A United Nations committee has said the Irish Government should remove ‘stereotypical language’ from the Constitution by running another vote on the article on ‘mothers in the home’ [1].
This is despite a referendum having voted by a historic 3-1 margin to keep the present provision that seeks to protect mothers from being forced out of the home by economic necessity.
In a report published last week, the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) said it “recommends that the State party conduct an independent evaluation of the referendum, carry out information campaigns on the negative reinforcement by article 41.2 of gender stereotypes about women’s roles in the home and undertake inclusive public consultations to find alternative wording with a view to holding another constitutional referendum on amending article 41.2 of the Constitution to remove the stereotypical language on the role of women in the home”.
The article recognises the work of women in the family home is a contribution to the State “without which the common good cannot be achieved” and adds that mothers specifically should not be “obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”