|
CSW
Updates as of March 13, 2003
APWLD team at CSW writes their day-to-day
activities from March 7-10.
7 March 2003
Official panel discussions organised for International
Women's Day (attended by APWLD and Shan Women's Action
Network (SWAN) representatives).
The first panel was on "Gender Equality and Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)". The MDGs is a set of numerical
and time-bound targets intended to improve living conditions
and remedy key global imbalances by 2015. Goal 3 of the
MDGs is to promote gender equality and empower women.
However, as target, this goal is limited to "eliminating
gender disparity in secondary education preferably by
2005 and to all levels of education no later than 2015".
So because the framework of the MDGs is so limited in
relation to women's rights, the panel discussion focused
on women and education. The key point made at the panel
discussion by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Mr Sergio de Mello, is that education is a panacea for
women's empowerment. This reflects the lack of integration
of gender concerns in the MDGs and the limited scope that
the MDG's may provide for advancing women's human rights.
The second panel was organised by the Division for the
Advancement of Women (the UN body responsible for organising
CSW sessions) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights. At this panel, Radhika Coomaraswamy,
UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, gave
a briefing on her final report. On her last term as UN
Special Rapporteur, Radhika focused on assessing the gains
made in addressing violence against women and the remaining
challenges. She pointed out that being able to set international
norms or standards for addressing violence against women
is a major achievement over the last decade. Among the
remaining challenges she mentioned are: implementation
and monitoring of these standards, issues centering on
women's rights and women's sexual autonomy, and cultural
relativism.
APWLD (Mary Jane Real) spoke from the floor on the growing
State-perpetrated violence and militarisation, particularly
in the Asia Pacific. APWLD highlighted the impunity of
the State in the rape of Shan and other ethnic women by
the military junta in Burma and the comprehensive failure
of the State to address violence against women in the
context of the Gujarat massacres in India. Some government
representatives also attended the panel discussion, as
it was part of the official agenda of CSW.
First deliberation on the draft outcomes document on
VAW and human rights (attended by Mary Jane Real,
APWLD)
In the afternoon, APWLD attended the first deliberation
by the government representatives on the draft document
prepared by the CSW Bureau on violence against women and
human rights. The deliberation is a discussion on the
contents of the agreed conclusions that will be the 'outcomes'
document for this CSW session. The agreed conclusions
can be the subject of a subsequent resolution by the Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC), the UN body to which CSW
is accountable. Also, as the outcomes document is a consensus
document, the agreed conclusions can be cited to support
lobbying, on issues agreed upon and stated in the document,
in other venues such as UNCHR. In this first deliberation,
the Chair emphasised that the agreed conclusions should
be an action-oriented document. The government representatives
generally agreed that the initial draft of the Bureau
is acceptable. US and Canada manifested their intentions
to add more issues on trafficking, HIV/Aids and women's
participation in political processes. China said it would
introduce language on poverty and violence against women.
Listening to this deliberation gave a good sense of the
different positions of the governments, and consequently
which governments to lobby on identified issues.
8 March 2003
International Women's Day: "International Women's Day
Celebration: Women as Society Builders" (organized
by NGO Committee on the Status of Women)
APWLD and SWAN representative attended and drew attention
to the Open Letter to Mr Pinheiro (UN Special Rapporteur
on Myanmar) on the Stop License to Rape (SLR) campaign
(for more information on this campaign visit www.shanwomen.org
or www.apwld.org). The event was a formal panel presentation
on some of the 'women society builders' in US. There was
no opportunity to speak nor was there any media. APWLD
and SWAN distributed the copies of letter and flyers on
the SLR campaign.
9 March 2003
South-South Initiative Meeting (attended by Mary
Jane Real).
The south-south initiative is a formation among Southern
women discussing issues from the South, centering on women
and development concerns. It was agreed that there was
a need to emphasise the link between poverty and violence
against women, and for poverty to be viewed as a class
and not only a gender issue. It was also decided to draft
a letter to the NGO Committee on the Status of Women regarding
the processes of NGO participation in this conference.
Most of the events and agenda setting have been done by
the New York based NGOs in coordination with the Division
on Advancement of Women hence it has been difficult to
get across diverse women's concerns in this forum.
10 March 2002
NGO Briefing (attended by Mary Jane Real
and Bandana Rana)
Provided a briefing on Asia Pacific women's concerns and
distributed the APWLD position paper.
BPFA+10 Process (attended by Mary Jane
Real)
The UN informed that there will be no world conference
on women in 2005. However, CSW will be having a regular
session in 2005 and review the implementation of the Beijing
Platform for Action as scheduled in its agenda for 2005.
There was an agreement that women's groups do not want
to renegotiate the text hence do not welcome the production
of another outcomes document that would open renegotiation
of the text.
The UN General Assembly has organised a working group
for the Beijing + 10 Follow-up to produce a 'non-paper'
(i.e. an informal paper). The 'non-paper' suggests an
integrated review of follow-up to all world conferences
in 2007 on four main themes:
- enabling environment (which includes human rights,
participation and democracy, macroeconomic trade,
etc);
- basic social services;
- access to sustainable livelihoods and employment;
and
- environmental resources.
Gender will be a cross cutting theme.
The UN's approach of subsuming the follow-up to Beijing
+10 with the follow-up on other World conferences, runs
the risk of diluting the specific focus on women's issues
and women's rights, and this may weaken the positions
for advocacy on women's rights.
Asia Pacific Women's Panel (organsied
by Asia Pacific Women's Watch)
The panel discussion included speakers on the Stop License
to Rape Campaign, trafficking of women and girls in China,
and trends and patterns on violence against women in Asia
Pacific. APWLD (Mary Jane Real) spoke on the trends and
patterns in VAW in the Asia Pacific, based on the outcomes
of APWLD's consultations with the UN Special Rapporteur
on Violence against Women (2002) and inputs from network
members and the Secretariat. It was a participatory discussion
with representatives from Taiwan and Japan from the floor
sharing their concerns as well. Most of the questions
were directed to the speaker on the Stop License to Rape
campaign, which indicate that APWLD and SWAN have managed
to raise interest on this issue. More participants attended
than were initially expected.
For further information contact:
Alison G Aggarwal
or (Judy Pasimio)
of APWLD or visit APWLD 's website at: www.apwld.org
APWLD phone: 66 53 404 613;
APWLD fax: 66 53 404 615.
Updates as of March 6, 2003
Please see below brief outlines of the Panel on VAW,
and the introductory statements by Angela King (Special
Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and
Advancement of Women) and Carolyn Hannan (Director of
the Division of Advancement of Women) made at CSW.
This information and associated press statements on these
CSW events are accessible at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/47sess.htm
PANEL TWO - Women’s human rights and
elimination of all forms of violence against women and
girls as defined in the Beijing Platform for Action and
the outcome documents of the General Assembly entitled
"Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace
for the twenty-first century"
(Tuesday, 4 March 2003, 10:00 am - 1:00pm)
(papers available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw47/Panel2.htm)
Ms. Zhang Lixi, Vice President, China Women’s University,
Beijing (China)
Paper: Creating a World Free of Violence against Women
Justice Vera Duarte Lobo de Pina, Coordinator of the
National Committee of Human Rights (Republic of Cape
Verde)
Paper: Women’s human rights, with a specific
emphasis on African human rights instruments and their
use over the years to promote and protect women’s
human rights (in French only)
Ms. Barbara Limanowska, expert on trafficking in human
beings, and participant in the expert group meeting
organized by DAW in preparation of the topic for CSW
(Poland)
Paper: Trafficking in women – key outcomes and
recommendations from the expert group meeting on “Trafficking
in women and girls”, held in Glen Cove, USA, 18-22
November 2002
Ms. Ayse Feride Acar, Chairperson, Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women
Paper: Recent key trends and issues in the implementation
of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women
The
introductory Statement by Angela King (Special Adviser
to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement
of Women) highlighted the following:
- the need to engender the Millennium Development
Goals, particularly in relation to health and education;
- need to focus on implementation of BPFA;
- the achievements for women in the election of the
ICC judges;
- the 1325 resolution on women in armed conflict and
the Inter-agency Task Force on Women Peace and Security,
which is now working to map out further follow-up
measures;
- the situation of women in Afghanistan; and
- the level of recruitment of women in the UN.
The full speech is available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw47/AEVK-stmt.htm
The Statement made by Ms. Carolyn Hannan, Director of
the Division of Advancement of Women, highlighted the
following:
- in relation to VAW the main focus was on trafficking
in persons
- DAW reports on gender mainstreaming, women in Palestine,
links with CEDAW.
The full report is available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw47/CH-Stmt.htm
|
|
|
|
go
top
