Women's
Human Rights: Advocacy at the United Nations
by
Susana T. Fried
Women's
organizations throughout the world are continuing to monitor their
governments' and the United Nations' commitments to advance the
human rights of women. In this 50th anniversary year
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, advocates
are highlighting the continued violations of the human rights of
women, and the urgent need for the international community to step
up their efforts to ensure respect for the human rights of all.
As part of this global endeavor, a wide range of women's human rights
advocates attended two recent UN sessions - the Commission
on the Status of Women in March 1998 and the Commission
on Human Rights in March and April, 1998.
Commission
on the Status of Women
The
UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) met
in New York from March 2-13. The CSW makes recommendations on urgent
problems requiring attention in the area of women's rights, and
works increasingly in collaboration with other UN bodies, especially
given the call for coordinated follow-up to all UN World Conferences.
The secretariat for the CSW is the UN Division for the Advancement
of Women (DAW). All CSW and DAW documents are available through
the WomenWatch website at http://www.un.org/womenwatch. Following
the 4th World
Conference on Women, the CSW prepared a work plan to review
several of the critical areas of concern each year. In 1998, the
four areas under review were: violence against women, women and
armed conflict, human rights and the girl-child. In addition, each
year, the CSW addresses some emerging issues. This year, they looked
at aging women. Finally, the CSW also adopts resolutions on pressing
issues of concern to women.
The
CSW develops agreed conclusions on the areas under review. The process
of developing the agreed conclusions involves holding expert group
meetings prior to the CSW session, panel presentations (with representatives
from governments, the UN and civil society) followed by a dialogue
with governments at the CSW, with the goal of defining the scope
of the problem and recommendations to governments and the UN for
action. While the intention of this process is to be interactive
and to lead to innovative ideas and strategies, the reality is that
the agreed conclusions appear to be weakened restatements of major
points of the Platform for Action. While some new issues
are raised in this year's agreed conclusions, other important concerns
were considered too contentious to be included, even some that were
already included in the Platform. Finally, the agreed conclusions
contain primarily general principles, but no operative language
linked to concrete or specific actions with targets, timetables
or the commitment of resources.
In
spite of some frustrations, it is also clear that the continuing
presence and monitoring by women's organizations does make a difference.
First, the CSW is an important place to extend communication and
networking among women's human rights advocates. The first week
of the CSW was filled with many and varied NGO panels and workshops.
The NGO Committee on the Status of Women held NGO briefing sessions
each morning, and caucuses on the topics under review also met regularly
to develop common positions and advocacy strategies.
Second,
governments do appear to consider themselves accountable to their
own citizens, or are cognizant of the fact that the positions they
take during the CSW may have an impact at the national level when
national NGOs are watching the process. It is, therefore, critical
for governments to know that women care about what governments say
about women's issues, that we are watching and will hold them accountable
for what they do, or do not, say.
This
becomes even more urgent as the CSW begins preparations for the
year 2000 review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action. The review will be held as a special session of the
General Assembly on June 5-9, 2000, with a primary focus on obstacles
encountered in the implementation of the Nairobi Forward Looking
Strategies and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action, and to develop strategies to overcome these obstacles.
To prepare for the review, the CSW will add a week to its sessions
in 1999 and 2000. The CSW also called upon member states to submit
their national plan of action by September 1998 if they have not
done so yet; to encourage a regional perspective in the review of
implementation; to actively involve all entities of the UN system
in the review; and, to emphasize the important role of NGOs in the
preparatory process and the review itself.
While
many NGOs felt the agreed conclusions should have been stronger
and more action-oriented, each one contained some advances. For
instance, the agreed conclusions on the human rights of women called
for continued cooperation between the CSW and other UN human rights
mechanisms and bodies, in particular the Commission on Human
Rights (CHR). In particular, they recommended that more
attention be given to the economic and social rights of women, particularly
with regard to the proposed appointment of a CHR Special Rapporteur
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The
women's human rights caucus, and the task force on violence against
women lobbied together on a range of issues. For example, language
supporting the integration of a gender perspective into the statute
and functioning of the International Criminal Court
was taken up in several of the agreed conclusions. The caucuses
called for greater attention to the impact of economic and social
policies on women's human rights, along with the need for more sex
and age disaggregated data. Some of this language was included in
the agreed conclusions, although in a weaker form than the caucuses
had proposed. The Women's Human Rights caucus, the Girl-Child caucus
and the Task Force on Violence Against Women all urged governments
to frame the issues of traditional and customary practices harmful
to women and girls as a human rights violation, not only as a health
concern. This position was strongly reflected in the agreed conclusions
as "customary and traditional practices that are harmful to,
or discriminatory against, women and girls, including female genital
mutilation, as human rights violations."
However,
there were also some disappointments. For instance, a wide coalition
of NGOs representing a number of different perspectives around prostitution
and sex work had agreed upon the following phrase to refer to the
issue: "trafficking in women for purposes of economic and sexual
exploitation." However a variety of phrases were used throughout
the agreed conclusions to refer to this issue, often using "prostitution,"
thus reintroducing the controversial issues around the legal status
of prostitution, and bypassing the link between economic and sexual
exploitation. Second, the task force on violence against women sought
language calling for the elimination of violence and discrimination
due to sexual orientation. While some delegations supported the
inclusion of this issue, no references were included in the final
text, nor was the language from paragraph 96 of the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action reiterated ("the human
rights of women include their right to have control over and decide
freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality").
In
addition to the agreed conclusions, the CSW also passed several
resolutions. Some of the key new issues addressed included land
rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and
Afghanistan. For more information on the agreed conclusions and
the resolutions, please see IWTC Globalnet #107 (available through
the International Women's Tribune Centre, tel: +1-212-687-8633,
fax: +1-212-661-2704, e-mail: IWTC@igc.apc.org)
Commission
on Human Rights
South
African Ambassador Jacob Selebi assumed the chair of the Commission
on Human Rights with a clear and affirmative commitment to two issues
of great concerns to women's human rights advocates - increased
visibility of women's human rights and gender issues at the CHR
and a greater role for NGOs. As one example of this, the Chair broke
from the regular agenda of the CHR to convene a special session
on gender issues and human rights on 6 April 1998, the same day
that the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women gave her report
to the CHR. Patricia Flor (Chairperson of the Commission on the
Status of Women), Mary Robinson (High Commissioner for Human Rights),
and Radhika Coomaraswamy (Special Rapporteur on Violence Against
Women) delivered opening comments, followed by an "interactive
dialogue" presided over by Ambassador Selebi. NGOs, along with
governmental delegations and UN agencies, were invited to ask questions
and provide comments on gender issues and human rights. (A press
release about this special session, HR/CN/98/35, it available on
the UN Information Service website at http://www.unog.ch). The broad-ranging discussion
which followed the initial presentations highlighted a variety of
issues including the need for greater clarity about methods for
integrating a gender analysis throughout the UN system, including
field missions and in the proposed statute and functioning of the
International Criminal Court; the importance of integrating a gender
perspective into treaty monitoring; the need for more sex-disaggregated
data and resources for ensuring that integration can effectively
take place; and, the importance of increasing women's participation
at the highest levels of all human rights processes.
One
idea that continued to receive a great deal of attention was the
suggestion that the CHR, in the process of reforming its agenda,
should have an agenda item on women and gender. After initial discussions
in which concerns about whether an agenda item on women would marginalize
rather than highlight issues of gender and the human rights of women,
the Women's Caucus (which met regularly throughout the CHR session)
proposed that the agenda item be called "Integration of the
Human Rights of Women and of a Gender Perspective." Ultimately,
no consensus was reached on agenda reform, and the question has
been referred to a working group, to report at the next CHR session.
As
in the past few years, two resolutions on gender issues were adopted
by the CHR by consensus: one on violence against women and another
on gender integration. The resolution on gender integration emphasizes
the need for continued and systematic cooperation and coordination
among all human rights bodies and mechanisms, and the clear need
for all human rights bodies and mechanisms to integrate a gender
perspective into their work, including information and qualitative
analysis of violations of the human rights of women; the importance
of practical strategies for implementing a gender perspective and
the need to further develop these; the reaffirmation that monitoring
the human rights of women is the responsibility of all treaty bodies,
which can be facilitated by further exchange of information, and
the preparation of general comments which reflect a gender perspective.
The
resolution on the elimination of violence against women, as in past
years, condemns all acts of gender-based violence against women.
In particular, it condemns all violations of the human rights of
women in situations of armed conflict, recognizing these to be violations
of international human rights and humanitarian law; supports the
call for an international criminal court that integrates a gender
perspective in its statute and functioning; extends training to
judicial, legal, medical, social, education, police, military, peacekeeping
and immigration personnel; mainstreams a gender perspective into
national immigration and asylum policies, regulations and practices;
and ensures that legal definitions and standards reaffirm that rape,
including systematic rape, and sexual slavery in armed conflict
constitute war crimes, and under certain circumstances constitute
crimes against humanity and an act of genocide.
Still,
in many resolutions and reports, gender remains invisible. Others
address gender simply with the inclusion of the phrase "especially
women and children." However, some other resolutions and reports
have taken significant steps toward gender integration. For example,
the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Special Rapporteur on Religious
Intolerance, the Special Representative on Internally Displaced
Persons and the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion
and Expression, among others, regularly report on gender specific
aspects of violations in their mandates. Several of the country
Rapporteurs have also extensively addressed gender-specific human
rights violations, such as the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan
and the Special Rapporteur on Sudan.
Women's
Human Rights Advocacy Training
For
the second year, the Center for Women's Global Leadership conducted
a Women's Human Rights Advocacy Training at the CHR, supported this
year by UNIFEM and the International Centre for Human Rights and
Democratic Development. Nine women's human rights advocates participated
in this training, which seeks to expand the network of advocates
who engage in international fora, and provide follow up training
to alumnae of the Women's Global Leadership Institute. The training,
which was coordinated by Susana Fried and Donna Sullivan, is intended
to provide hands-on experience in international human rights advocacy,
and links the training participants with key women's human rights
advocates in Geneva. This year's participants included: Widney Brown
(US), Lesley Ann Foster (South Africa), Wenny Kusuma (US), Barbara
Limonowska (Poland), Maria José Lubertino (Argentina), Mary Maboreke
(Zimbabwe), Jessica Nkuuhe (Uganda), Cynthia Mellon (Colombia),
and Lucia Rayas (Mexico). The participants were engaged in advocacy
around a number of issues including the resolution on the commemorative
activities for the 50th anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, agenda reform of the CHR, as well
as gender integration into various other resolutions.
The
Center for Women's Global Leadership and participants in the training
participated in several panels during the CHR, and made three interventions.
The group also met with other organizations and staff of UN agencies,
including the new Gender Team at the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights. Mary Robinson, the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, met with the group in a meeting organized by UNIFEM, for
an exchange of ideas and information.
The
experience of the participants in the Women's Human Rights Advocacy
Training at the Commission on Human Rights reaffirmed the importance
of capacity-building and training for women's human rights, especially
with the high level support of this year's Chair of the CHR and
the new High Commissioner for Human Rights. Over the past 50 years
women's movements from all nations have significantly enriched and
extended the vision of human rights by calling for the comprehensive
inclusion of women and gender in all human rights norms, standards
and mechanisms. As we move toward the next 50 years of human rights
advocacy, women must continue to ensure that the United Nations
human rights system, along with all governments, acknowledge that
respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms of all requires
that the human rights of women be recognized and protected.
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