(NEW YORK CITY, July 7, 2025)—On July 7, 2025, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued its concluding observations from its periodic review of Thailand’s women’s rights performance that echoed key points raised by Fortify Rights in a shadow report submitted to the Committee ahead of the hearing. In the shadow report, Fortify Rights recommended that Thailand ensure the widest possible coverage of legal protections for refugees in Thailand, implement human rights-based alternatives to immigration detention for refugee women and children, ensure that all refugees in Thailand have access to healthcare and other basic public services, and that Thailand accede to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its Protocol.
The CEDAW Committee further recommended that Thailand expedite the amendment of domestic violence laws, “ensuring accountability, a victim-centered approach and access to the criminal justice system” for domestic violence survivors. This echoed a recommendation in Fortify Rights’s shadow report, as well as its March 2025 publication “Just Stay Silent,” analyzing Thailand’s lack of effective remedies for domestic violence survivors.