The CEDAW Committee adopted General Recommendation No. 35 on gender-based violence against women on 14 July 2017 and this updates General Recommendation No. 19.
We believe it is fair to say that Canada strives to implement the recommendations in General Recommendation No. 35 but there is still work to do. Our research has shown that UN treaty bodies have criticized governments in Canada for the lack of follow-up on recommendations. Both the treaty bodies and the Canadian nongovernmental organizations have called on the Canadian federal government to create effective mechanisms to oversee Canada's implementation of its commitments under CEDAW and other international human rights treaties.[31] However, despite that, Canada has no mechanism for overseeing, evaluating or ensuring domestic implementation of CEDAW. In 2008, the CEDAW Committee reiterated its 2003 recommendation that the government of Canada use its leadership and funding power to set standards and establish an effective mechanism aimed at ensuring accountability and the transparent, coherent and consistent implementation of CEDAW throughout its territory in which all levels of government can participate.
Other treaty bodies, including most recently the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, have urged the government of Canada to use funding and other agreements with the provinces and territories to "establish responsibilities for the implementation of [treaty] rights at the different levels." However, there is no move to do this and no domestic intergovernmental mechanism to monitor the status of Canada's implementation of its international human rights commitments, including recommendations made by CEDAW and other UN treaty bodies. While Canada is proud to have ratified CEDAW, it has taken no effective steps to make the Convention a known and widely understood instrument for evaluating government policies and conduct.[32]
The first communication against Canada to be heard on its merits was Kell v. Canada (16 July 2012).[33] This is a decision dealing with the intersection of Indigenous laws and domestic violence laws in Canada. In that decision, the committee established that Canada, as party to the Convention and its Optional Protocol, had failed to fulfill its obligations under Articles 1, 2 and 16 and that it should provide monetary compensation and housing matching what Kell was deprived of. The committee also recommended recruiting and training more aboriginal women to provide legal assistance, and reviewing Canada's legal system to ensure that aboriginal women victims of domestic violence have effective access to justice.[34]