Greetings from the 43rd CSW session!
The session began yesterday morning, March 1, 1999. The main areas of concern are health, institutional mechanisms, the Optional Protocol, and plans for the Beijing Review.
There are hundreds of women from all over the world. Women working on Peace, on unpaid women's work, migrant groups, anti-trafficking, mental health, youth, the elderly, the disabled, women in politics, human rights groups, etc. There are a number of activities and workshops simultaneous to the session. It feels like a mini Beijing.
The following are the issues being discussed, raised and debated:
Beijing Review
The NGO participation for the special review session has still not been decided. The CSW leadership is asking how should it be set-up? Should the discussion be by area, cross-cutting and what about the emerging issues? It should be the NGOs to decided how to best participate.
The Division of Women (DAW) has devised a proposal. The main points of that proposal are:
- Political will and commitment to create an enabling environment for the implementation of the PFA. This includes the elimination of discrimination; legal review and reform to ensure equal opportunities for women; commitment to policies targeted at women and girls; establishment of gender sensitive policy frameworks; and equal participation of women at all levels and in all areas.
- Capacity-building for advancement of women and gender mainstreaming, This includes capacity building specifically for women and girls; capacity building for all actors responsible for achieving gender equality; awareness raising and changing of attitudes; and institutional infrastructure that supports capacity building.
- Accountability for, and assessment of, implementation of the strategies and actions in the PFA. This includes targets, benchmarks and a clear time frame for implementation; gender analysis; gender sensitive budgeting; gender impact appraisement; sex-desegregated data collection and analysis; performance appraisal; improved or new reporting; and gender-sensitive regulations, procedures or guidelines.
- Co-operation and partnership for implementing the PFA. This includes co-operation between the public and private sectors; international co-operation and solidarity; South-South co-operation; partnerships with and among women's organizations; partnerships between men and women; and fostering respect between boys and girls.
- Assistance to women and girls currently subject to discrimination and disadvantage. This includes programmes for girls in need of special protection; emergency assistance to victims of gender-based violence, including situations of armed conflict; and assistance to victims of specific forms of gender discrimination and disadvantage, including economic.
The Four Cross-Cutting Themes:
- Globalization and the economic empowerment of women, especially women living in poverty;
- Women, science and technology and the new information age;
- Women's leadership; and
- Human security and social protection.
Globalization is being raised by many women including government delegates as a must for review. It needs to be assessed as how it is impacting women. It was raised that the social contradictions under globalization are not acute. Even women from developed countries are under threat. Society has become more standardised, less caring and more money focused.
Globalization has led to an increase of fundamentalism . Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Jewish fundamentalism is on the rise. It was urged that women come together to fight this regardless of religion and region.
The question of using indicators as a way to measure women's empowerment is also being raised. ECOSOC held a special meeting to discuss this. The question that stands out is what do we want to measure and what do we want to do further with these indicators?
A stronger relationship between the UN and women's NGOs is being urged by many. It was suggested that the UN re-design their partnership with the UN system beginning with the Security Council. That gender balance projects continue within the UN system.
Institutional Mechanisms
There appears to be agreement by women that women's mainstreaming of issues within government should be done through national machineries. That these machineries should be responsible in implementing policies and addressing women's needs. However, there are many problems. Some of the issues identified are:
- structures set-up to address women's issues are vulnerable to political changes;
- lack of data and assessment of women's issues.
- poor structures and accountability
- unclear mandates
- lack of training and resources; and
- little attention, lack of commitment, knowledge or respect from governments.
It was stressed that we need to develop mechanism to hold government accountable. For the NGO community to support the mandate, to involve more members of civil society, for the UN to facilitate exchanges and to identify successful strategies. There needs to be co-operation with the general mass media and to raise the status of women with the help of the media.
Older Women
The issues of the elderly is coined as "the invisible part of the life cycle." Women from developing countries are at high risk. The State in these countries contributes very little if nothing to this population well being. Older women are totally dependent on their family. A large number of these women are found in the rural areas, urban slums, and refugee camps. Their health needs are often overlooked, they have least amount of funds to purchase medicine, and geriatric medicine is often unavailable or unheard of in developing countries. Dental problems are also major. The economic situation of the elderly women has also changed in recent years. Many of them are working well into old age having to contribute to the family income. They are full-time child care-givers due mostly to migration and AIDS. Their participation in any decision-making is non-existent. These advocacy groups for the elderly are calling on NGO to:
- make issues of older women more visible
- to help organize grassroots
- to help empower the elderly
- provide leadership training, child care services, and recreational activities
- To address this population in poverty reduction and in addressing sustainable development strategies.
