for example bangladesh now prohibits sexual harassment thanks to a milestone decision issued in by the high court thanks to a training manual titled cedaw made easy empowering traditional leaders in cameroon to use the convention to bring about concrete improvements in the lives of women in their communities they are changing traditional practices that are harmful to women the cedaw denounced the prevalence of early marriage in several countries some of which have thus changed their legal age of marriage which in turn has reduced the prevalence of such practices the average prevalence of early marriage across developing countries has decreased from in to in cerise et al this paper considers the cedaw ratification date as good predictor of the level of discriminatory social institutions