As an additional measure to strengthen women's human rights in the multilateral context, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has developed an app – which it presented earlier today in Geneva – containing a database with a large number of key texts on this topic. The app's search function allows users to quickly find the texts of international conventions, UN resolutions, declarations and other documents relating to various women's human rights and gender issues: from early marriage, to sexual violence to the economic empowerment of women. The database not only includes documents negotiated and adopted in recent decades within the UN system but also regional instruments. In future, the database will be regularly updated with newly adopted UN documents.
A key feature of the app is an alphabetic list of more than 100 (predefined) (search) terms. This feature allows users to quickly and easily find the legal basis and most current version of the agreed language of the documents negotiated by the international community in its debates. Besides its archival function, this feature also makes it easier to prepare negotiations on UN resolutions and documents, to draft and propose new resolutions and to draft statements, presentations and speeches on women's human rights and gender issues.
"The new app not only strengthens Switzerland's ability to make its case during international negotiations and makes our foreign policy work in the UN more efficient and coherent, but it also stands to benefit member states in international organisations, diplomats engaged in multilateral negotiations and NGOs active in the field of women's human rights as they go about their daily work," said Benno Bättig, general secretary of the FDFA, during the official launch of the app in Geneva. The FDFA developed the app together with the gender policy unit of the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Human Rights (SCHR). The app works with smart phones and tablet computers.
Additional indications: Link to the new app „Women’s Human Rights“: Apple
Link to the new app „Women’s Human Rights“: Android
Link to the new app „Women’s Human Rights“: Blackberry