Women's
Human Rights and Beijing + 5
Statement
delivered by Charlotte Bunch, Executive Director, Center for Women's
Global Leadership
December
10, 1999
The
Beijing Platform for Action is one of the most comprehensive
articulations of government's commitments to the human rights of
women and girls. It is based on the growing understanding in the
1990s that Women's Rights are Human Rights and its detailed proposals
give concrete meaning to that phrase -- outlining what human rights
commitments to women would mean in the 12 Critical Areas of Concern
from the right to education, health and reproductive rights to the
right to live free of violence and poverty.
The
task for Beijing + 5 is to create a rights based review of implementation
that reinforces the rights commitments of the Platform for Action
(PFA). At the core of a rights based approach is accountability
- that it is not just a good idea but a duty of governments and
a right of women to seek to implement these commitments. This rights
based approach is particularly important in a time when governments
- often in the name of privatization - are backtracking on their
responsibility to meet the needs of their citizens. Therefore a
human rights approach is one of the tools that women have to remind
governments of the commitments that they have made in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and in many subsequent human
rights treaties and world conferences.
The
Beijing Process is also one to which hundreds of thousands of activists
worldwide contributed locally and globally. Therefore, this Platform
has a constituency. Women and NGOs around the world are working
for its implementation and watching to see what the UN and governments
do to advance that process. But the political will to advance these
rights is often lacking. Indeed, the Platform's human rights
principles are often undermined by discriminatory laws, social and
cultural practices, lack of willingness to invest significant resources
in it, and the impact of globalization. Thus, the implementation
of the PFA also raises questions of global governance - of
how to hold international institutions like multi-national corporations,
the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization
accountable when their policies violate or lead to the violation
of women's human rights.
The
question for the Beijing + 5 Review is how to accelerate implementation
of the Platform and how to measure progress in meeting commitments
and overcoming the many obstacles to it. Setting measurable targets
is one concrete way to move this agenda forward. While the Beijing
PFA is one of the most visionary of the 1990's World Conferences,
it has few specific targets, benchmarks, timelines and resources
spelled out in it - by contrast to the International Conference
on Population and Development or the Earth Summit. Accountability
to a next decade of implementation will be made easier by setting
out goals and targets nationally, regionally, and internationally
now. We can use this review to advance this process.
Let
me give examples of targets that reflect a human rights based approach:
1.
Outlaw all forms of legal discrimination against women by 2001.
Blatant sex discrimination still exists legally, as Equality
NOW documented in a study of examples from 45 countries in all regions.
This review can call upon governments to live up to the commitment
to end formal sex discrimination - a commitment made not only in
Beijing but also in other world conferences, UN treaties, UDHR,
UN Charter, and national constitutions. A framework of legal equality
- ending discrimination against women in the economic, social and
political spheres and especially in the family - provides minimum
necessary conditions for working to achieve substantive equality.
And this doesn't even cost governments much in terms of resources.
2.
Ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), remove reservations to it, and adopt
the Optional Protocol. The PFA calls for universal ratification
of CEDAW by 2000. We are not going to make it with only 165 ratifications
to date. Women in the US have unfinished business here and can use
the Beijing review to accelerate pressure on the Senate to ratify
and to make this an issue in the coming Congressional elections.
Progress has been made today toward the adoption of an Optional
Protocol to CEDAW with 23 countries signing it today, but of course
it can only apply to countries that have ratified this women's convention.
Further, only a handful of countries have removed the numerous reservations
to CEDAW that exist - many of which are contrary to the very essence
of the convention. Can we still get some countries to take these
actions or at least pledge to do so this year as concrete commitments
they can announce at the General Assembly Special Session in June?
3.
Report on measures taken to reduce violence against women.
As a result of women's activism worldwide, the UN has now declared
November 25th as "International Day Against Violence
against Women." This can become an annual time for governments
to report nationally to NGOs and others in their countries about
what concrete measures they have taken toward the goal of ending
such violence. This can become an annual time of measuring what
"progressive realization" of this human right to live
free of violence is or is not being made.
4.
Commit Resources to Implementation. To really see how serious
governments and the UN are about implementing the Beijing PFA,
of course, we need to "follow the money." The resources
or lack of them dedicated to implementing this Platform reveal
a lack of political will to make equality and women's human rights
a priority. The Beijing + 5 review must highlight the question of
resources. For example, in the Cairo + 5 review, governments agreed
to specific five-year goals in seeking progress towards universal
sexual and reproductive health - in relation to provision of services
in family planning, in obstetric care, and STD and HIV/AIDS prevention
and management. Beijing + 5 needs to reaffirm the ICPD commitments
and determine additional steps in implementing not only the Health
chapter but also the whole PFA. While some of these can be
global targets, many must be set at the national level to respond
to different realities. But an international call for concrete plans,
time-lines and resources based on national plans of action can provide
pressure on governments to take this task more seriously.
5.
Plan for a Decade of commitment to implementation of the Platform.
This must be at the heart of this Review. Effective on-going accountability
based on specific targets and time-lines for how to move the strategies
in the Platform forward realistically. When to hold another
World Conference on Women is one of the questions that will be addressed
by this review at the regional meetings and/or in New York at the
Preparatory Committee in March. Setting some kind of global moments
to assess progress and set new goals in 2005 and 2010 must be addressed
in order to keep pressure on this agenda.
This
Beijing + 5 review is not about abstractions - the issues in it
affect the lives and cause the deaths of women and girls everyday.
But the recommendations in the Platform are only meaningful
if women know them and use them to further policy and action at
all levels. Some things women's groups can do with this review -
whether they come to New York or not include:
a)
Get your governments answers to the UN Beijing + 5 questionnaire
and make a critique of it or prepare an alternative report on some
aspect of it.
b)
Outline trends and emerging issues related to the PFA and
input that into national or regional meetings and/or the March preparatory
committee.
c)
Use the occasion to ask for meetings with government officials -
national, state, or local about what they are doing to implement
and seek specific commitments from them.
d)
Create media opportunities for discussing issues of concern to women
because the review is happening.
e)
Use the occasion to raise awareness about the PFA, CEDAW,
and other issues at home through various types of human rights education
programs.
Be
creative - seize the opportunity to make this review useful in advancing
women's human rights locally and globally.
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