ABSTRACT
Individual women as well as national and international women's organizations and organs such as Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) that are bent on achieving equality, should make use of the natural progress to turn culture and custom in such a way that harmful traditions are replaced by beneficial practices. That is why the central question of this chapter is how culture could be used as an instrument to achieve equality for women and who should be the actors. To this author it seems to be highly positive that attention to stereotypes and harmful practices is paid in a separate section of the Concluding Observations. An-Na'im rightly claims that all States have to start by critically evaluating their own culture and determining to what extent they need to change it in order to bring it in conformity with human rights.
