Preparing for Beijing+10
NGOs and governments meet in Geneva
21.12.2004 |Muborak Sharipova
Selective data on the Regional Preparatory Meeting for the 10-year Review of Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing +10) and NGO-Forum in Palais des Nations, Geneva (12-15 December 04).
Report prepared by Muborak Sharipova, co-coordinator of the WECF Gender in Sustainable Development working group
23 December 2004
Overview
<>In 1995 the 4th World Women’s Conference resulted in a negotiated document the “Beijing Platform of Action for Equity Development and Peace” which was agreed on by 188 states. Considering the increase of fundamentalist and conservative powers in governments around the world, the UN decided not to organize a 5th World Women’s conference in 2005 as it was feared that countries might want to move backward from what was agreed in Beijing. Instead a review “10 years after” will take place during the annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women starting on February 28, 2005.Goverments and NGOs of the UN-ECE region (Europe, NIS and North America) met in Geneva on 12-15 December to prepare the input for this review. The secretariat had already decided that only a few themes would be reviewed, not all 12 themes of the Beijing Platform for Action. The Chapter K of the platform for Action, which deals with Women and Environment, was NOT selected to be reviewed.
Muborak Sharipova, representing WECF, together with WEDO, managed to get a short statement on women and environment into the NGO statement, as a footnote in the part on Emerging Issues. WECF tried to convince the German Delegation to propose also a text on Women and Environment for the official chairman’s summary, but they had already too many interventions on other themes and could not take it on board.
Please find below a report on what was discussed and decided at both the official and NGO meetings.
Official session
From 12 to 15 of December WECF delegation (Sascha Gabizon, Svetlana
Slesarenok and Muborak Sharipova) participated at the Regional
Preparatory Meeting for the 10-year Review of Implementation of the
Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing +10) and NGO-Forum in Palais des
Nations, Geneva. The meeting was a region-wide event based on the past
experiences of the UNECE Regional Preparatory Meetings for Beijing
(Vienna, November 1994) and Beijing +5 (Geneva, January 2000). The
meeting was held in compliance with the decisions of the 59th UNECE
Annual Session and of the Ad Hoc Informal Meeting of the Commission (28
May 2004) and was organized in close cooperation with other
organizations and institutions active on gender issues in the UNECE
region, particularly the European Commission, UNDP, UNIFEM, Council of
Europe and OSCE. Furthermore there was an active involvement of civil
society in this event.
The main objectives of the meeting was to:
• Support the implementation of the Beijing commitments at national level through the
provision of a regional platform for the assessment of progress;
• Identify gaps and remaining challenges;
• Exchange good practices to facilitate the process of policy convergence based on
successful experiences; and
• Contribute to the global 10-year Review of the Implementation of the Beijing
Platform for Action.
The meeting addressed only three of the 12 themes of the Beijing Platform for Action:
I. Women in the economy
- Access to financing and assets;
- Employability and support to employment;
- Gender budgets;
- Social security and pensions.
II. Institutional mechanisms to promote gender equality
- Role and responsibilities of stakeholders (gender bureaux, line ministries, parliamentarians, civil society, academia);
- Legislation for gender equality;
- Building partnership among stakeholders.
III. Trafficking of women in the context of migratory movements
- Patterns and causes;
- National, regional and international responses;
- Trafficking and women’s economic situation.
For each of these themes the main objective of the meeting reviewed progress achieved in the UNECE member countries since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action. It highlighted good practices and remained challenges in these key areas. In addition, UNECE member States had an opportunity to discuss emerging issues in the context of the changing socio-economic and geopolitical situation in the region.
The outcome of the meeting took the form of Chairperson’s conclusions. It constituted the contribution of the UNECE region to the global 10-year Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, which will take place on the occasion of a special session of the Commission on the Status of Women (New York, March 2005).
More on the official website: http://www.unece.org/oes/gender/documents/Beijing%2B10/
Information%20Notice-English.pdf
http://www.unece.org/oes/gender/Programme.htm
For the list of participants see: http://www.unece.org/oes/gender/documents/LIST-Participants_Nov04.pdf
The Meeting has concluded that the situation of women in the UNECE region has only partly improved over the last decade and a lot more needs to be done to implement the Platform for Action, especially in the socio-economic sphere:
The implications of the social security reforms on women and retirement schemes
Gender equality has been only a marginal consideration in the social reforms processes, including family benefits and pensions. It is of key relevance for women’s employability, and for achieving equality in the division of unpaid care work between women and men.
In order to strengthen gender equality by promoting a more equal distribution of unpaid care responsibilities and to stress the social value of care work, pension systems need to ensure that careers are not penalized. The detrimental effect of caring on pension entitlements constitutes a clear disincentive for men to take over a greater share of care responsibilities.
<>Economic roots of trafficking
<>
<>The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the number of women being trafficked from Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States to North America and Western Europe.According to various estimates, up to 80% of them are destined for the sex services market. Lack of jobs and increased poverty, limited opportunities for legal immigration, and the resurgence of traditional discriminatory practices against women, among others, push them to choose the way of illegal immigration. Globalization and the opening of countries in transition to the world economy have created an opportunity for national criminal groups to extend their illicit economic activities by establishing links with foreign and international criminal networks and maximizing their profits by creating economies of scale.
During the past two decades, most of the former socialist countries have been among the “sending” countries at some point in time. Some European estimates suggest that between 1990 and 1998, more than 253,000 women and girls were trafficked into the sex industry of the 12 EU countries. The overall number of women working as prostitutes in these countries has grown to more than half a million. The sex industry in the EU member States has become one of the most lucrative businesses. The total annual revenues of traffickers are estimated to range from US$ 5 billion to US$ 9 billion a year.
<>Women’s employability
<>
<>The goals of gender mainstreaming have not yet been fully achieved; the approach remains partial, with insufficient attention paid to either improving the quality of women’s employment or bringing about the modernization of the employment and social systems, required for a more gender equal society.More action is needed to improve women’s access to employment, facilitate women’s continuity of employment; close the gender pay gap and remove the disadvantages of part-time employment; and to promote shared parental leave and provide more affordable childcare.
Women’s employability and access to jobs particularly quality jobs, is of serious concern for women in all countries of Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent Sates (CIS).
Worsening labour market conditions there have seriously affected women’s employability as reflected in the wage gap, and nonstandard employment arrangements, such as parttime work or employment in the informal sector, which offer little or no social protection. The erosion of social benefits has made it more difficult for them to reconcile full-time employment with family responsibilities, which now embody more care functions. These trends are worrisome because they suggest a reversal of progress in women’s employability in these countries.
<>Women’s entrepreneurship
<>
<>As a result of new policy measures there has been a substantive increase in women’s self-employment in all countries of the UNECE region over the last ten years. Progress and approaches vary by subregion and country. The share of women’s entrepreneurship increased in many countries of Western Europe and there was also progress in countries of Eastern Europe and CIS, where women’s self-employment is an important element of poverty reduction. Most progress was made in North America – for example, in Canada the number of women entrepreneurs increased 208% between 1981 and 2001, compared with a 38% increase for men.Strategies for the implementation of policies to promote women’s entrepreneurship vary; for example one approach emphasizes women as an untapped source of growth for the economy as a whole, some stress self-employment as an economic survival tool for poor women and their families, one rationale links self-employment and entrepreneurship, particularly among women, to broader strategies to combat unemployment. Challenges remain regarding access to finance, information and networks, markets and training.
<>Gender budgeting
<>
<>The UNECE region has had little experience in gender responsive budgets, but is quickly accumulating more experience at national, regional and local levels. It is increasingly recognized that macroeconomic policy plays an important role in living standards and economic opportunities for the population in general, and women in particular, and increasing people’s access to resources and opportunities has positive economic effects. This recognition is behind the economic rationale for introducing a gender perspective into budgets. The areas of application are varied, ranging from tax-benefit systems to local employment and transport policies. Projects vary from country to country but are being more and more taken up by such countries as Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States. New initiatives are underway in Poland, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Hungary.The main problems relate to increasing awareness about gender and budgets, targeting the impact of the initiatives on concrete results, and guaranteeing the sustainability of initiatives. The involvement of civil society is another element that should be reviewed within most government initiatives.
<>NGO Forum
<>
<>More than 300 participants from 42 countries took part in the Working Session on 12-13 December 2004, held in the Centre de Conférences de Varembé and in the Palais des Nations, Geneva, preceding the two days Regional Preparatory Meeting on the 10-year Review of Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. The Working Session was organised by the Working Group on Women in the ECE Region, in cooperation with subregional networks and the ECE Secretariat. Due to the generous contributions of UNIFEM, UNDP, OSCE and the Open Society Institute, an important number of participants came from CEE and CIS countries.It was a Working Session, structured into Plenary Meetings and Workshop Sessions to participate as equals in what essentially is an Intergovernmental Conference. This process was chosen, as in the preparatory meetings in Vienna in 1994 and in Geneva in 2000, to facilitate a meaningful dialogue on critical issues related to the four themes identified for this preparatory conference.
The meeting was opened by Marise Paschoud, convenor of the NGO Working Group on Women for the ECE Region. Guest speakers included Carolyn Hannan, Director of the UN Division of the Advancement of Women, Concita Poncini, Vina Nadjibulla (for Bani Dugal), Susi Shaked, Presidents of the NGO Committees on the Status of Women in Geneva, New York and Vienna, Brigitte Schmögnerova, UNECE Executive Secretary. They insisted on the importance of partnership between NGOs and the United Nations and gave information on the preparations for the Review of Beijing + 10 that is going to be held at the 49th Commission on the Status of Women in New York from February 28 to March11 2005.
To arrive at specific recommendations the Working Session proceeded as follows:
I) On the first day, the Working Session was informed of subregional reports of NGO Coalitions from the EU, the CEE and CIS countries, Canada and the US.
II) During the first and the second day, five workshops worked on issues related to the four themes of the ECE Meeting and on "After Beijing +10" and they prepared recommendations to complement the ECE's conclusions.
The Closing Session, chaired by Charlotte Thibault (FAFIA), received the workshops reports. Closing remarks were made by Renate Bloem, President of CONGO, and Concita Poncini, President of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women in Geneva.
For more information please, take a look: http://www.unece.org/oes/gender/beijing10.htm
For Draft Chairperson’s conclusions (unfortunately only in gif format):
http://www.accent.com.pl/pipermail/beijing+10/attachments/
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Introduction
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Linkages across the twelve critical areas:
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Women and economy
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Social Protection and Pensions
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Institutional Mechanisms
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Trafficking in the context of migrations
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Emerging issues
For the list of participants:
http://www.unece.org/oes/gender/
documents/LIST-Participants_Nov04.pdf
Following
are some of the documents of THE NGO WORKING SESSION (12-13 December
2004, Geneva), organized in preparation for the ECE Regional
Preparatory Meeting on the 2005 Review of the Implementation of the
Beijing Platform of Action:
NGOs AS PARTNERS ON THE WAY TO ACCELERATE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLATFORM FOR ACTION
WORKSHOPS
I. WOMEN IN THE ECONOMY
A. Employability.
The
discussion on women and the economy must begin with the universally
accepted UN human rights framework which challenges the current
neoliberal economic model promoting deregulation,
privatization and unbridled trade liberalization, which disregard their
negative gender and social consequences. This approach seriously
undermines implementation of the BPfA and the achievement of the
MDGs.
This must be replaced with a paradigm based on
sustainable development models that link economic growth to social
development, environmental protection and gender equality.
Macroeconomic
policies while seemingly gender neutral have deepened inequalities
between countries, between urban and rural areas and between women and
men in all countries in the ECE region. Women are not a homogenous
category: They engage in diverse and complex ways, as economic actors,
entrepreneurs and decision-makers. But as women represent the world's
poor in the region and worldwide, the negative impacts of WTO and IFIs
affect them disproportionately. Policies of attracting FDIs expose
women to low paid work in exploitative conditions. Global economic
governance system is led by countries from the ECE region, not working
for women and the poor. The challenge is to generate enough resources
and how these are allocated. The UN should lead in promoting a
rights-based and social justice approach to economic policy-making with
gender lens.
Privatization of public services has not only
reduced women's opportunities to decent employment, but has also
increased inequities in provision of services, leaving the poor either
without services or with low quality services. It has also increased
women's caring responsibility. Discrimination in access to employment,
promotion and training for women and other equality seeking groups is
still systemic throughout the ECE region. Women remain clustered
in low skill, poor quality jobs with poor regulation and low levels of
union representation. Majority of workers in part-time, temporary,
casual work in the informal economy are women.
Recommendations to Governments
1) Allocate adequate resources to ensure enforcement of
equal opportunity and anti-discrimination laws and policies adopted by
ECE countries;
2) Analyze systematically the persistent wage gaps based
on gender and other grounds, such as ''race'' and ethnicity;
3) Develop
employment equity plans, gender workplace audits and gender responsive
budgets
4) Undertake job evaluation schemes free of gender bias and
value women's jobs, particularly caring skills.
5) Introduce policies
and programmes to implement the ILO Core Standards on Equal Rights at
Work.
6) Ensure that part-time work is an option, not an obligation,
for women workers and must be regulated so as to have equivalent
conditions to full-time workers on a pro-rata basis;. This form of work
should not be used as a strategy to return women to domestic caring
roles which replace state funded community based care facilities.
7)
Extend social regulation and protection to precarious forms of work in
the informal economy where women make up the majority and should take
account of the conclusions of the ILO Conference on decent work and the
informal economy, adopted in 2002;
8) guarantee national minimum living
wages as a measure to bring women out of poverty, reduce the gender
wage gap and end discrimination in wage setting in low skill jobs where
women predominate;
9) give a monetary value to unpaid work of caring
for children, elderly, the sick and disabled and provide adequate
financial support for these activities such as tax and pension systems
that recognize time spent out of the labour market by women doing this
work as a measure to eliminate feminization of poverty;
10)
Ratify ILO Convention 156 and adopt policies and incentives to
encourage more men to do this caring work;
11) develop gender sensitive
policies and action plans for institutional and cultural changes in the
workplace and at home aimed at changing male behaviour and mental
attitudes, using examples of best practices in the region, particularly
in Iceland and Sweden;
12) Adopt the principle of employability
stipulated in ILO Recommendation on Human Resources Development which
takes into account the life course approach and lifelong learning of
women;
13) Enable girls equal opportunity in education at all levels
and introduce curricula that are non-traditional "female" courses;
14)
Redress the present occupational segregation resulting from male-biased
job classification, evaluation and gender stereotyping by encouraging
women to enroll in science and technology in general and in
information and communication technology in particular;
15) set up
centers, such as those that exist in France, that provide technical,
financial and social supports for the integration of women in the
labour market, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe and CIS. They
should include appropriate supports so that women from minority and
ethnic groups and indigenous peoples, as well as the disabled and older
women, can acquire adequate and quality skills to access decent
employment of their choice. In respect of the ageing population, States
should implement the Madrid Declaration and Programme of Action adopted
in 2002;
16) Provide highly educated women whose education are not
marketable in the present economic context with opportunities to
upscale their knowledge and skills that will raise their
accessibility to jobs that break the glass ceiling;
17) ICT skills are
becoming a necessity for survival, therefore training should be
provided to all women in remote and rural areas through distance
learning and cyber cafes, and should take account of cultural and
linguistic diversity;
18) promote e-entrepreneurship and e-management
development as well as inclusion of women entrepreneurs in trade fairs
and trade missions.
19) Allocate increased resources from developed to
developing countries, particularly ODAs reaffirmed by the ECE countries
in Goal 8 of the MDGs. It is essential that governments at this meeting
unequivocally reaffirm the entire Beijing Platform for Action and the
Beijing+5 Outcomes.
B. Social Security and Pension:
Ignoring
the social implications from a gender perspective of economic
readjustments, have as a consequence eroded existing social security
provisions for women.
The Working Group therefore recommends to States
the following set of measures:
1) social security, social services and
pension provisions take into account the definition of family in
its new forms (increasing women single-headed households; reconstructed
families of divorced couples; couples of same sex; grandparents as head
of households of orphaned children; orphaned headed households whose
parents have died of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, widows/widowers etc);
2) Adopt a holistic approach to ensure policy coherence among different
government ministries and departments in reshifting priorities,
inter alia redistribution of military spending, using gender auditing
and budgeting;
3) Guarantee protection of acquired pension rights and
making such pensions portable;
4) Review public and private pensions
systems to ensure that acquired provisions are guaranteed for decent
standards of living;
5) strengthen provisions for parental leave and
ensure the responsibilities of fathers in the equal sharing of work and
family responsibilities as called for in ILO C156, taking account that
the compensations systems vary from country to country
6) Provide for
maternity and/or parental leave to protect and to guarantee that women
do not risk loosing their jobs and that men take on more family
responsibilities.
II. INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS (CHAPTER H OF THE BPFA)
The
Workshop's recommendations were first adopted unanimously by more than
60 participants representing women's non-governmental organisations and
networks under the chair of IAW - AIF, SIW, and then edited in
the steering group together with CNIDFF, CLEF, EWL and NAWO, FAFIA and
MEHR Association.
Reaffirming the Beijing Platform for Action
and the Outcome Document of the UNGASS in 2000, and demanding that
gender equality and women's human rights be mainstreamed throughout the
implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's).Considering
that although gender mainstreaming is one of the means used for the
advancement of women, it can not replace the need to establish specific
institutional mechanisms and programming.
Recognising the needs and
concerns of the great range of women, all recommendations below and all
policies, programmes and other actions taken to create equality for
women must use an integrated approach in order that equality be
achieved for all women of all ages including the girl child. Special
attention must be given to particularly disadvantaged groups of women
and those facing multiple oppressions. Considering the increasing
feminisation of poverty in a context of a global economy which does not
take into account the differential impact on women and men;
We recommend the following:
1.- National mechanisms must have a statutory basis and should not be subject strong to political change in government.
2.-
Machineries, including independent bodies, must be established at the
highest possible executive level at national, regional and local levels
to apply gender mainstreaming and gender impact assessment in all
policies and their implementation.
3.- There must be mandatory training of civil servants and all government officers in gender mainstreaming.
4.-
Gender mainstreaming must be strengthened and designed to promote
gender equality; its impact must be measured, made
transparent and available to all stakeholders using
sex-disaggregated statistics.
5.- The Commission on the Status
of Women should create a Special Rapporteur on national laws and
practices that discriminate against Women.
6.- National Governments must create governmental coordinating structures with a legal mandate including NGO representatives.
7.- Governments need to ensure that compulsory national education systems include non-sexist programmes in their curricula.
8.-
International and national actors in regions of economic, political
crisis or armed conflict must establish a gender task force to ensure
the participation of local women in the solution.
9.- All member
states should be required to enact legislation, ensuring the
establishment of mechanisms that result in gender parity (50%) in all
decision-making processes and institutions, including
peace-negotiations.
10.- Governments must create
mechanisms to assess the impact of growing religious and trade
fundamentalism, whatever their origin, and to combat them when they
threaten women's rights.
11.- National mechanisms for the
advancement of women must be allocated adequate human and financial
resources to be effective.
12.- National plans of action exist
formally without proper funding, implementation and monitoring. We
demand that member states fully commit to:
- recognising the resource implications of the effective implementation of action plan;
-
providing resources in finance and personnel to ensure the
participation of women at all levels of decision making in all
different areas.
13.- Gender budgeting must be institutionalised
across all departments and ministries, and the member states should be
required to monitor, analyse and audit expenditure and regularly report
on the implementation and outcome.
14.- Funding for women's NGO must be provided so that they will broaden civil
dialogue on the human rights of women and the girl child. New budget planning
should include specific actions and programmes with funding for Equal Opportunity initiatives.
15.-
The application of gender mainstreaming must include targets and gender
impact assessment in all policies and their implementation as well as
specific programmes for the advancement of women.
16.- Member States must effectively implement their international commitments,
national
constitution and laws without subverting them by issuing executive
orders or taking other measures that contradict them.
17.- Governmental reports to CEDAW and CEDAW's resulting recommendations must
be the object of discussion in parliament.
18.-
NGOs should be recognised and entitled to actively participate in the
government reporting processes on all human rights mechanisms,
including CEDAW. The report to CEDAW should be made public, as should
be the alternative NGO report.
19.- Governments should
recognize and support actively and effectively young women's
organizations in their effort to promote their empowerment and
participation in decision making.
20.- Measurement of outcomes which requires gender disaggregated and reliable
statistics are needed for monitoring all actions of government.
21.-
Member States must establish, where none exist, cross-sectoral,
cross-disciplinary and cross-border strategies to combat violence
against women and trafficking and where they do exist, enforce them.
22.-
Governments must introduce capacity building and leadership training
for women in NGOs to become more effective in working with and
monitoring institutional mechanisms
23.- All levels of
governments must implement gender mainstreaming using concrete
and transparent action plans with established indicators and outcomes
and timelines developed in partnership with civil society
organisations.
III. TRAFFICKING IN THE CONTEXT OF MIGRATORY MOVEMENTS
Trafficking
in women and children is a consequence of structured gender inequality
and is a form of violence. It is also a symptom of relative and
absolute poverty. The participants of this workshop expressed great
concern about the failure of governments, despite successive
international agreements, to stem the tide of trafficking in human
beings, especially women and children. Counter-trafficking strategies
must be anchored in a human rights framework.
The participants
fully endorsed the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime and the protocol thereto, specifically relating to all
paragraphs of article 3 in relation to the definition of the
trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
Recommendations :
1.-
Governments must recognize that the trafficking in human beings and
particularly in women and children, is a major violation of human
rights.
They must therefore implement and monitor the Palermo
Protocol and all other relevant human right instruments and allocate
sufficient resources to prevent and combat this gross human rights
violation.
2.- Safeguarding the human rights of women and of
all victims of trafficking must be central to all considerations and
measures in relation to prevention, protection of victims and
prosecution of perpetrators.
3.- The safety and protection of
women and children who are victims of trafficking must be the
overriding consideration at all times, so that:
- Protection of victims must not be conditional on any agreements to give evidence to or to cooperate with the criminal justice system and other authorities.
- There shall be no penalties for victims of trafficking in countries of origin, transit or destination. Victims of trafficking must never be treated as illegal immigrants or any other way criminalized.
- Protection and support must be provided to all women and children who are victims of trafficking regardless of their legal status, or the presence or absence of documents showing their status.
- Destination countries must establish mechanisms for legal migration. Counter- trafficking strategies should not be used as a means to stem legal migration.
- A person must be granted protection as soon as she is recognized as a victim of trafficking and must be granted rights as stated in article 6 of the Palermo Protocol, including all forms of social, employment, legal and housing support, as well as comprehensive health services and specifically access to sexual and reproductive health rights.
- National legislation should ensure the right to compensation to victims of trafficking for physical, psychological and material damages.
4.- Prevention
strategies of countries of origin must reflect and be reflected in
poverty reduction and social development strategies with specific
reference to economic opportunities for women.
5.- Long term
prevention strategies must address the root causes of trafficking and
these include poverty, discrimination, racism, patriarchal structures,
violence against women, fundamentalisms, gender inequality, lack of
social safety nets, money laundering, corruption, political
instability, conflicts and uncontrolled zones, barriers and disparities
between countries.
6.- All governments must introduce measures that
recognize the unequal power relations between women and men and must
introduce positive measures to promote
the empowerment of women in all areas of life.
7.- Forced marriage
can be seen as a form of trafficking and is a gross violation of
women's and girls' human rights and a form of violence against women,
sexual violence. Governments must take all necessary measures,
including legal and policy measures, to eliminate this practice.
8.-
Governments must develop a comprehensive witness protection mechanism
including the legal representation and protection of the privacy of
victims, anonymous certified statements in courts, and special
protection throughout the
duration of the criminal proceedings.
9.-
Governments must strengthen legislation and the enforcement of the
legislation in relation to sanctions against all perpetrators of
trafficking including transnational criminals. The states must
establish special funds supplied by confiscated asset or by fines paid
by traffickers who are convicted in criminal proceedings.
10.-
Research must be conducted in the countries and regions of origin,
transit and destination in order to generate a more comprehensive
understanding of the dynamics of human trafficking and to develop
effective strategies to
combat trafficking in women and children.
11.-
Trade agreements and agreements related to development
cooperation must be monitored from a gender perspective with
specific reference to countries and situations where trafficking in
women and children is known to be a reality.
12.- In relation
to the demand that fosters trafficking, governments shall adopt
or strengthen legislative or other measures, such as educational,
social or cultural measures, including through bilateral or
multilateral cooperation to discourage the demand that fosters all
forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children,
that leads to trafficking.
IV. EMERGING ISSUES
The
Emerging Issues workshop, coordinated by the Center for Women's Global
Leadership, highlighted critical areas that either were not adequately
covered in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) and the Outcomes
Document from the Beijing + 5 Review, and/or have intensified in the
past decade.
An overarching concern of the group was the way in
which global forces that have intensified over the decade since Beijing
have often eroded support for and attention to women's human
rights. In particular, the growth of militarism and
fundamentalisms of many kinds and the growing inequities produced by
globalization were seen as detrimental to the achievement of the
Platform.
We reject all excuses for violations of women's human rights
whether justified in the name of "national security" or "cultural
heritage" or religion. The global "war on terrorism" should not
be used as an excuse to undermine any group's human rights or to
neglect the critical issues of women's daily human insecurity. We
see multilateralism as the way to address global security
concerns. Politics of greed, exclusion, domination and military
power have failed women in the ECE region. We call upon
governments to develop better alternatives for our collective future
human security based in respect for all human rights.
SECTION I
MILITARISM:The
current geopolitical context is one of war, heightened military
spending, promotion of a culture of violence in daily life, and
increased transnational crime and corruption. The primary victims are
civilians, particularly women and children. Governments should
counter this climate related to "the war on terror" by promoting peace,
disarmament, and intercultural dialogue. Military budgets must be
reduced, with spending shifted to poverty reduction, development and
the protection of human rights; UN: implement Resolution 1325 through
actions, an audit, and the appointment of a Special Rapporteur; UN
peacekeeping forces: include more women in decision making; develop
gender monitoring mechanisms and trainings on local contexts; end
impunity for violence perpetrated by peacekeepers; International
organizations working on organized crime must review their activities,
increase transparency, disclose full budgets, and increase discussion
of their work.
FUNDAMENTALISMS: Women oppose all forms of
fundamentalisms because they create and demonize "the Other" and use
religion, cultural heritage, nationalism and ethnicity to obtain
political power and to control women's lives. Governments must ensure
that civic rights laws are enforced. The principle of secularity should
be fully respected by each state. We reject the use of tradition and
ethnicity to prevent women from enjoying their full reproductive and
sexual rights.
SEXUAL RIGHTS: Sexual rights embrace human rights
that are already recognized in national laws and in international and
regional human rights and consensus documents. All women,
including young women, have the right to make informed choices about
all aspects of their sexual lives, including their sexual pleasure,
sexual autonomy and sexual orientation; must have access to
comprehensive sexuality education, and confidential sexual and
reproductive health services, including those related to safe and legal
abortion. All women must be free to establish all forms of families and
to exercise their sexual rights free from gender-based violence and
coercion, including FGM, forced and early marriage, so-called honour
killings and domestic violence. Governments must create enabling
conditions to ensure that all women and girls enjoy the full range of
sexual rights. The Secretary General's in-depth study on all
forms of violence against women should include how gender-based
violence violates women's sexual rights and recommendations to end it.
HIV/AIDS:
Women's experience and gender equality must be central to decisions
about access to treatment, the links between violence against women and
HIV/AIDS, or any other aspects of the HIV pandemic. Prevention
and treatment programmes must be anchored in a human rights framework,
and governments have the responsibility to protect and fulfill human
rights of people affected by HIV/AIDS. Strategies must encompass sexual
and reproductive health and rights with special attention to young
women, through the promotion of comprehensive sexuality education.
Female controlled prevention methods such as microbicides and female
condoms must be accessible and women must be involved in the design and
delivery of antiretroviral programmes.
INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY: To ensure full participation of women of all
ages and cultural backgrounds in information societies, governments
must ensure all ICT programs, investments and policies, including WSIS,
consistently incorporate gender indicators and benchmarking, and are
accountable for evaluation. They must provide affordable access
to and education on effective use of ICTs, and empower women to
generate, own, develop, use and shape ICTs in content and
policies. Regulatory frameworks addressing violent and
stereotypical images that exploit women must be developed with all
stakeholders, particularly women, and must not enforce censorship or
surveillance that limits access to information or invades privacy.
PUBLIC
SERVICES: Trends toward deregulation, privatisation and cuts in public
services previously provided largely by the state and that adversely
affect women are of concern. The state has a duty to provide water,
sanitation, primary health care, education and care services for
children and other dependent people. We oppose the shift of costs from
the state to household, which often creates particular hardship for
women. The state is accountable for the quality and equal access of
public services; any changes should be subject to a gender impact
assessment.
The group also expressed concern about two topics
not developed in depth: BIOTECHNOLOGY / NEW TECHNOLOGIES: Gender
equality and women's human rights as well as women's participation must
be guaranteed in the research, design and implementation of new
technologies. WOMEN AND THE ENVIRONMENT: The escalating
degradation of the earth requires governments to address the
consequences of war and conflict, unrestrained economic growth,
depletion of natural resources and pollution of air and water. It is
urgent to involve women at all levels of decision-making, including
specialists, economists and scientists.
SECTION II:
The
Beijing Platform and the Beijing + 5 Outcomes Document acknowledge the
differential impact of issues on different groups of women. We affirm
the need to look at such diversity in implementing the Platform and
call upon governments to affirm the human rights of all women,
regardless of whether they are named there. The group affirms the
need for attention to all oppressed groups of women, and looks at seven
constituencies in the ECE region. While these women are often
victimized in ways requiring particular attention, they are not only
victims but also can be agents whose knowledge and perspectives prove
vital to creating new approaches to issues.
Romany Women: In
most of the CEE/CIS countries, Romany women and girls often live in
extreme poverty and face social exclusion and multiple forms of
discrimination. We demand state parties mainstream Romany women and
girls' issues throughout national strategies, including on Romany
communities, and allocate financial resources for effective
implementation. Indigenous Women: As reflected in the UN Draft
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they are "equal in
dignity and rights to all other peoples, while recognizing the right of
all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to
be respected as such". Indigenous women's issues must be included in
all recommendations put forward in implementing the BPFA and in other
areas. Women with disabilities: Recognizing that women with
disabilities are subject to multiple forms of discrimination, efforts
should be undertaken to include relevant text in the "international
convention on the protection and promotion of the rights and dignity of
persons with disabilities".Lesbians and Bisexual women: All lesbian,
bisexual, transgender and intersex people who identify as women or
girls are entitled to the full enjoyment of all civil, political,
economic, social and cultural rights.
Youth: Young women have the right
to participate in the design, decision-making, implementation and
evaluation of policies and programmes in all sectors, not just those
identified as being specifically related to youth, and to be
compensated appropriately by NGOs and governments for their work.Older
women: Population aging is a gender issue. Well-being in later life is
directly related to experiences across the life course; the greater
disadvantages women face throughout their lives can lead to poverty,
isolation and poor health.Widows: The number of widows of all ages has
risen. Poverty and marginalization of widows can expose them and their
children to violence in all forms. Governments and the international
community must provide benefits and services where needed and devise
appropriate public policies.
V. BEIJING+10, MDGs, PROPOSAL FOR THE FUTURE
The
working group expresses their concern about the lack of linkage between
the Beijing PFA and MDGs at the UN and national level."Without progress
towards gender equality and impowerment of women, none of the MDGs will
be achieved". In fact, six of the MDGs stem directly from the BPFA :
poverty, primary education, gender equality, child mortality, health of
mothers and sustainable environment. To speed up implementation of BPFA
and strengthen the implementation of the MDGs, they should be linked
"horizontally". The Group wishes to remind the ECE Governments that UN
conferences on women are not theme conferences, but an opportunity for
women to come together and make up their minds on all issues on the UN
agenda. Such conferences are an ideal opportunity for interaction with
governments and civil society representatives. They are needed as long
as other UN major conferneces have an overwhelming male majority.
Recommendations:
1) Women are participants and not "target" groups when it comes to UN Conferences.
2) All MDGs should be gender mainstreamed and a gender sensitive budget and effect evaluation should be made for each goal.
3)
Urges ECE Governments to provide adequate resources to implement the
Beijing BPFA and the MDGs and indicate the proportion of funds
earmarked for the empowerment and capacity building of women.
4)
Calls on the NGO Committee on CSW in New York to convene an NGO
strategy meeting during the 49th CSW Session on prerequisites and
feasibility of a 5th UN World Conference of
Women before or in 2010 and/or alternatives.
NGO FORUM REPORT BEIJING + 10 DECEMBER 12-13 2004
SUBREGIONAL NGO REPORTS
EU countries
Kirsti Kolthoff, Women's European Lobby
Since
Beijing, some real progress has been made in the European Union at the
legislative level; the position of women in decision-making has
improved. However, one of the most serious gap in EU action on gender
equality is the absence of any binding measure to fight against
violence against women, including the growing phenomenon of trafficking
in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation and prostitution. In
recent years, the EU has adopted an economic policy that stresses
market liberalisation, privatisation and competition, and this has led
to a greater feminization of poverty, less job security and a weakening
of the European social model of social protection and public services.
Another worrying trend is the negative influence of very conservative
forces and religious fundamentalism, in particular in relation to
women's sexual and reproductive rights.
CEE /CIS countries
Kinga Lohmann, Karat Coalition
Although
the CEE women's activists support strongly the enlargement of the
European Union since the changes of the laws can lead to the
improvement of the situation of women, they are very concernded about a
new process of inclusion and exclusion which has begun. Women - former
partners - are now divided by new borders with some of them being
inside the Union and others outside it. Karat Coalition with one foot
in the EU and the other foot outside is extremely concerned about the
increasing gap in the situation of women in the region, between those
who have already joined the
EU and those who are left outside.
Irina Kolomiyets, Liberal Society Institute
Recommendations for the future:
- National institutions responsible for women's empowerment should be financially provided and professionally staffed.
-
Policy for equal opportunities should be based on country-specific
gender investigation, gender statistics and results of gender
monitoring and gender expertise.
- Budgetary policy should be gender sensitive, transparent and participatory.
Mira Karibaeva, Social Technologies Agency
Recommendations for the future :
-
Develop and implement programs aimed at advancing gender equality
within long term commitment and sustainability in mind, because
establishing effective and strong inter country and inter regional
relationships is not possible in a short period.
- These programs
should also aim to work with government structures to change from
rhetorical strategies to practical solutions that will lead to
achieving equality of results.
- Strenghening of the existing
potential of local gender experts via running, monitoring and
evaluation joint programs. Only a strong local experts and expertise
can ensure that these changes will be sustainable and irreversible in
our region
Canada
Nancy Peckford, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
In
Canada, high rates of poverty among single mothers, women of Colour,
and immigrant and refugee women persist. Racialized and gender-based
violence against Aboriginal Women goes unchecked. Instead, governments
have prioritized the elimination of budget deficits and the national
debt. Women have been disproportionately affected by reduced
accessibility to vital social supports, including employment insurance,
social assistance, legal aid, and core operating funds for women's
organisations. Despite multi-billion dollar surpluses in the last seven
years, there has been little re-investment in women's equality.
USA
June Zeitlin,Women's Environment and Development Organisation
At
Beijing+5, women's groups reported a strong governmental commitment to
the Beijing Platform for Action. But at Beijing +10, we have to report
that the official governmental commitment to the Platform is weavering,
progress towards implementation is stalled and undermined in key areas,
including human rights, poverty eradication and reproductive health and
rights, with disastrous consequences for American women, particularly
the poor women of colour and immigrant women. Ratification of CEDAW is
stalled and the effectiveness of the ICC is being undermined. Massive
military expenditures for the war in Iraq and excessive tax cuts have
principally benefited the wealthy. The few preexisting institutional
mechanisms for women, including the President's Interagency Task Force
on Women, have been dismanteled. Women's representation in the Congress
and State legislatures remains abysmally low at 14% and 22%
respectively.
And the last information for WECF members:
From
now until the 49th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in
March 2005, the United Nations International Research and Training
Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) is carrying out a
series of activities designed to measure the global progress that has
been made on the achievement of the 12 Critical Areas (and associated
strategic objectives) set forth in the Beijing Declaration and Platform
for Action, including a progress report on each of the 12 Crticial
Areas. This information can be found on our website in English, French
and Spanish.
English -
http://www.un-instraw.org/en/
index.php?option=content&task=view&id=888&Itemid=158
French -
http://www.un-instraw.org/fr/
index.php?option=content&task=view&id=860&Itemid=160
Spanish -
http://www.un-instraw.org/es/
index.php?option=content&task=view&id=859&Itemid=158
