Māori Women Confront Discrimination: Using International Human Rights Law to Challenge Discriminatory Practices

This article discusses the Women’s Convention and, in particular, the Optional Protocol procedure, in order to examine the extent to which international human rights law may play a role in eliminating discrimination against Māori women in New Zealand. I explore the different kinds of discrimination Māori women experience in New Zealand, such as discrimination that occurs in customary contexts and state imposed discrimination, all of which has been encouraged by sexist colonial laws and practices that affect the role of Māori women in public life. Drawing on feminist Indigenous perspectives, I discuss the challenges Māori women may encounter when engaging with international human rights law and, in particular, the Women’s Committee in our attempts to overcome discrimination at home. Although I conclude that there may be some benefits for Māori women who choose to pursue a complaint under the Women’s Convention based on state imposed discrimination, we should not, at present, pursue a complaint based on discrimination experienced in customary Māori contexts. This is because international human rights fora, such as the Women’s Committee, are not the right places to remedy discriminatory cultural practices that are arguably sourced in tikanga Māori