International Advocacy

In December 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (HRET). This Declaration asserts that everyone has the right to know, seek and receive information about their human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is a call to the United Nations, governments, non-governmental organizations and other bodies to intensify their efforts to promote the universal respect and understanding of HRET.

The Declaration defines HRET as comprising “all education, training, information, awareness-raising and learning activities aimed at promoting universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”  It also states that HRET encompasses:

• Education about  human rights
• Education through human rights
• Education for human rights

The Declaration recognizes that HRET is a lifelong process that includes all parts of society, at all levels and should be based on principles of equality.

• Read the full text of the Declaration

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Hazel Bowen, President of the South African Association of Women Graduates (SAAWG) shared the following report on the  South African Parliamentary briefing on the Concept Document for the Campaign on the 16 Days of Activism on No Violence Against Women, Children and People with Disabilities.

Hon Lulu Xingwana, Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, said that the campaign had previously focussed on women and children, and was now being extended to include people with disabilities. The Minister expressed her desire to work closely with all government departments in fulfilling the campaign’s mandate. She highlighted the fact that women, in the period following the country’s achieving democracy, had worked very hard to ensure that the rights of women were upheld, and that the issue of abuse and violence towards children was placed on the national agenda as a matter of priority. more »

On 5 December international leaders met in Bonn Germany to discuss the future of Afghanistan.  IFUW national federations and associations in countries around the world contacted their Ministries of Foreign Affairs and other government leaders to bring pressure on national governments to ensure that Afghan women would be adequately represented.  Heike Mensch of the German Federation, who is a media specialist, was able to obtain press accreditation to the meeting. She sent the following first-hand account:

Sunday afternoon:

I arrived at the hotel where the press center was established and bumped into the half the delegates of the Afghan Women’s Network. I met their European Media Contact Jennifer Rowel. One of their press releases available can be found at http://www.ifuw.org/docs/2011_bonn_awn.pdf. They were very careful in their formulations – they didn’t refer to CEDAW and 1325; they only circled around it. Other women referred to UN Resolutions as necessary and binding for Afghanistan.

Sunday evening:

A very interesting event was organized by the German Ministry for Economic Development (BMZ) “Women’s Rights and Peace for Afghanistan – a Process in the Hands of the Afghan People” with representatives of Afghan NGOs, followed by an exchange with the delegates of the Afghan civil society. The group arrived more than an hour late because UN Secretary General Ban Kim Moon had unexpectedly asked them to meet him for one hour. They said the meeting had been very good but gave no details.

Most of the Afghan speakers were very good; all were very eloquent.  Here I heard the woman speaker of the NGO group, Selay Ghaffar for the first time and was highly impressed: She speaks her mind very clearly, has strong demands and statements. She is certainly somebody to watch and support. Her topics: much too little empowerment of women, bad handling of women at court, major threats for womens’ rights.

The guiding theme of the evening was the lack of rule of law, violence by security forces (specially to women), not enough participation of women in all areas, the current highest corruption ever in Afghanistan, no access to schools for girls and women, danger of negotiating with “those who violate human rights”, the danger posed by terrorists trained in neighbouring countries and the necessity to involve civil society in high-level planning and decision making, lack of health facilities and treatment – 2nd highest maternal mortality in world, discrimination of women in laws.

At the end there was a strong call for “women of the world to stay with us in our struggle”.

There wasn’t much chance for exchange with the delegates of the Afghan civil society, as they left soon after the official part.

Monday: I stayed on the Press Gallery for several hours and had several useful exchanges.

Opening of Conference by

1. German Min. Foreign Affairs Dr. Westerwelle: He didn’t mention women at all, ending with a wish of hope for children.

2. President Karsai: only mentioned some statistics – percentage of women now in public sector, education, central governmentt – never near 50 %. He spoke of being on a good path.

3. Secretary General Ban Kim Moon: He was the only opening speaker to explicitly and extendedly demand “more women in positions of power”, “more women in political participation in all areas”, “guarantee of women’s rights”, “more education for boys and girls”, “women are ½ the population … must be fully empowered”, Afghanistan must apply international standards”.

4. German Chancellor Merkel: mentioned women only once in context: All parts of society, including women and children, must be respected.

I talked to several members of the Afghanistan NGOs that travelled over for the Civil Society Forum. Most interesting was Najiba Ayubi, the Media Director of the Killid Group, the biggest NGO funded group of radio stations in Afghanistan – now eight stations. It has a women’s magazine produced only by women. 40% of her employees are women. We spoke for a long time and exchanged many ideas and experience – she is a very enlightened, free thinking journalist and feminist and strong fighter for the cause of women. She is very interested in contacts with IFUW and would like to help us find good contacts to university women.

While talking to Najiba the women of the Civil Society Forum received a note from Hilary Clinton. She asked only the women to meeting with her. I tried to speak with Najiba after this, but she was in constant talks with politicians. Will try to get in touch with her by mail to find out more.

I got some more addresses of Women NGOs and several Afghanistan representatives promised to send me some more contacts. Here again, all were very interested in finding out more about us.

Monday evening:

 Conclusion of Conference. The text of Afghanistan Government can be found at http://www.ifuw.org/docs/2011_bonn_conclusions.pdf. There are several important remarks about the inclusion of women on all levels and about human rights and fundamental freedom – where women are mentioned explicitly.

I had some very good conversations on the side with Afghan expatriates and with journalists from the region. They are all very concerned, that the insurgents (Taliban) will gain more power. They called for sanctions against the enemies of Afghanistan – “some neighbours”. Many said “we know who our enemies are”. They all spoke of the great need of education in all parts of the country, specially the rural areas. All expressed their hope, that Afghanistan will never again be left alone by the international community.

© UNESCO / Akhtar Soomro

Education, a Crucial Foundation for Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment

Access to quality secondary education is essential if girls, particularly rural girls, are to achieve their full economic potential.  A joint statement submitted by IFUW and the Worldwide Organization for Women (WOW) to the Fifty-sixth Session of the Commission on the Status of Women to be held in 2012, points out that there is a clearly established, positive relationship between keeping girls in school and future earning power.  Each year of secondary schooling increases girl’s future wages by 10 to 20 percent, but for many girls this remains an unattainable dream.  Girls under the age of 16 make up more than 90 per cent of the global domestic work force, and out of 130 million out-of-school young people, 70 per cent are girls.

Significant barriers continue to keep girls out of school.  These rang from lack of financial resources, traditional preferences for educating boys, distance to schools, lack of safe school facilities and environments, lack of female role models and traditional religious and cultural practices such as female genital mutilation and early/forced marriage. more »

Dr Gloria Ramirez, member of the Mexican Federation (FEMU), was in Geneva on 24 October to present information to the Pre-Session Working Group of the Committee on the Elimination or Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on behalf of FEMU and 23 other women’s organizations. In her presentation, she noted that violence against women is a major and growing problem in nearly all parts of Mexico. She cited the 1000 cases of femicide that have occurred over the last six years and the increasing disappearances, particularly of younger women, as well as threats made to human rights activists working on these issues. She also spoke about the problem of the criminalization of abortion and gave the example of one young woman sentenced to 23 years in jail for a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. more »

On 3 November 2011, IFUW sent a letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany calling for Afghan women to be adequately represented and Afghan women’s issues to be fully addressed at the Foreign Ministers Conference on Afghanistan to be held in Bonn on 5 December 2011.

The letter specifically asks that the German Government take all necessary steps to:

1. ensure the full representation of Afghan women in all preparations and as delegates to the Conference;
2. ensure the inclusion of Afghan women’s issues on the Conference and Civil Society Forum agendas; and
3. facilitate the presence of Afghan women to provide an opportunity for their voices to be heard during the Civil Society Forum and for their views to be included in those to be forwarded to the Conference of Foreign Ministers.

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Yesterday, the World Economic Forum released its sixth annual Global Gender Gap Report.  According to the report, while 85% of countries have improved their gender equality ratios over the last six years, for the rest of the world the situation is declining, most notably in several African and South American countries.

The report measures the size of the gender inequality gap in four areas:   economic participation and opportunity –salaries, participation and highly-skilled employment; education – access to basic and higher level education; political empowerment – representation in decision-making structures; health and survival – life expectancy and sex ratio.  The index scores represent the percentage of the gap that has been closed between women and men in the different areas.

The report shows that gaps in education and health have been closing, with  96% of the health gaps and 93% of the education gaps already closed.

According to the report, economic and political participation show the largest gaps.   For the first time, the report analyzed national policies designed to facilitate female workforce participation.  The data, based on information from almost 60 countries, shows that while 88% of countries have legislation prohibiting gender-based workplace discrimination, less than 45% have a national benchmarking tool. According to the report, 20% of countries surveyed have mandated female corporate board representation and 30% have mandated political participation. more »

On 5 December 2011, the international community will meet in Germany for the Bonn II Conference to discuss the future of Afghanistan. On 30 October, a delegation of four Afghan women met with Marianne Haslegrave, IFUW President, and other IFUW representatives to ask for IFUW’s help in ensuring that Afghan women have a strong voice in these negotiations.  The delegation was led by Dr Massouda Jalal, who is a former Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs, head of the Jalal Foundation, and one of the leading voices for the empowerment of Afghan women.

Dr Jalal expressed serious concerns that there will be a strong Taliban presence in the Bonn negotiations, but that very few women will be included.  This round of talks is to determine the civil aspects of the transition process transferring responsibility to the Government of Afghanistan by 2014, the long-term engagement of the international community in Afghanistan after 2014 and the political process that should lead to a long-term stabilization of the country.   more »

UN Photo, Pierre Albouy. Panelists at the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty suggested strategies for the international community and those living in poverty across the globe to collaborate.

The United Nations Office at Geneva, in collaboration with the International Movement All Together in Dignity (ATD) Fourth World and the October 17th Coalition, commemorated the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on Monday 17 October 2011 at the Palais des Nations.

In 1993, the UN General Assembly established an annual Day for the Eradication of Poverty to promote global poverty awareness. The theme of this year’s observance was “From Poverty to Sustainability: People at the Center of Inclusive Development”. The event began with several panelists sharing their on-the-ground experiences with poverty eradication in both the developed and developing world. Panelists included Mr. David A. Chikvaidze, Chief Librarian of the UNOG; Ms. Alessandra Vellucci, Chief of the Information Services Press and External Relations Section; His Excellency Mr. Fodé Seck, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UNOG of the Republic of Senegal; and Ms. Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Special Reporter on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. more »