By Kristina Sperkova
NEW YORK, Mar 8 2016 (IPS)

International Women’s Day is a chance to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world – often against great odds and all too often remaining invisible.

But women and girls worldwide are change makers and leaders for a better world. Role models are many.

Kristina Sperkova

It’s this perspective and understanding that makes us both hopeful and concerned. We are hopeful because we’ve seen considerable progress and vast achievements in gender equality and women empowerment. We are concerned because we also face major challenges not only to the achievements made but also to the health and well being of women and girls in general.

Last September, world leaders adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG5 “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” The Agenda2030 is a remarkable achievement, holding tremendous potential for sustainable and transformative change.

But there, too, are massive obstacles. Alcohol harm is a crosscutting obstacle to achieving the SDGs, as it negatively impacts 12 out of 17 goals, including SDG5.

Alcohol harm is clearly a Women’s Rights and gender empowerment issue. The world faces three major challenges for achieving gender equality, in the form of three global epidemics: Non-communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS, and Gender-based violence.

Each of these three global epidemics is disproportionately burdening women and girls, especially women in low- and middle-income countries and they have one common risk factor: alcohol use.

Alcohol is one of four major risk factors in the global epidemic that are non-communicable diseases. NCDs are the leading cause of death globally. A staggering 35 million people die every year from NCDs, of which 18 million are women. NCDs represent the biggest threat to women’s health worldwide, increasingly burdening women from developing countries in their most productive years

Secondly, alcohol is also a risk factor in the global epidemic of gender-based violence. Every third woman is subjected to violence at least once during her lifetime. In some parts of the world gender-based violence can be related to alcohol in up to 80% of the cases. And alcohol marketing plays a role in perpetuating prejudices and stereotypes of women; alcohol ads often depict women in de-humanized, sexualized and objectified ways. Alcohol marketing fuels gender-based violence and erodes women empowerment.

And thirdly, alcohol is a risk factor for HIV/AIDS because it increases the likelihood to engage in risky sexual behavior – like unprotected sex, frequent change of partners or violent sex. Alcohol weakens the immune system making it more susceptible for the HI-Virus and it makes adhesion to medication for people who are HIV-positive more difficult. In many aspects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, women are disproportionately burdened.

It is with this on mind that we urgently encourage and support the world’s governments to apply the tools of high-impact and cost-effective alcohol policy in our joint efforts for women empowerment.

Alcohol policy measures, such as the Three Best Buys of increasing the price, reducing the availability and banning advertising – as described by World Bank, World Health Organization and World Economic Forum (among others) – are crucial tools for harnessing the potential of the Agenda2030 in general and the Gender Equality Goals (SDG5) in particular – including 4 of the targets under SDG5.

The three best buys of alcohol policy can contribute to bring about transformative change for women and girls, in helping to end all forms of discrimination, to eliminate all forms of gender-based violence, and to facilitate women’s full participation in public life.

We have the evidence. We have the political tools. We have societal momentum. Now we need political will and leadership.

What better day is there than International Women’s Day? What better moment in time, only a few days ahead of the 60th Commission on the Status of Women can there be – to stand up, together, for using all tools available for advancing gender equality.

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By Deisi N.W. Kusztra and Kristina Sperkova
NEW YORK, Feb 19 2016 (IPS)

Children of alcoholics are the forgotten victims of someone else’s alcohol use. All too often they do remain invisible and alone, neglected by their parents, overlooked by teachers, down prioritized and ignored by governments and authorities.

But data shows that children of alcoholics (CoAs) do constitute a significant group.

• In Australia 1 million children live in households with at least one adult being addicted.
• In the United States, mothers convicted of child abuse are 3 times more likely to be alcoholics and fathers are 10 times more likely to be alcoholics. More than half of all confirmed abuse reports and 75% of child deaths involve the use of alcohol or other drugs by a parent.
• In the European Union, there are at least 9 million children and young people growing up with alcohol-addicted parents.
• Nacoa UK’s research estimates that there are 2.6 million children of school age living with parental alcohol problems in the UK alone.
• The number of children living in homes that are ravaged by alcohol problems sky-rockets considering the countries around the world that are currently not even measuring the issue.

Children growing up with parents who struggle with alcohol problems are a Human Rights crisis of tremendous proportions.

CoAs are greatly exposed to harm:
• They are five times more likely to develop an eating disorder.
• They are three times more likely to commit suicide.
• They are almost four times more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder themselves later on in life.

When we talk about children of alcoholics, we see seven aspects that make up the severity of the Human Rights crisis:
1. The societal stigma, stereotypes and associated taboo that still are attached to alcoholism and to living with parents who have alcohol problems.
2. Authorities’ inability to identify children of alcoholics, for example in schools.
3. Governments on local and national level fail in providing effective and sufficient services to these vulnerable and marginalized children.
4. Governments on local and national level fail in providing treatment for parents with alcohol problems, like programs that help the entire family.
5. Society’s inability to prevent and reduce alcohol harm in general.
6. In general, the lack of enabling, safe environments for children to grow up in.
7. Government shortcomings in implementing the Best interest principle enshrined in Art. 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Also these aspects are interdependent. Their absence from the debate and from effective policy-making processes is hurting children of alcoholics. In fact the they keep fuelling a Human Rights crisis that sees CoAs deprived of the enjoyment of eight Human Rights, such as (for entire list, see Annex I):
– Protection of the family (Art. 16.3),
– The right to social security and realization of economic, social and cultural rights (Art. 22),
– The right to a standard of living conducive to health and well-being (Art. 25.1),
– Special care and assistance for motherhood and childhood (Art. 25.2).

Having on mind the sheer extent of the problem, the severity of the problem and the impact of the problem not just on the present but on the future, we hold that it is essential to understand that Sustainable Development and the achievement of the Agenda2030 is not possible without comprehensive efforts to help and support children of alcoholics and to ensure that their number decreases in the coming years.

The fact that hundreds of millions of children grow up exposed to neglect and abuse due to their parents’ alcohol problems is a Child Rights issue, a public health issue, a social development issue, a poverty eradication and sustainable development issue.
In short, this is a complex and an urgent issue. Sometimes, especially in low- and middle-income countries it is a matter of life and death.

In this spirit, we call on ECOSOC, on WHO, on UNDP, UNDESA and on UNICEF to put the situation of children of alcoholics on their agenda. Using the collaborative synergies of the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda2030, we urge the UN system to exercise leadership and seriously explore ways forward to address and improve the situation of millions of children around the world.

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