WIDOWS FOR PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY (WPD) at the 53rd United
Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
Roundtable addressing Roles and Needs of Widows as Caregivers in
the context of HIV/AIDS, Conflict, Violence and Poverty
Church House, New York, March 5, 2009
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following
recommendations were agreed upon at the meeting:
- All those engaged in
policy-making, related in particular to the Rights of Women, AIDS reduction,
attainment of the MDGs, the fight against Violence to Women, United Nations
resolutions 1325 and 1820, to MAINSTREAM WIDOWHOOD issues in all relevant
decision-making and to end assumptions that "women" are an homogenous
whole
- United Nations,
Governments and Donors to support WIDOWS "banding together" in order to
be represented in policy-making
- Mapping and Profiling
involving widows' NGOs working with Ministries of Women and Ministries of
Statistics to be carried out to fill the gap in data
- The United Nations
Secretary-General to commission a Special Report on the status of widows in
countries afflicted by conflict, the AIDS pandemic, poverty and violence
- The United Nations
Secretary-General to appoint a Special United Nations Rapporteur on Widowhood
- CEDAW to develop a
Questionnaire to be sent to United Nations member states on the status of
widows and to collect reliable statistics
- The United Nations,
together with the Commonwealth Secretariat, the World Bank and other
international development agencies to host two INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES, to take
place in Africa and Asia on WIDOWHOOD, HUMAN RIGHTS, POVERTY AND JUSTICE in
2010.