HRCM was made an
independent and autonomous constitutional body.
The HRCM currently holds ‘B’ status with the Global Alliance of National Human
Rights Institutions (GANHRI) and is an Associate Member of the Asia-Pacific Forum
of National Human Rights Institutions (APF).
The second amendment to the HRCM Act was passed by Parliament on 6 September
2020, which adds safeguards to prevent corruption within HRCM and granting HRCM
with powers to provide effective remedies in cases where human rights violations occur.
Process undertaken to compile CEDAW report 2015 onwards
1.
Dissemination of Recommendations from CEDAW -2015
Following the publication of Concluding Observations on the fourth and fifth periodic
reports of the Maldives, by CEDAW Committee, a CEDAW stakeholder forum was
conducted by HRCM in September, September 1st, 2015 with the objective to disseminate
information on recommendations made to the State. A separate forum was held to
disseminate the information to media on October 13th, 2015. Additionally, HRCM carried
out a recommendation mapping process to determine corresponding authorities for each of
55 recommendations accepted by Maldives.
2.
Follow-up on the implementation status of the recommendation 2016 to 2018
Work done by the stakeholders, challenges faced and planned activities to implement 55
recommendations were closely monitored by HRCM from year 2015 to 2019 on an annual
basis.
The status of implementation of each recommendation was evaluated using the criteria in
Table 1. Table 2 illustrates implementation status based on the information shared by
stakeholders.
Among the 15 stakeholders involved, some fell short to provide information on
implementation status of the recommendations.
General challenges faced by HRCM in its annual follow-up work undertaken to monitor
the implementation of the recommendation have not changed. These challenges include
delay in stakeholder response to the questionnaires formulated by HRCM to acquire
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