Besides India, the 23-member-committee will also consider the initial reports of Tajikistan, and the periodic reports of Austria, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Namibia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Peru, Poland, Suriname and Vietnam.

Experts will also continue work on general recommendations on migrant women. The Committee will meet with representatives of non-governmental organisations from the countries that are reporting at the current session to hear their views.

In her opening remarks at the session which began yesterday, Rachel Mayanja, Assistant Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, said that the tenure of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had started very auspiciously for women: of the five appointments he had made so far, three were women, one of them a former member of the committee.

Deputy Secretary-General designate Asha-Rose Migiro is a former member of the committee. The Secretary-General had signalled at the outset his commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of women and his readiness to place women in key high-level positions, she added.

Although the target of universal ratification of the convention by the year 2000 set out in Beijing [Images] had not yet been achieved, further progress had been made in the ratification of both the Convention and its Optional Protocol, she said.