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Asian Caucus Report, 4-5 March 1999

Report sent by Luz Maria Martinez, Isis Manila

Four dynamic presentors from Bangladesh, Jamaica, Czech Republic and India provided papers on the roles and functions in national machineries.

Dr. Jahan of Bangladesh provided strategies for national machineries:

  1. Clarify the role and function of the national machineries based on the study of successful models. National machineries should provide policy development, coordination, monitoring and leadership. It should serve as a catalyst for new and appropriate projects. However, the strengthening and training should begin with the staff of the national machineries. Understanding of women's issues should be done through participatory dialogue with women's groups and communities.
  2. National Machineries should support key allies. Working on its own will only marginalize them. The women's movement should be encouraged to lobby political parties on their needs.
  3. National machineries should focus more on policy development, set-up consultative mechanisims with civil society. The role of national machineries with the private sector is very important. National machineries need to be involved in defining what kind of standards should be implemented in the private sector spheres.
  4. National Machineries should activate, coordinate and monitor national action plans.
  5. Devise accountability measures. For example, hold public hearings, reach out to the public.
  6. National machineries should play a leadership role. They must have a vision and build support towards that mission.
  7. After Beijing, the government adopted plans should be reviewed with quantitative targets and conduct institutional reviews of its own drawbacks and shortcomings in implementing these plans.

Dr. Moserova of the Czech Republic raised the following points:

The women's groups and movement began asking themselves, "why have {Czech} women been so behind?" The answer she says, was because the political discrimination was so strong during the totalitarian years that any other kind of discrimination did not register. This awareness began with the establishment of NGOs within the country. It was the NGOs who began functioning within this new democracy and made headway to many of the new issues in this new civil society. They also began pressuring government to set-up special committees to address these issues. However, government cannot accomplish any changes by imposing ideas or projects, the people will not accept this. Civil society there will not accept any policies that are percieved to dictate, regulate or enforce. Quotas are totally rejected.

Another change has been the kind of women that have entered into Parliament. They now have less women in Parliament, but the ones who are there are women who are committed and exert influence within governmemt. This she says, was a change from having many women in office who were controlled and could not exert independence. However, she blames media for a negative tide in women in her country. She says, the commercialism has set a certain standard that pushes women to take on "beauty" as their "duty", housework is a woman's job, and distorted images of men and women. This she says is being accepted by the youth as a standard for life. She states that media needs to be targeted. The media should be encouraged to participate in the eradication of prejudice and discrimination against women and to be more educational. She ended her presentation by stating that she feels that it is the power of women who can break the vicious cycle of discrimination.

Dr. Glenda Simms of Jamaica took the lead in emphasizing the need for national machineries to involve the marginalized in their countries. She stated that "political will is more than platitude. Political will is the translation of a vision to transform the status of women". She identified the climate of distrust between NGOs and government as an obstacle in raising the status of women. This she said can only be overcome until governments make a sincere step to bring forth the role of NGOs. Political appointments on to national machineries she emphasized is a problem. This she points out is more common in developing countries. She emphasized that poor countries need to incorporate poverty eradication in all national machinery plans and projects. She said money is no guarantee that that national machineries will be succesful. Some countries have done very well with little money and others with big budgets have done very little. She emphasized the need for national machineries to consult with as many people as necessary and to not only rely on so called "gender consultants". A class analysis for national machineries is a must. She pointed out that both government and NGOs are made up of people of the middle class. As middle class women, they own a "piece of the pie". Our lifestyles, she says, are dependent on the cheap labor of poor women. It is encumbent on national machineries to look at the majority who are poor and marginalized. It is their job to break down classisim and racisim at the same time. She emphasized the need for national machineries to link up with one another and to share ideas, problem solve and strategize. This is being done in the Carribean with the help of new information technologies. She stated the reality that national machineries will never have the resources they need to do all that needs to be done. What is important is how creative the national machineries are to build mechanisims from the grassroots up. To learn from Jamaica's experience, their women's national machineries are not connected to the Prime Minister's office but to the office of the Labor Minister who is a committed woman that exerts clout within the government.

Dr. Rai of India, shared the following:

It is important to keep in mind that it has been very recent that women have been engaging actively with States. Women for many years have been leary of the male culture that surrounds these institutions. However, it is time for women to stop being adversaries to government. The interchange between women and government needs to be two ways, national machineries should insist on women's participation in political institutions. NGOs should not view negotiations as cooptation. Economic changes in both industrialized and developing countries has taken a toll on women. In developing countries structural adjustment programs has disempowered women and in the north, welfare reform has also done the same. Under these restructuring she says limits women's opportunities. "Transparency" she says is needed to operationalize national machineries. This can be done by:

  1. For national machineries to take accountability seriously.
  2. To hold regular meetings with local NGOs.
  3. Decentralize functions for the national machineries. There should be provincial networks created with resources.

Asian Caucus and Asia Pacific Watch

The Asian Caucus has merged forces with Asia Pacific Watch. We are now Asian/Asia Pacific Watch Caucus. Anjana Shakaya of APW and Luz Martinez of Isis will share the meeting facilitation of the meetings.

The Asian Caucus will send a letter to the General Secretary denouncing DAW's discriminatory actions against one of our members.

Members from South Korea bought to the Caucus attention the issue of North Korean women defecting into China and South Korea only to preyed upon by trafficking syndicates from both countries. A video conducted by a South Korean television crew showed how the North Korean women were being sold to brothel owners and individual men. The women are being sold to Chinese farmers as "wives", to restaurants as laborers and for sexual purposes. Many of the women are consenting to being bought as they fear being returned to North Korea. People are starving there and many of the women are desperate to look for ways to eat and help their families. Some of the women in the video admitted to being married with children and agreeing to these sales in order to work in South Korea, earn money and help their famalies. Without wanting raise political objections we have decided to draft a recommendation for this session that pushes for women's rights to health care and protection in transborder migration, defection, and refugee situations. Any thoughts from those of you reading this would be very helpful.

In addition, we have been busy incorporating Asian women's issues into resolutions on miliitarization and health, mental health and health issues in general.

We are in need of concrete health issues that are a direct consequence of globalization in the region. If you have suggestions, please send them in. ARROW of Malaysia conducted a regional meeting on this issue. They will be sending us a summary of those issues.


 
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