The Multiple Dimensions of Women’s Equality

APWLD’s 2010 Asia Pacific Regional Consultation with the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Its Causes and Consequences, Rashida Manjoo.

29-30 November 2010

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Background to the Asia-Pacific Regional Consultation with the UN Special Rapporteurs

The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) has been facilitating consultations with the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (SRVAW) since 1995, a year after the creation of the mandate.  More recently, APWLD has engaged with other Special Rapporteurs whose mandates intersect with the annual theme of our consultations.   This collaboration has resulted in the expansion of gender and women’s human rights concerns into other mandates, addressing multiple forms of discrimination and violence against women.

The 2010 Consultation

In recognition that women experience multiple, simultaneous and aggravated discrimination as a result of their multiple identities, the theme of the 2010 Asia Pacific Regional Consultation will address intersectional and multiple discrimination experienced by women and its consequences on fulfillment of women’s equality in this region.  The Consultation will be attended by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Rashida Manjoo and UN Treaty Body experts.  The discussion and findings of the Consultation will serve to inform national and regional mechanisms and international level mechanisms including the annual report of the SRVAW.

Objectives of the Consultation

The objectives of the 2010 Consultation are:

ü  To create a safe space for women to expose and challenge the multiple forms of violence, discrimination, inequality and injustices they face within laws and practices in the region;

ü  To examine the nexus between women’s multiple identities and the multiple forms of discrimination they experience, including the root causes of discrimination within the context of patriarchal systems as manifested in fundamentalism, militarisation and neo-liberal globalisation;

ü  To identify existing mechanisms of justice and effective remedies within national, regional and international levels through learning from the strategies and activism of women.

Beyond these objectives, the Consultation will also identify the challenges posed by the patriarchal systems and institutions that reinforce the compounding subordination of women, as well as the gaps that exist between women’s lived reality and universal human rights. It will also contribute to strengthening women’s rights activism for change on the ground to eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against women and solidarity at regional level.

Participants

The Consultation will bring together approximately 50 women/human rights defenders across 20 countries in the Asia Pacific region, including partners, regional and international NGOs and UN agencies. The Dialogue will bring together diverse women from sexual, cultural, ethnic, indigenous, religious, disabled, HIV+, migrant, refugee and Dalit communities among others.

Organisers

This consultation is co-organised by Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and local partner, Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO).  WAO is an independent, non-religious, non-governmental organization based in Malaysia, committed to confronting violence against women.

APWLD will be publishing a consultation outcome document in early 2011, please contact us to be included in the mailing list for this publication.