E/CN.4/2002/73/Add.2 page 56 Committee on the Rights of the Child), information on harmful cultural practices and de jure and de facto discrimination, where such practices exist in their territories, and to include details of their efforts to put an end to them. 231. In this connection, the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the Women’s Convention is noteworthy. This is a supplementary treaty instrument of key importance in the protection of women and children against cultural practices detrimental to their status. A complaints mechanism could be set in motion, with the adoption of the Protocol, for States parties in cases where such practices take the form of violations of the right to life or other practices that may be deemed to constitute torture, degrading or discriminatory treatment or extrajudicial executions and where, in the face of protective legislation, the State does not take appropriate measures. 232. Similarly, the special rapporteurs (specifically on violence against women, religious intolerance, traditional practices affecting the health of women and the girl child and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions) should, as part of their respective mandates, regularly furnish precise information on the status of women in the light of harmful cultural traditions, especially where based on or imputed to religion. The resources available to human rights treaty bodies and non-treaty-based mechanisms, in particular CEDAW and the special rapporteurs whose mandates are concerned with women’s status in the light of religion and traditions, should be strengthened at the human and financial levels and in regard to their working methods. 233. Some practices, such as female genital mutilation, honour killings and sacred prostitution, come within the activities of several treaty bodies and the mandates of special human rights rapporteurs concerned with the status of women. Coordination would thus be necessary in order to avoid duplication and qualitative and quantitative dispersal of efforts aimed at combating cultural practices harmful to women’s status. A harmonized approach should at the same time mean a better understanding of all such practices, whether or not of religious origin, affecting the status of women from birth—and even before birth, i.e. in the foetal period—to extreme old age. To that end, the creation of a special rapporteur whose mandate would cover all issues relating to women would be a positive step that could strengthen women’s protection alongside existing mechanisms. 234. With regard to slavery and modern forms of servile status, appropriate mechanisms should be established to monitor States’ international obligations as laid down in the international conventions and which are imprinted in the universal consciousness. Such monitoring, which should in particular cover traditional slavery-like practices, may be entrusted to an existing treaty body (the Human Rights Committee, for example) or to a special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights with responsibility for all issues concerned with women’s status, whose creation, as has been said, is desirable. C. Conclusion 235. The norms inherited from our ancestors and history routinely discriminate against women irrespective of our professed religion. As stated by one author, we tend to subsume such norms under the heading of culture and shy away from addressing their discriminatory aspects.292 Excuses become exculpatory when practices or norms that discriminate against women are based