The SRC this year together with a few other organisations represented the women and womens organisations in Geneva, where thouugh CEDAW the goverment of Zimbabwe was being reviewed.
the  Director of SRC Sian Maseko took time to diarise her firts day in geneva as folows!

I finally arrived in Geneva. There are six of us here, two from ZWLA, one from RAU, two from GALZ and me! Geneva is very cold and windy. The temperature apparently is 7 degrees, but it doesn't feel like it. As you walk out of the hotel and turn left you get an amazing view of a snowy mountain and a real sense of being surrounded by the Alps. I was on the plane with lots of families going skiing.

I have driven past the United Nations or Palais des Nations. All the flags of the countries are flying outside the entrance.

So the first day of training has dealt with many issues and raised many questions. For your interest I am attaching the questions that have been posed by the CEDAW Committee to the Zimbabwean government. We have reflected on some of the recommendations in our shadow report to ensure that they comply with the Convention. For example, we were considering our recommendation on discrimination. The facilitator encouraged us to consider how substantive equality could be addressed within the understanding of discrimination, for example, the consideration of temporary special measures (Article 4 of he Convention) that would not be discriminatory in order to further the realisation of substantive equality for women. This might include quotas in parliament or quotas for women in tertiary institutions. The purpose of these measures is to accelerate the affirmation of equality for women. They raise debate because as you will notice in the State report, the government notes 'some policy measures have, for instance, tended to benefit a small proportion of women such as the urban based educated, professional female in paid employment'. The Committee then questioned the government about what measures had been taken to ensure that women, 'particularly rural, disadvantaged women in the informal sector are reached'. There is a lot to consider.

However, another issue of interest and worth noting is that many of the commissioners are completing their terms this year and there will be an opportunity to lobby for a representative from our country.

CEDAW 2012 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS FOR ZIMBABWE
( please note that this is a summary)
STATE AND CEDAW committee
-visibility of the CEDAW committee amongst the genaral population
-legal status of the convention,altough it has been ratified, the convention still has not been domesticated as part of the National LAW
-national machinery for women needs to be strengthened and policies of the ministry of Womens Affairs needs to be properly monitored and evaluated
-National human rights institutions, the Bill for the huan rights commission need to be enacted
-steroetypes and harmful practises need to be more rigorously addressed
-violence against women should be stopped. mandatory training for police and judiciary must be provided, measures put in place to prevent and address politically motivated violence against women.
-trafficking and exploitation: address the root causes of trafficking and ratify the Protocol to PREVENT, SUPRESS AND PUNISH trafficking
-participation in public life: quotas must be adopted thrghout the public service and sufficient resourses allocated to promote womens participation in public and civil life
-rural women, marriage and family: all forms of discrimination should be eliminated in respect to ownership of land, co-sharing of property and inheritence, while polygamy must be prohibited.
-need to FULLY utilise the Beijing Platform forACTION
-the committee requests the wide dissemination of the present concluding observations
-ratification of other treaties including the CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE and the CONVENTION OF THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES.