WUNRN
War & Lack of Security Curtail Women's Rights - Need Women at All Levels of Peace Process
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 2012 (IPS) -
When the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) held its inaugural
meeting in London back in 1946, the U.S. delegate, Eleanor Roosevelt, read an
open letter to "the women of the world" calling on governments to
encourage women everywhere to participate in national and international
affairs.
The letter
also urged women who are conscious of their opportunities "to come forward
and share in the work of peace and reconstruction as they did in war and
resistance".
But 66 years
later, the worldwide struggle for gender equality and gender empowerment
continues unabated - even as women find themselves discriminated against, and
victims of violence, both at home and on the battlefield.
As
"Obviously,
women bear a disproportionately large share of the burden of conflict, but have
a marginal say in matters of war and peace," he said, pointing out the
irony.
This is
perhaps a function of the gender imbalance in our societies, reflected in
positions of power and influence, he added.
Despite
this, Puri argued, women should not be viewed solely as victims of war.
They also
have to assume the key role of ensuring family livelihoods in the midst of
chaos and destruction, and are particularly active in the peace movements at
the grassroots level and cultivating peace within their communities.
"Therefore,
the absence of women at the peace negotiating table is unconscionable,"
declared Puri, as he implicitly criticised the fact that peace negotiators are
overwhelmingly male.
Yasmeen
Hassan, global director at the New York-based Equality
Now, told IPS economic downturns bring with them rising
fundamentalisms and a clinging to practices and beliefs that pose a challenge
to gender equality.
Similarly,
she pointed out, war and lack of security lead to a curtailment of women's
rights.
The
developing world has seen a lot more instability - economic, political, social
- that has often been exacerbated by conflicts, both internal and cross border,
that pose the biggest barriers to gender equality.
"Instability
and conflicts also make women's rights activism difficult as women may become
divided on issues of national origin, race and class," she added.
A 10-day
meeting of the 45-member CSW, focused on another battle
front: the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger
eradication and sustainable development.
According to
the newly-created U.N. Women, rural women constitute one-fourth of the world's
population of seven billion people. Still, only five percent of agricultural
extension services are provided for women farmers, and in rural sub-Saharan
"If
rural women had equal access to productive resources, agricultural yields could
reduce the number of chronically hungry people by between 100 and 150
million," says U.N. Women.
Asked about
the key achievements on gender empowerment in the last five to 10 years, Hassan
told IPS, "Everyone agrees that it is an issue that has to be put on the
agenda - women's empowerment has come to be seen as essential for development
and, more importantly in current times, for building peace."
She said the
shackles of culture and religion, though still binding women much more harshly
than men, have come to be seen - at least internationally - as not inevitable
and in fact breakable.
Gigi
Francisco, the Philippines-based general coordinator of Development
Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), told IPS that amidst
the backdrop of uncertain times for economies worldwide and re-commitments made
by the international community to ending poverty and achieving sustainable
development, there is a more deliberate focus on ordinary women's roles in
production and consumption across the economic south.
By relieving
women's practical burdens linked to their gender roles, it is assumed that
women and their families will become more efficient in accessing and
distributing resources that would eventually redound to some degree of
empowerment, she said.
At the same
time, Francisco pointed out, when women become more efficient in performing
their roles, the rest of the society and the entire economy benefit.
Focusing on
the issues and concerns of grassroots women is the right thing to do.
"However, what is fundamentally wrong with this approach is that without a
women's rights perspective the focus on efficiency confers entitlements to poor
women solely on the basis of their labour," she added.
As well, the
approach does not lead to any transformation of the existing gender division of
labour that positions women in a subordinated way within families and
societies, she added. And being less poor does not mean that the gender gap had
become less unequal.
Asked about
gender progress, Francisco said the rise in the number of women entering
official positions of power and authority at local, national, regional and
global levels is a major achievement in one key aspect of gender equality.
This is
undoubtedly a clear follow through on obligations set in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) adopted at
the Fourth World Conference on Women in
While
institutional arrangements and mechanisms for gender equality have provided the
framework in progressively realising gender balance in political reforms,
changes could not have taken place without the actions by women's rights
advocates and movements that pushed gender equality issues to the realm of
public deliberations and resistances.
"In
celebrating women who are in positions of power, we must remember that firstly,
the situation for women leaders across and within countries considerably
vary," Francisco said.
"Secondly,
that gains, even the celebrated ones, may be transient and seriously threatened
by a host of neo-conservative reactions that emerge from simultaneous upheavals
and uncertainties, and thirdly, powerful women will need to be assessed not in
terms of how long they remain as poster girls for gender equality but in terms
of their concrete contributions to ensuring that the rights and well-being of
ordinary women are secured and promoted.
"And
that the processes of governance at all levels remain accountable to women's
rights organisations and movements," she said.
Related to
this, she said, is a big challenge that UN Women now has to face: how it will
work out its mechanisms and processes of partnership with and accountability to
the women's movements in a transparent and consultative way.