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Photo Credits (top to bottom)
-Primary education project of the Bangladesh Federation of University
women
- Graphic Artwork by Brazilian artist Octavio Roth - Article 1 of the
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights - See Thirty
Articles (© Octavio Roth - (UN/DPI Photo)
- "Displaced Persons: Mother and Child in the Dafur Region of the
Sudans" (© Eskinder Debebe - UN/DPI Photo)
- From Aftershocks:
Art and Memoirs by Young People Growing Up after War and Terror, exhibit
of the United Nations Cyberschool Bus Project, ©
painting by Una Dorbrinic
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Increased
Collective Violence Against Women (2004)
Responsibility
to Protect (2004)
Religion,
Culture, Gender and Women's Rights (2004)
Commercial
Exploitation of Children (2004)
Child
Soldiers (2001)
Children in Armed Conflict (2001)
Advocating
for Children (2001)
Human
Rights of Women Refugees(2001)
Abuse
of Women's Human Rights in Afghanistan(1998)
Violence
at School 1998)
Human
Rights of Refugees With Reference to Access to Higher Education (1998)
Violence
Directed Against Women (1998)
Trafficking
and Exploitation of Women and Children 1998)
Balancing
The Responsibilities of Family and Work (1998)
Promoting
Violence-Free Family Life (1998)
Refugee
Women and Girls(1995)
Rights
of the Child (1995)
Refugee
Women (1992)
Rights
of the Child (1992)
Children
in Armed Conflict (1989)
Women
and Academic Freedom (1989)
Autonomy
of Institutions of Higher Education (1989)
Child
Pornography (1986)
Cultural
Identity (1980)
Declaration
of the Rights of the Child (1980)
Data
Banks (1971)
High
Commission for Human Rights (1971)
Racism
(1971)
Education
of Handicapped Youth (1969)
Racial
Discrimination (1969)
Slavery
(1968)
Rights
of the Child and Right to Reproductive Freedom (1968)
Implementation
and Promotion of Human Rights(1968)
UNESCO
and Human Rights(1965)
Refugees
(1948)
Refugees
(1939)
Increased
Collective Violence Against Women
The 28th IFUW Conference
resolves to:
1. condemn and denounce gender-based killings and violence;
2. demand that responsibility for such killings and violence against women
and children be recognized, admitted and punished by the relevant authorities;
3. request the IFUW Board of Officers to urge the UN Commission on Human
Rights, in light of increased collective violence against women, to consider
the elimination of femicide a fundamental human rights issue;
4. request National Federations and Associations (NFAs) to investigate
the response of their own authorities to this emerging issue; and,
5. request NFAs to urge their own governments to give priority to this
issue at the United Nations. (2004
No. 12)
Responsibility
to Protect
The 28th Conference resolves:
that National Federations and Associations urge their respective
governments to:
1.give high priority to the promotion of international acceptance of the
principles contained in the 2001 Report to the United Nations by the International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty entitled “The Responsibility
to Protect” outlining the responsibility of states to protect their
citizens, namely:
a) the responsibility to prevent: to address both root causes and direct
causes of conflict;
b) the responsibility to react: to respond to compelling human need with
appropriate measures;
c) the responsibility to rebuild: to provide assistance with recovery,
reconstruction and reconciliation; and,
2. advocate for an international protocol for humanitarian intervention
under the aegis of the United Nations.(2004
No. 11)
Religion,
Culture, Gender Equality and Women’s Rights
The 28th Conference resolves to:
1. urge IFUW and NFAs to promote the application of human rights standards
within cultural and religious institutions and so achieve gender equality
and prevent women’s rights being made subordinate whilst being respectful
towards each person’s religious beliefs; and,
2. encourage NFAs to promote the standards for dialogue on religion, culture,
gender equality and women’s rights as set out in documents such
as the Beijing Platform for Action and the Beijing +5 Political Declaration
and Outcome Document together with the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.(2004
No. 7)
Commercial
Exploitation of Children
The 28th IFUW Conference
resolves:
that National Federations and Associations (NFAs) ensure that their respective
governments have not only signed but have also ratified the:
1. UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on
the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (2002);
2. UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocol
to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women
and Children (2000);
3. UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on
the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000); and,
4. International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 182 on the Worst
Forms of Child Labour (1999).(2004 No. 6)
Plan of Action
1. NFAs should identify their Government’s position in relation
to the UN Optional Protocol and to the ILO Convention and, where it is
found that they have not been signed and/or ratified, lobby the government
to meet these requirements.
2. NFAs should ensure that resources are available to implement the measures
and that there is effective use of the law to prevent the exploitation
of children.
3. NFAs should monitor the extent to which there is cooperation between
the police, education organizations and information for parents regarding
the safe use of the Internet by children.
4. NFAs familiarize themselves with these documents. The UN Optional Protocol
was adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General
Assembly resolution A/RES/54/263 of 25 May 2000, entered into force on
18 January 2002. UNHCHR and UNICEF websites have the full text. The ILO
Convention 182 can be found on the ILO website: www.ilo.org.
Child
Soldiers
The
27th Conference resolves that national federations and associations (NFAs)
urge their respective governments to:
1. ratify, implement
and promote international support for the Optional Protocol to the United
Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Involvement of
Children in Armed Conflict;
2. raise the minimum age to 18 years for all armed forces recruitment
for active service, as advocated by the United Nations Report, The Impact
of Armed Conflict on Children (#A/51/306, 26 August 1996 - the Machel
Report), and subsequently notify the Secretary General of the United Nations
to that effect, as proposed in Article 3 of the Optional Protocol;
3. take action to ensure that all peace negotiations and agreements include
specific measures for the demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers
into their civilian communities;
4. provide resources
in post-conflict situations to support education and vocational training
programmes after thorough specific culturally-sensitive treatment by local
traditional experts together with trained trauma specialists. (2001
No. 11)
Children
in Armed Conflict
The 27th Conference
resolves:
1. to support the recommendations of the United Nations Report, The Impact
of Armed Conflict (#A/51/306, 26 August 1996 - The Machel Report) and
the United Nations Security Council Resolution on Children and Armed Conflict
(#1262, 25 August 1999); and
2. to recommend to NFAs that they urge their respective governments to
take action to implement these recommendations, especially the following:
a) ensure that military personnel, especially those involved in United
Nations peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace-building activities, be trained
in the protection, rights and welfare of children, and in the relevant
body of international law that defines these rights;
b) promote an expansion of special measures to protect children during
armed conflict, such as Zones of Peace for children, and humanitarian
cease-fires to permit vaccinations and the distribution of humanitarian
relief;
c) promote the
active participation of children and women in peace-building and post-conflict
reconstruction, the importance of which is emphasized in The Machel Report
(para. 90, 241-242) and the United Nations Security Council Resolution
1325 Women, Peace and Security, involving women at the negotiating table;
and
d) ensure funding for the basic education of children, in a culture of
peace, as a priority of humanitarian assistance in order that children's
education may continue to the extent possible during armed conflict, in
refugee and displaced persons camps, and in post-conflict situations,
with provision for local, culturally sensitive reintegration into society,
including skilled treatment of confict traumatized child victims. (2001
No. 10)
Advocating
for Children
The 27th Conference
resolves that national federations and associations (NFAs) urge their
respective governments, in order to promote the well-being of children:1.
to take a multi-dimensional approach to:
a. develop policies and the provision of services which are directed at
strengthening individuals and families in the workforce and in the community,
especially women with children;
b. strengthen the capacity of communities to address existing social and
financial inequities, poverty and marginalization; and
2. to ratify and implement the International Labour Organization (ILO)
Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (Convention
182). (2001 No. 9)
Human
Rights of Women Refugees
The 27th Conference
resolves to:
1. reaffirm IFUW resolution No. 20 on Refugee Women (1992) and No. 14
on Refugee Women and Girls (1995),
2. encourage national federations and associations (NFAs) to urge their
governments to find considerate and humanitarian solutions to the problems
of refugees and asylum seekers arriving in their countries, to monitor
the situation both nationally and locally, and to render appropriate assistance
where possible; and,
3. encourage NFAs to ensure their own members are appropriately informed
or educated on the issues of refugees and asylum seekers.(2001
No. 8)
Abuse
of Women's Human Rights in Afghanistan
- that the IFUW Board of Officers write to the UN Secretary General, the
High Commissioner on Human Rights, the director General of UNESCO, the
Executive Directors of UNICEF and UNFPA commending the action they took
in sending a Gender Mission to Afghanistan and urging immediate follow-up
action to ensure that women and girls are no longer denied their human
rights, particularly with respect to education and health; - that NFAs
should contact their own governments to express their concern and to enquire
what action they have taken to condemn the denial of human rights to women
and girls in Afghanistan and take similar action in other instances where
women's human rights and fundamental freedoms are flagrantly abused. (1998
No. 10)
Violence
at School
that NFAs urge their respective Ministries of National Education and other
concerned Ministries to:
1. take effective action to counter all forms of violence at school and
ensure the security of all those at risk, with particular concern for
the safety of young girls and teenagers; and
2. develop awareness of the need to counter all forms of violence, ranging
from bullying to sexual aggression and drug addiction, and to include
education for peace in the programmes of all concerned Ministries. (1998
No.9)
Human
Rights of Refugees with Reference to Access to Higher Education
that national federations and associations campaign nationally and internationally
to ensure that a country in which a refugee has obtained a scholarship
for university education allows that refugee access to take up the scholarship
for the period of study. (1998 No.8)
(NB see 1989 No.7 and 1948 No.10)
Violence
Directed Against Women
As violence directed against women is reaching an intolerable level in
certain countries and situations,
that NFAs
1. ask their respective governments to condemn all forms of violence directed
against women and use every available means to bring such abuses to an
end; and
2. encourage their members to engage in this campaign and to report on
the results of their efforts in order to measure the impact achieved;
3. encourage their governments to support actively United Nations Conventions
and Commissions, particularly the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), and to put pressure on other governments to do
likewise. (1998 No.7)
Trafficking
and Exploitation of Women and Children
that NFAs:
-urge their governments to support and implement the Declaration and Actions
of the World Declaration Against Commercial Exploitation of Children,
Stockholm, Sweden, 1996; and
-urge their governments to protect women and children, both male and female,
from exploitation by:
1. implementing and enforcing laws prohibiting any type of exploitation
of women and children especially trafficking and enforced prostitution;
2. developing and supporting educational and training programmes to raise
women and children's awareness of how they can avoid becoming victims
of trafficking and ensnared or enforced prostitution;
3. developing and supporting educational and training programmes to raise
public awareness of the social, cultural and financial implications of
sex trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation;
4. implementing and enforcing laws prohibiting sex tourism to foreign
countries;
5. ensuring that work permits, if applicable, for foreign workers are
not just shields for exploitation of women and children; and
6. assisting those who become victims of trafficking and exploitation.
(1998 No.6)
Balancing
the Responsibilities of Family and Work
that in recognition that people are a country's major resource and that
to develop this resource effectively strong family structures are required,
national federations and associations should intensify their efforts to
lobby the business community and their respective governments to value
the status and role of parenting by:
1. promoting the importance of ongoing educational opportunities for employment,
voluntary work, leisure and family living including conflict resolution;
2. encouraging employers to make adequate provision for the recognition
of the family responsibilities of their employees;
3. recognizing and funding the work carried out by community-based services
which support parents, children, young people and the elderly. (1998
No.5)
Promoting
Violence-Free Family Life
that all NFAs promote the development and implementation of programmes
that address the problem of domestic violence with particular reference
to the human rights of women and children and that these programmes be
concerned specifically with:
1. demanding legislation and adequate resources to prevent domestic violence
and to protect the victims;
2. encouraging research by governments, universities and private institutions
into the incidence, causes, nature and effects of family violence;
3. addressing the social conditions that lead to family violence;
4. raising awareness through the media, seminars and study programmes
of the increasing levels of violence against women and girls;
5. ensuring that, because of the widespread and increasing incidence of
family violence in many societies, education for the peaceful resolution
of conflict is included in school curricula at all levels;
6. establishing shelters in the community where those abused can receive
protection and support;
7. disseminating information widely about access to help in crises;
8. developing and supporting strategies whose effectiveness is proven
in breaking self-perpetuating patterns of family violence. (1998
No. 4)
Refugee
Women and Girls
to urge NFAs to discuss and to develop strategies in assisting refugee
women and girls:
1) to have their existing rights applied and implemented in existing national
laws;
2) to obtain recognition as refugees when their claim to refugee status
is based on the well-founded fear of persecution through sexual violence
or when they are persecuted because of gender factors on reasons enumerated
in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol;
3) to cope with their traumatic experiences and uprooting; to promote
public and professional awareness of the specific mental health problems
of refugee women and girls due to the background of gender related violence;
4) to ease their access to education, training and employment, thus promoting
their socio-economic participation;
5) to reinforce existing resources among refugee women and girls and to
empower them in order to play an active role in the management of their
own lives. (1995 No. 14)
Rights
of the Child
that IFUW defend the right of the child, especially the girl child, by
urging NFAs to lobby their governments to
1) stop the sale by families of children, especially girls, to brothels
and to enforce legislation against their employment in prostitution;
2) legislate and counsel against the practice of female genital mutilation;
3) introduce labour laws to protect the health and education of children,
especially girls;
4) prevent the trafficking in human organs of children too young to give
informed consent. (1995 No. 12)
Refugee
Women
that IFUW and its NFAs should promote
- acceptance of the notion that sexual violence against women is a form
of persecution when it is by or with the consent or acquiescence of those
acting in an official capacity to intimidate or punish;
- recognition that there may be a basis for granting refugee status where
a government cannot or will not protect women who are subject to abuse
for transgressing social standards, by considering women so persecuted
as a "particular social group" within the meaning of Article 1A.(2) of
the 1951 UN Refugee Convention;
- the treatment of women refugees as independent persons with equal rights
to men. They must be fully informed of these rights; and
- the granting to women of independent refugee status. (1992
No. 20)
Rights
of the Child
encourage NFAs to urge their respective governments to:
1) ratify and implement the UNGA Convention on the Rights of the Child
as adopted in 1989, now both the international law and the international
standard for the protection and care of every child;
2) support the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development
of Children; and
3) work towards implementing its Plan of Action as proposed for the 1990s
with special emphasis on its priorities for the Girl Child. (1992
No. 18)
Children
in Armed Conflict
that IFUW and its NFAs be urged to express opposition to the exception
in Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides
that children of 15 can take part in armed conflicts. (1989
No. 9)
Women
and Academic Freedom
that NFAs consider the Lima Declaration from the perspective of women
in the academic community, with a view to the inclusion of that perspective
in the final version of the international Declaration on Academic Freedom
and Autonomy of Institutions of Higher Education for which the Lima Declaration
forms a basis. (1989 No. 7)
Autonomy
of Institutions of Higher Education
to encourage NFAs
1) to study the Lima Declaration circulated by the World University Service
on academic freedom and the autonomy of institutions of higher education;
2) to take part in international discussions and consultations at the
highest level, with a view to promulgating an international Declaration
on Academic Freedom and Autonomy of Institutions of Higher Education.
(1989 No. 6)
Child
Pornography
1) to bring the production of child pornography and its widespread circulation
in many countries and its transportation across international borders
to the attention of NFAs; and
2) to encourage NFAs to take action in their respective countries to prevent
the production, circulation and transportation of child pornography. (1986
No. 2)
Cultural
Identity
to recommend to the appropriate standing committees of IFUW and to NFAs
that they study ways of
a) safeguarding desired values in social identity and culture against
the possibly destructive threats of advanced technology and mass communication
b) affirming those values that contribute to the enrichment of contemporary
life. (1980 No. 13)
Declaration
of the Rights of the Child
to call upon NFAs to urge parents, men and women as individuals, local
authorities and national governments to recognise the rights of the child
and strive for their observance by legislative and other measures progressively
taken in accordance with the principles formulated in the Declaration
of the Rights of the Child, not only in the Year of the Child (1979) but
always. (1980 No. 5)
Data
Banks
conscious of the danger to the individual - in his life, liberty and personal
safeguards (Art 3 of the Declaration of Human Rights) - represented by
the setting up of data banks centralising a great mass of information
on his private life, recommends to NFAs
that they should give the most serious attention to this question;
that they should support all action leading to effective legislation to
control the setting up and use of such data banks; and
that they should undertake some studies on the problems involved, with
special reference to the rights of the individual. (1971
No. 12)
High
Commission for Human Rights
requests that NFAs inform their official delegations at the UN General
Assembly of the interest which they take in the establishment of a High
Commission for Human Rights in order to ensure the effective protection
of these rights. (1971 No. 8)
Racism
noting that the UNGA has designated 1971 as the International Year for
Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination,to urge NFAs
(a) to make every member aware of her personal responsibility to further
harmonious relations among racial groups; and
(b) to develop programmes designed to assist, where appropriate, racially
underprivileged groups in the community. (1971
No. 3)
Education
of Handicapped Youth
to ask NFAs to enquire into the measures taken in their countries to provide
for the education of young people who are physically and/or mentally handicapped
and, if they are found to be inadequate, to urge the appropriate authorities
to make what special arrangements are necessary and, where desirable,
to offer voluntary help. (1969 No. 14)
Racial
Discrimination
considering the ill-effects on educational standards of prejudice and
discrimination, racial, social and religious, against minority groups
and other under-privileged groups, the Council resolves that members of
NFAs be asked to offer voluntary help to individuals or groups so affected.
(1969 No. 13)
Slavery
calls on NFAs 1) to recommend to their governments names of persons professionally
and personally qualified for, and willing to be included in, the list
of experts proposed by the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination
and the Protection of Minorities, whose services would be available on
request to the States concerned with the liquidation of slavery and the
slave trade;
2) to submit to their governments suggestions concerning studies of possible
international action against States failing to carry out their obligations
under the Slavery Conventions of 1926 &1956;
3) to provide IFUW confidentially with such evidence of slavery as they
may from time to time acquire. (1968 No. 13)
Rights
of the Child and Right to Reproductive Freedom
to support the efforts to implement the following human rights in every
country if or when possible:
1) that every child has the right to be born into an environment where
he will have adequate love, food and care;
2) that, therefore, all should have a right to information which will
enable them to have only the children they want and for whom they can
provide. (1968 No. 12)
Implementation
and Promotion of Human Rights
IFUW resolves
1) to support every legislative measure at local, national and international
level aiming to implement Human Rights, whether by their legal protection
or by the ratification of international conventions and pacts;
2) to promote within the NFAs all intellectual, social and moral values
which are the necessary condition for the application of Human Rights,
in the fight against ignorance and illiteracy in favour of the establishment
of conditions indispensable to human dignity and favourable to international
understanding. (1968 No. 2)
UNESCO
and Human Rights
IFUW shall follow closely the activities of the working group of NGOs
in consultative status category A&B with UNESCO on the promotion of Human
Rights and the fight against prejudice, and shall co-operate actively
in its work if invited to do so. (1965 No. 8)
Refugees
That NFAs be asked to get in touch with the bureau of the Preparatory
Commission of the International Refugee Organisation in their country
and ask if among the Displaced Persons admitted to the country there are
university women, with a view to helping them to influence public opinion
in support of the admission of Displaced Persons in general and university
women in particular, to urge the Governments of their countries to admit
these persons. (1948 No. 10)
Refugees
deplores the delay
in effective Government action in regard to the refugee problem, the immensity
of which precludes its solution by voluntary agencies or individual states.
immediate intergovernmental action on a broad basis should be taken and
calls on NFAs to do all in their power to further such action on the part
of their respective governments. (1939
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