E/CN.4/2002/73/Add.2 page 16 55. In the 1956 Supplementary Convention, any institution or practice whereby a woman may be subjugated in marriage is construed as slavery. Child marriage based on religious practices is regarded as a form of slavery and prohibited as such since girls are treated as chattels and often form the subject of financial transactions between families (bride price and dowry). This involves a fundamental right which echoes one of the basic principles of the Universal Declaration: “Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses” (art. 16, para. 2). 56. Despite these solemnly proclaimed principles, there is no organ responsible for ensuring that States fulfil their obligation to abolish slavery and similar practices, in particular servile status. Yet the right not to be subjected to slavery, including where relating to customs and traditions, is a fundamental human right. B. Contribution of specific instruments 1. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (a) Contribution of the Convention 57. It was not until 1979 that a women’s charter came into existence, its merit being that the issue of discrimination against women was for the first time addressed in a comprehensive manner, including in relation to the subject of the present study. Previous instruments on women had followed a sectoral approach in line with the spheres where fundamental rights were expressly denied to women and in response to demands for improvements in women’s legal status in specific areas: nationality, political rights and minimum age for marriage.44 The comprehensive approach of the 1979 Convention is reflected in the very definition of discrimination in its article 1 and also in the nature of the rights protected and appropriate measures to be taken by States in order to put an end to discrimination in all spheres of social and family life. 58. However, in regard to the subject of the present study, it has to be acknowledged that the forms of discrimination referred to in article 1 are gender-based and none of the Convention’s provisions contains the term religion or religious tradition. Article 5 (a ) stipulates that States parties have to take measures to “modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.” Notwithstanding the wide-ranging nature of the phrase “customary and all other practices” and the possibility of including religion-based discrimination among those practices, it should not be forgotten that in many countries, as will be seen, gender discrimination is in fact founded on cultural and/or religious practices. Indeed, a large number of reservations to the Convention have been made by States on exclusively religious grounds referring to a perception of society and the law in relation to women’s personal status. A further point, which endorses what has been stated in the introduction, is that the aim of the Convention is not to intervene in religion or even less to change the religious beliefs of individuals or peoples. The Convention simply urges States to take action concerning social and cultural patterns of conduct, prejudices and customary practices which reflect stereotyped roles for women and impair their status. It does not attempt to determine whether such a negative