Nashauna Drummond, Lifestyle Coordinator

The Women's Resource Outreach Centre (WROC) launched a booklet CEDAW for Jamaicans on the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women last Wednesday.

WROC, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, launched the booklet in collaboration with the Commonwealth Foundation and UNICEF at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel.

CEDAW for Jamaicans simplifies the CEDAW convention adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly. The booklet is very userfriendly with clear illustrations to educate leaders of the state, government and citizens of the commitments that the country has made to promote gender equality.

Speaking at the launch, president of the Association of Women's Organisations in Jamaica (AWOJA), Hermione McKenzie, commended WROC on putting the booklet together. "It's opening the eyes of the women on the street to their rights," she said.

Guest speaker Taitu Heron, manager of social development and planning at the Planning Institute of Jamaica, said, "CEDAW gives us a tool to defend our rights, whether privileged or underprivileged." She said that if rights were working, there would not be a need for NGOs or for CEDAW to have been conceptualised. She noted that the booklet was a great tool for empowerment and "a woman who knows is a queen who can."