6 PARTICIPATION IN INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS FORUMS 65 NHRIs can play a significant role in the follow-up to treaty body concluding observations and recommendations, including by monitoring implementation and raising awareness about the findings at the national level. They may also build the capacity of civil society to draft shadow reports. The status granted to NHRIs, as well as the nature and scope of their participation in different treaty bodies, varies. Currently, three committees have general comments on NHRIs: the Committee on the Rights of the Child; 41 the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; 42 and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). 43 The CERD has formalized the participation of NHRIs in its working methods and rules of procedure. 44 In engaging with treaty bodies, NHRIs can promote the inclusion of women’s rights and gender equality by: • Monitoring and providing objective information on women’s rights and gender-related issues during the drafting of the government report; • Ensuring that its own report or contribution mainstreams and fully reflects the impact of the issue at hand on women’s rights and gender equality; • Taking note of any recommendations and concluding observations related to gender or women’s rights, translating recommendations into local languages and facilitating their distribution at the national level, supporting the government in developing strategies to implement these recommendations, and monitoring the implementation; and • Including gender and women’s rights in any capacity-building initiatives for civil society, and promoting the inclusion of these in stakeholders’ reports, as well as ensuring that civil society groups with expertise in women’s rights are included in capacity-building initiatives. 41 General Comment No. 2 (2002), The role of independent national human rights institutions in the promotion and protection of the rights of the child, CRC/GC/2002/2, 15 November 2002. 42 General Comment No. 10, The role of national human rights institutions in the protection of economic, social and cultural rights, E/C.12/1998/25, 10 December 1998. 43 General Recommendation No. 17, Establishment of national institutions to facilitate implementation of the Convention, 25 March 1993. 44 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – Working Methods complementing and/or amending the report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on its forty-eighth and forty-ninth sessions. Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-first Session, Supplement No. 18 (A/51/18), paras. 587–627.