Back to the past?
Back to the past?
Posted 00:20am (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the March 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
BY THE TIME you read this, I would be in New York as an NGO member of the Philippine delegation to the meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The meeting will review the compliance of governments around the world with the Beijing Platform of Action.
The BPFA is the document signed at the end of the Fourth World Conference of Women held in Beijing 10 years ago. That conference was considered a landmark in the decades-old struggle for women's rights and for equality with men under the law and in all spheres of life.
But 10 years after Beijing, as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in his talk at the opening of the two-week meeting, "sex trafficking and the growth of AIDS (are) imperiling the quest for female equality."
Many governments since the 1995 Beijing women's conference have recognized that women's equality was critical to a nation's development and growth, Annan noted in his speech. Still, even as governments search for ways to make women's participation in development real and lasting, other governments, notably the United States, wish to derail this progress by insisting that the assessment focus on a single issue: abortion.
At least 100 government delegations, 80 ministers "from Afghanistan to Peru," as well as 6,000 activists, are sitting together and analyzing progress and setbacks since the Beijing meet.
A report by Reuters notes that "rather than producing a lengthy document, the organizers decided to keep controversies in check by writing a short declaration that re-affirms and pledges implementation of the 150-page platform of action."
To the dismay of key delegates, the report continues, the United States submitted amendments at a pre-conference negotiating session, declaring that the Beijing conference did not create "any new international human rights" and did not include the right to abortion.
"In Beijing, abortion was treated as a health issue, with the platform saying it should be safe where it was legal and criminal action should not be taken against women who underwent the procedure," the report said.
* * *
"ANYONE wanting to know why the rest of the world collectively shakes its head and rolls its eyes at the Bush administration's foreign policies need only look to Monday's high-level United Nations' meeting for evidence," said an editorial of the San Jose Mercury News.
"Never mind that the thrust of the UN platform isn't about abortion rights, but rather about ending discrimination against women in 12 different areas, ranging from health to education to employment. Never mind that the UN strategy on reproductive health is resulting in reduced abortion rates around the world. It's bad enough that the Bush administration continually tries to put itself in every American doctor's office whenever a woman and her physician are discussing such issues. Now it wants to impose its will on women and doctors around the world."
By its insistence on re-opening the contentious debate on abortion, the United States was "left almost entirely isolated" in the sessions, reports say. Officials who were at the meetings said only the Vatican observer supported Washington's hard line.
"This sort of statement is a clear signal to everybody present that the US does not support the Beijing agreement perspective on the human rights of women," said Adrienne German, president of the International Women's Health Coalition.
"It clearly demonstrates that this government has taken a 180-degree reversal from the US government in 1995 and 2000."
* * *
THIS was exactly what organizers had feared going into the "Beijing + 10" review process.
Instead of moving forward and exploring ways by which governments around the world can cross borders and address new and emerging threats to women's health and rights and to gender equality, the review now finds itself mired in an "old" issue, one that had been debated heatedly 10 years ago and on which, it was thought, signatory governments had reached consensus.
Once again, women are being held hostage by the issue of abortion, as if getting pregnant and making a decision to proceed with the pregnancy or to terminate it is all that women are about.
The work of the country delegations in the next few days, then, would be to get the discussions back on track, to leave ideological debates behind and instead focus on what lies ahead: to make progress where progress had been impeded in the last decade.
For the Philippines, among the emerging issues identified earlier were new and more insidious forms of trafficking of women and children, including cybersex; a more focused process of including women in rural and indigenous communities in development planning; innovative approaches to poverty alleviation; and increased mainstreaming of women in all aspects of governance.
* * *
IN HIS speech, Annan recommended "seven specific investments and policies that can be applied readily over the coming decade, on a scale large enough to make a real difference."
These are:
Strengthen girls' access to secondary as well as primary education.
Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Invest in infrastructure to reduce women's and girls' time burdens.
Guarantee women's and girls' property and inheritance rights.
Eliminate gender inequality in employment.
Increase women's share of seats in national parliaments and local government.
Redouble efforts to combat violence against girls and women.
Not a bad start, as far as an agenda goes, but nothing really earth-shaking. These are much the same goals talked about and agreed upon 10 years ago. We could and should move forward, if only some folks weren't so intent on dragging us back to the past.
Posted 00:20am (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the March 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
BY THE TIME you read this, I would be in New York as an NGO member of the Philippine delegation to the meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The meeting will review the compliance of governments around the world with the Beijing Platform of Action.
The BPFA is the document signed at the end of the Fourth World Conference of Women held in Beijing 10 years ago. That conference was considered a landmark in the decades-old struggle for women's rights and for equality with men under the law and in all spheres of life.
But 10 years after Beijing, as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in his talk at the opening of the two-week meeting, "sex trafficking and the growth of AIDS (are) imperiling the quest for female equality."
Many governments since the 1995 Beijing women's conference have recognized that women's equality was critical to a nation's development and growth, Annan noted in his speech. Still, even as governments search for ways to make women's participation in development real and lasting, other governments, notably the United States, wish to derail this progress by insisting that the assessment focus on a single issue: abortion.
At least 100 government delegations, 80 ministers "from Afghanistan to Peru," as well as 6,000 activists, are sitting together and analyzing progress and setbacks since the Beijing meet.
A report by Reuters notes that "rather than producing a lengthy document, the organizers decided to keep controversies in check by writing a short declaration that re-affirms and pledges implementation of the 150-page platform of action."
To the dismay of key delegates, the report continues, the United States submitted amendments at a pre-conference negotiating session, declaring that the Beijing conference did not create "any new international human rights" and did not include the right to abortion.
"In Beijing, abortion was treated as a health issue, with the platform saying it should be safe where it was legal and criminal action should not be taken against women who underwent the procedure," the report said.
* * *
"ANYONE wanting to know why the rest of the world collectively shakes its head and rolls its eyes at the Bush administration's foreign policies need only look to Monday's high-level United Nations' meeting for evidence," said an editorial of the San Jose Mercury News.
"Never mind that the thrust of the UN platform isn't about abortion rights, but rather about ending discrimination against women in 12 different areas, ranging from health to education to employment. Never mind that the UN strategy on reproductive health is resulting in reduced abortion rates around the world. It's bad enough that the Bush administration continually tries to put itself in every American doctor's office whenever a woman and her physician are discussing such issues. Now it wants to impose its will on women and doctors around the world."
By its insistence on re-opening the contentious debate on abortion, the United States was "left almost entirely isolated" in the sessions, reports say. Officials who were at the meetings said only the Vatican observer supported Washington's hard line.
"This sort of statement is a clear signal to everybody present that the US does not support the Beijing agreement perspective on the human rights of women," said Adrienne German, president of the International Women's Health Coalition.
"It clearly demonstrates that this government has taken a 180-degree reversal from the US government in 1995 and 2000."
* * *
THIS was exactly what organizers had feared going into the "Beijing + 10" review process.
Instead of moving forward and exploring ways by which governments around the world can cross borders and address new and emerging threats to women's health and rights and to gender equality, the review now finds itself mired in an "old" issue, one that had been debated heatedly 10 years ago and on which, it was thought, signatory governments had reached consensus.
Once again, women are being held hostage by the issue of abortion, as if getting pregnant and making a decision to proceed with the pregnancy or to terminate it is all that women are about.
The work of the country delegations in the next few days, then, would be to get the discussions back on track, to leave ideological debates behind and instead focus on what lies ahead: to make progress where progress had been impeded in the last decade.
For the Philippines, among the emerging issues identified earlier were new and more insidious forms of trafficking of women and children, including cybersex; a more focused process of including women in rural and indigenous communities in development planning; innovative approaches to poverty alleviation; and increased mainstreaming of women in all aspects of governance.
* * *
IN HIS speech, Annan recommended "seven specific investments and policies that can be applied readily over the coming decade, on a scale large enough to make a real difference."
These are:
Strengthen girls' access to secondary as well as primary education.
Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Invest in infrastructure to reduce women's and girls' time burdens.
Guarantee women's and girls' property and inheritance rights.
Eliminate gender inequality in employment.
Increase women's share of seats in national parliaments and local government.
Redouble efforts to combat violence against girls and women.
Not a bad start, as far as an agenda goes, but nothing really earth-shaking. These are much the same goals talked about and agreed upon 10 years ago. We could and should move forward, if only some folks weren't so intent on dragging us back to the past.
posted by Dante at 12:20 AM
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