WUNRN
Women's World Summit Foundation
WWSF OPEN LETTER TO RURAL
WOMEN OF THE WORLD 2013
Theme: Claim your Right to Dignity and Education
Dear Sisters living in rural communities,
We are human beings first, girls and women second. Likewise, men and boys are first and foremost human beings. Therefore, we must all stand together with mutual respect, supporting each other in creating right human relations, free of violence and abuse. This includes claiming our right to dignity and education.
Your Right
to Dignity. This year the 57th session of the UN Commission on the Status of
Women (1-15 March 2013) strongly condemned all
forms of violence against women
and girls and recognized the different forms and manifestations; in different
contexts, settings,
circumstances, and relationships.
It reported that domestic violence remains the most prevalent form, affecting
women of all social strata
across the world.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw57/CSW57_Agreed_Conclusions_%28CSW_report_excerpt%29.pdf
The Commission (CSW) stressed
that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and
interrelated. Moreover, it called upon the
international community to treat
human rights globally in a fair and equal manner; on the same footing and with
the same emphasis. National
and regional particularities,
along with various historical, cultural, and religious backgrounds must be
considered. Nonetheless, it is the duty of
states—regardless of their
political, economic, and cultural systems—to promote and protect all human
rights and fundamental freedoms.
This, the CSW affirmed, includes
freedom from violence for women and girls. Rooted in historical and structural
inequality in power relations
between women and men, such
violence persists in every country around the globe as a pervasive violation of
the enjoyment of human
rights.
The Commission also recognized
women’s poverty and lack of empowerment, along with their marginalization due
to exclusion from socioeconomic policies and from the benefits of education and
sustainable development. Such exclusions, noted the CSW, can increase the risk
of
violence against women. And that violence, in turn, impedes the social and economic development of communities and States. The Commission also stressed the important role of the community (in particular men and boys, as well as civil society, including women’s and youth organizations) in efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.
Your Right
to Education. The CSW emphasizes that the right to education is a human right.
It points out that eliminating illiteracy, ensuring
equal access to education (in
particular in rural and remote areas), and closing the gender gap at all levels
of education empowers women
and girls and thereby contributes to the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence.
Indeed, education is the first step toward realizing your potential. With this in mind, claim your right to:
• Literacy, so that when
you or members of your family and community face injustice of any kind, you are
able to understand and
use the written laws and policies to stand up and fight for the conditions that make it possible to live decent and fulfilling lives
• Knowledge and skills that make it possible for you to be economically independent
• Information about sanitation and nutrition in order to create healthy living conditions for your family
• An understanding of
pesticides and chemical fertilizers so that any farming and animal
husbandry work you do protects the
environment and is thereby sustainable
• Access to training in
Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs), which have
become basic tools for empowerment
and development.
As global coordinator for the
United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD, 2003-2012), UNESCO is currently
organizing its evaluation to examine
the way countries and development
partners implemented the UNLD and its International Plan of Action. This
initiative aimed to provide an
impetus for achieving the UNESCO Education
for All (EFA) goals. Although the results of the UN Literacy Decade
initiative are not yet
published, some advances and
shortcomings are already clear.
Advances include:
• Spending on education in low-income
countries has increased by 7.2 percent a year, on average, since 1999, with the
result that
the number of out-of-school
primary school-age children has fallen from 108 million to 61 million (2012 EFA
Global Monitoring
Report).
• Over two-thirds of all countries worldwide have reached parity between girls and boys in primary school enrollment
• Between 1970 and 2010
enrollment of girls grew – from 61 to 81% in lower secondary level and from 43
to 58 % in upper
secondary.
Shortcomings include:
• 250 million children of
primary school age cannot read or count, and far more girls than boys
still remain out of school at this
level.
• Progress in advancing
women’s literacy has been slow. Among the 775 million adults
worldwide without basic literacy skills, about
63 percent are women - and this proportion has not changed over the past two decades.
So, rural sisters, there is still
much work to be done to establish equality for women. This is especially true
in your communities. Having to
cope with difficulties when
young, you are tough and eager to learn for the sake of yourselves and your
children. You are the first teachers of
your children, and you have a long-term point of view for their wellbeing. If one rural woman claims her right to dignity and education and then
promotes the needs and concerns
of other women; her family and community will change for the better. If a
majority of rural women do this,
entire countries will be transformed into more equitable societies comprised of complete human beings!
We must remember that education
is about more than words, numbers, and information. It is also about heart and
soul. Pursuing an
education that includes all of
these facets, a rural woman—like all human beings—gains knowledge as well as
the values of universal love,
respect for life and nature, and
a sense of integrity and honesty. She also learns to deal with relationships,
gaining insight into the fact that
people have different views and
interests and that the most effective way to resolve those differences is
through dialog and communication,
not through fists or weapons.
Dear Sisters, every single female
should know about her rights, as well as her responsibilities, so that she can
live life fully and with dignity.
Never forget that you have the human right
to dignity and education – and to the other fundamental human rights dependent upon
education. Education will help
unlock your great potential, enhance your ability to create a just and
fulfilling life for you and your family, and a
world with no one left behind.
Please see the “Ideas for
action “. Wishing a great International Day of Rural Women – 15 October – and
claim your right to
dignity and education. We hail your efforts and celebrate your tireless spirit!
Yours in gratitude and solidarity, WWSF Director/Founder Elly Pradervand and WWSF Board Members
Join us
in celebrating this year’s laureates of our annual WWSF ‘Prize for Women’s
creativity in rural life’ awarded to 10 prizewinners
from
http://www.woman.ch/index.php?page=women_prize&hl=en_US
Ideas for action concerning your right to dignity and education, selected from CSW conclusions agreed upon in 2013.
Urge your state leader to
- Strongly condemn
violence against women and girls and to refrain from invoking any
custom, tradition or religious consideration to
avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination as set out in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women
- Strengthen
implementation of legal and policy frameworks and accountability, as well as
addressing structural and underlying causes
and risk factors so as to prevent violence against women and girls
- Accelerate
efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of discrimination against women
and girls and ensure their equal enjoyment of all
human rights and fundamental
freedoms, including the right to education and to the highest attainable
standard of physical and mental health;
ensure that all children,
particularly girls, have equal access to, and complete, free and compulsory
primary education of good quality, and
renew their efforts to improve and expand girl’s education at all levels, including the secondary and higher levels in all academic areas
- Develop and
implement educational programs and teaching materials, including
comprehensive evidence-based education for human
sexuality, based on full and
accurate information, for all adolescents and youth, in a manner consistent
with their evolving capacities …. in
order to modify the social and
cultural patterns of conduct of men and women of all ages, to eliminate
prejudices, and to promote and build
informed decision-making,
communication and risk reduction skills for the development of respectful
relationships and based on gender
equality and human rights
- Prevent all
violations of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls
and to devote particular attention to abolishing
practices and legislation that discriminate against women and girls, or perpetuate and condone violence against them women and girl
- Develop, invest
in, and implement policies, strategies and programs including comprehensive
education programs to increase their
understanding of the harmful
effects of violence and how it undermines gender equality and human dignity,
promote respectful relationships,
provide positive role models for
gender quality and to encourage men and boys to take an active part and become
strategic partners and
allies in the prevention and elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls
- Improve the
safety of girls at, and on the way to and from school, including by
establishing a safe and violence free environment by
improving infrastructure such as transportation, providing separate and adequate sanitation facilities, improved lighting, etc.
- Engage, educate,
encourage and support men and boys to take responsibility for their
behavior, to ensure that men and adolescent
boys take responsibility for their sexual and reproductive behaviors, and to refrain from all forms of discrimination and violence
- Act at all
levels, at each and every opportunity in a comprehensive and holistic
manner that recognizes the linkages between violence
against women and girls and other
issues, such as education, health HIV and AIDS, poverty eradication, food
security, peace and security,
humanitarian assistance and crime prevention.
- Use all
relevant sources of international law, international guidelines and best practices
regarding protection of victims and survivors to
combat violence against women and girls
- Address and
eliminate, as a matter of priority, domestic violence through adopting,
strengthening and implementing legislation that
prohibits such violence, prescribes punitive measures and establishes adequate legal protection against such violence
- Strengthen
national legislation to punish violent gender-related killings of women and girls and
integrate specific mechanism or
policies to prevent, investigate and eradicate such deplorable forms of gender-based violence
- End impunity
by ensuring accountability and punishing perpetrators of the most
serious crimes against women and girls under national
law, and stressing the need for
the alleged perpetrators of those crimes to be held accountable under national
or international justice.