Women on the move - newsletter 2
April 1994 / No. 2
This newsletter has been made available in electronic format by the United Nations. Reproduction and dissemination of the newsletter - in electronic and/or printed format - is encouraged, provided acknowledgement is made of the role of the United Nations in making it available.
Women on the Move: # 2/April 1994
SUMMARY:
- first page: High level Advisory Group /Photo/Legend: UN SG, Boutros Boutros-Ghali with President of Ireland, HE. Mary Robinson who addressed the Commission on the Status on MArch 8, and was invited as speaker at the International Women's Day 1994 ceremony - UN Trusteeship Council, New York.
- second page: International Women's Day highlight No true social development without women progress
- third page: Tailoring the Platform for Action -
- fourth page: Main Menu to remove obstacles to women's progress - List of ten Critical areas of concern box 45 members of the CSW
- fifth page: NGO consultations Turning the world around and making it over
- sixth page: Youth corner/ Letter to Mrs.Mongella - Box: Did you now?
- seventh page: box "facts"
- eighth page: calendar of events - note to readers - source (our address...).
Secretary's General Advisory Group
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros- Ghali, has repeatedly expressed support for the cause of women, for women's advancement and for the success of the Fourth World Conference on Women. In this connection, he has invited a group of distinguished individuals to advise him, in their personal capacities, on ways to ensure the greatest possible effectiveness of the Fourth World Conference on Women.
The advisors will serve as a source of expert advice to him, but also as galvanizers of support for the World Conference on Women among Governments, non governmental organizations, and private citizens around the world."
The Advisory Group is composed by the following members:
- Ms. Margarita Pe§on Arias, honorary president, Arias Foundation for Peace and Development, Costa Rica
- H.M. Queen Fabiola, Belgium
- Hon. Mrs. Victoria F. Chitepo, member of Parliament, Zimbabwe
- Hon. Dame Ann Hercus, New Zealand
- Mr. Idriss Jazairy, Algeria, ex president IFDA, Executive Director, Advisory Committee on Energy Research and Development, London
- Hon. Mrs Justice Annie Ruth Jiagge, Ghana
- Mr. Jacek Kuron, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Poland
- Ms. Roberta Lajous, Director International Relations (PRI), Mexico
- Mr. Jack Lang, M.P ; former Minister of Culture, France
- Mr. Stephen Lewis, Canada, Special Representative for the Executive Director, UNICEF
- Ms. Deng Nan, Vice-Chairperson, State Science and Technology Commission, People's Republic of China
- HE. General Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria, Chairman Africa Leadership Forum
- Ms. Barbara Simons, Member of the European Parliament,
- HH. Princess Basma Bint Talal of Jordan,
- Hon. Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby, United Kingdom
- Professor Mohamed Yunus, Managing Director, Grameen Bank, Bangladesh
The three former Secretaries-General of the previous United Nations women's conferences, Lucille Mair (Jamaica), Leticia Shahani (Philippines) and Helvi Sipila (Finland), have been invited to attend the Geneva meeting as resource persons.
The Advisory Group will be convened by the Secretary-General at least twice before the Conference to examine the issues and themes for the conference and discuss strategies for generating broad-based support for the Conference and its follow up. The first meeting is planned for 5 May in Geneva, Switzerland.
International Women's Day Highlight
title: No true social development without women's progress
The 8 of March is the International Women's Day and at the United Nations ceremony here for this occasion, jointly organized by the Group on Equal Rights for Women in the UN and the Women's Environment and Development Organization, we saw one man in the podium among many distinguish women: the Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
The Secretary General made a round up of the actions taken by the UN to promote women. He said that the Organization's achievements are two fold: "First, the United Nations, propelled by the political will generated by women's movement, has successfully put the situation of women on the global agenda. Second, we have seen an outpouring of study and research on the situation of women in the world".
He then pointed out that "World's Women", the UN report on the situation of women, "is an authority in its own right". He added it is also "the best-selling UN publications ever".
Quoting the UNDP Human Development Report, he reminded that "women remain "the world's largest excluded group". At the UN, he said that the ideal would be parity in policy level positions by the end of 1995, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Organization.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali paid tribute, in this context, to the UNFPA that has "already reached a proportion of 45 % of women professional staff", hoping that "other agencies and programmes will follow where the UNFPA has led the way".
On the other hand, the President of the General Assembly, S.R. Insanally (Guyana) issued a message in connection of the observance, stating that even if there has been "increased awareness of many of the issues concerning women in particular, the problems women eoncounter continue to be pervasive, including those of poverty and full and equal participation in all aspects of economic and political life."
Ambassador Insanally underlined that the theme of the Beijing Conference, Action for Equality, development and Peace, addresses "quiet pointedly the areas in which greater action is needed."
FACTS -- FACTS -- FACTS -- FACTS -- FACTS
- Asia and Pacific: men outnumber women by 5 in every 100 principal causes: female infanticide; selective abortion; inferior health care and nutrition given to girl babies.
- in all other regions, there are more women than men
- 2/3 of total illiterate people in the world are women
- Asia and Africa: 3/4 of women aged 35 and more are illiterate
- 70 % of children not enrolled in primary school are girls
- half million women of the world die each year from pregnancy- related causes
- 89 % of parliamentarians of our Planet are men.
Youth Corner
To Mrs. Mongella,
Thank you for providing 'us' (young people) with the opportunity to come together as part of the preparatory process for the Fourth World Conference on Women.
Thank you also, for your 'inspiring and motivating words' at Princeton.
Warm wishes
Gaylene Osbane
Fiji Women's Crisis Centre
Suva
Through the Youth Corner, we would like to create a space for discussion for young people of both sexes.
Please send us information about your activities and your ideas about the Fourth World Conference on Women.
Title: Tailoring the Platform for Action
The burden of poverty and limited access to education and health services top the list of issues facing women as laid out by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in its 38th session.
The 45 members of the Commission met from 7 to 18 March in New York to discuss, among others, the structure and content of a Platform of Action to be adopted at the September 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women.
It recommends that rural women, in particular, should have the same access as men to land and other productive resources. It says that programmes should be developed to provide credit for women.
Developing countries referred to the burden of structural adjustment programmes, including public expenditure cuts. They called "attention to the persistent and growing burden of poverty on women compounded by the impact of structural adjustment policies and their resulting cutbacks in social programmes in developing countries."
They highlighted the "negative effects of structural adjustment programmes on public expenditure on education and health."
The 130-member 'Group of 77'developing nations argues that the Platform for Action should present major concerns shared by all regions on conditions women face and actions governments, the international community, and financial institutions should commit themselves to taking in the last five years of this century.
The Commission on the Status of Women and the Non Governmental Organizations share this position.
The members also approved a set of resolutions, especially on mainstreaming women's human rights; gender equality in population programmes; violence against women migrant workers; rape and abuse of women in the area of armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia; palestinian women; participation of women in the peace process in the Middle East; and women in South Africa.
title: Main menu to remove obstacles to women's progress
List of ten critical areas of concern for the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, China, 4-15 September 1995)
- A. the persistent and growing burden of poverty on women
- B. Inequality in access to education, health and related serviues and other means of maximising the use of women's capacities
- C. violence against women
- D. effects of armed or other kinds of conflict on women
- E. inequality in women's access to and participation in the definition of economic structures and policies and the productive process itself
- F. inequality between men and women in the sharing of power and decision-making at all levels
- G. insufficient mechanisms at all levels to promote the advancement of women
- H. Lack of awareness of, and commitment to, internationally and nationally recognised women's human rights
- I. Insufficient use of mass media to promote women's positive contributions to society
- J. Lack of adequate recognition and support for women's contribution to managing natural resources and safeguarding the environment
The Commission on the Status of Women stressed the following:
- Interdependence of the critical areas of concern
- Their relationship with the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women adopted eight years ago by the precedent United Nations World Conference on Women
- The critical areas of concern are all of equal priority.
Did you know?
From the 184 Member States of the United Nations, only seven have a Permanent Mission headed by ladies: Canada, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States of America... And two - Comoros, Somalia - have women officiating as charge d'affaires a.i.
NGO CONSULTATIONS
title: Turning the world around and making it over
"Action" chanted in many languages by representatives of Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) coming from different regions to the United Nations headquarters in New York, gave the tone to the first international NGO Consultation on United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women:"Changing Forums in a changing World" (3-4 March 1994).
"Today there is time and space for us (women) to define again and yet again for family, church, school, parliament, trade union, work place, media, government, and not least of all, the United Nations what it is we are, what we do, and what we want, said Lady Supatra Masdit, Convenor of NGO Forum '95.
An NGO Forum '95 is scheduled between 30 August and 8 September 1995 in Beijing, and Supatra Masdit sees it as "both an event and a process".
The Convenor coincides in this with the representatives of more than 1 000 organizations who took part during two weeks, 4-18 March, to a constellation of workshops, seminars, caucuses and meetings to develop the "alternatives to the way the world has ordered things", as Supatra Masdit said.
While Gertrude Mongella, Secretary General of the Fourth World Conference on Women paid tribute to the NGOs for their interest as "advocates and pressure groups to highlight and to sensitize society around issues of concern to women", on the other hand, Irene Santiago, Executive Director for the NGO Forum, invited the participants to the dream of "women coming together and turning the world around. Turning the world around and making it over".
The NGO meetings focussed on building effective lobbying strategies to influence the Platform for Action; build consensus among groups and regions on the main critical areas of concern; and promote dialogue in shaping a vision for '95 and beyond.
They issued a 60 pages document in which they proposed to add the adjective "sustainable" to development in the three main themes of the conference: Action for Equality, Development and Peace, in order to reflect the changes since 1985.
In its suggestions, the NGO caucus also recommended other critical areas of concern such as :
- inadequate and unequal health care and incomplete enjoyment of reproductive rights;
- lack of understanding of the need to solicit the participation and the unique perspective of indigenous women in decision making process;
- marginalising culture and failing to integrate it into strategies for development, equality and peace;
- difficult working conditions of women and their treatment in the field of research impedes global progress.
For more information, contact: NGO Planning Committee
211 E 43th Street, 15th floor
N.Y., New York, 10017 USA
tel. (212) 922 92 62
fax. (212) 922 92 69
List of members of CSW
Commission on the Status of Women (45 members - four year term)
Membership in 1994 Term expires on 31 December 1994
Algeria ........................................... 1996
Australia ......................................... 1996
Austria ........................................... 1996
Bahamas ........................................... 1997
Bangladesh ........................................ 1994
Belarus ........................................... 1996
Bulgaria .......................................... 1994
Chile ............................................. 1995
China ............................................. 1995
Colombia .......................................... 1996
Costa Rica ........................................ 1997
Cìte d'Ivoire ..................................... 1994
Cuba .............................................. 1996
Cyprus ............................................ 1997
Czechoslovakia .................................... 1995
Ecuador ........................................... 1997
Finland ........................................... 1995
France ............................................ 1996
Guinea-Bissau ..................................... 1996
Guinea ............................................ 1997
India ............................................. 1997
Iran (Islamic Republic) ........................... 1997
Italy ............................................. 1994
Japan ............................................. 1996
Kenya ............................................. 1997
Libyan Arab jamahiriya ............................ 1997
Madagascar ........................................ 1995
Malaysia .......................................... 1997
Mexico ............................................ 1994
Namibia ........................................... 1997
Netherlands ....................................... 1994
Pakistan .......................................... 1995
Peru .............................................. 1995
Philippines ....................................... 1994
Korea, Republic of ................................ 1997
Russian Federation ................................ 1994
Rwanda ............................................ 1994
Spain ............................................. 1995
Sudan ............................................. 1996
Thailand .......................................... 1996
Tunisia ........................................... 1997
United States of America .......................... 1994
Venezuela ......................................... 1995
Zaire ............................................. 1994
Zambia ............................................ 1995
Prior to the conference a number of meetings are taking place at the national, regional and international levels, organised by NGOs as well as by the United Nations. Following is a preliminary calendar, which also includes other major United Nations conferences:
1994
14-16 April, Toledo, Spain Preparatory Meeting for the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Regional Conference
5 May, Geneva, Switzerland Secretary's General Advisory Group, First Meeting
7-14 June, Jakarta, Indonesia Asia and Pacific Preparatory Conference
1-6 August, Turku, Finland Nordic Forum for the 4th World Conference on Women
22 August-2 September, Preparatory Committee - World New York Summit for Social Development
4-8 Sept, Amman, Jordan Regional Expert Group Meeting on Women and Development
5-13 September, Cairo, Egypt International Conference on Population and Development
19-23 Sept, Mar del Plata, Argentina Regional NGO Forum for Latin* America and the Caribbean
26-30 Sept, Mar del Plata Latin American and Caribbean* Preparatory Conference
17-21 October, Vienna, Austria European Regional Preparatory* Conference
6-10 Nov, Amman, Jordan Western Asian Regional* Preparatory Conference
14-17 November, Dakar, Senegal NGO Regional Forum for Africa*
16-23 Nov, Dakar, Senegal African Regional Preparatory* Conference
22-26 Nov, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic INSTRAW International Conference on Women, Environment and Health
1995
16 Jan-3 Feb, New York Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 14th session
(9-11 or 16-18) Feb, Strasbourg, France Council of Europe's Conference "Equality and Democracy: Utopia or challenge"
March UNESCO Seminar on Women and the Media
6-12 March, Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development
9-10 March, New York 19th Inter-Agency Meeting on Women
9-24 March, New York NGO Consultations and Meetings*
15 March- 5 April, New York Commission on the Status of Women 39th Session
30 Aug-8 Sept, Beijing NGO Forum*
4-15 September, Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women
*events related to the Fourth World Conference on Women
Dear Readers,
This is the second issue of Women on the Move, a monthly newsletter distributed by the Secretariat of the Fourth World Conference on Women to inform you about its work and the preparatory activities for that event. We would like to hear your comments and receive your suggestions. We would also like to use Women on the Move as a platform for dialogue and cooperation with UN agencies, NGOs, grass-roots, regional organizations, national machineries and individuals.
Secretariat of the Fourth World Conference on Women
Division for the Advancement of Women
DC2-1234,
Two UN Plaza, New York, NY, 10017 USA
tel. (212) 963 8385 / fax. (212) 963 3463
