By Silvia Romanelli
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2013 (IPS)

Women around the world are exposed to domestic violence, sexual and economic exploitation, gender-based violence, female genital mutilation and child marriage. For indigenous women and girls, however, the risk of being victims of such issues is especially high.

In light of this fact, the Philippines-based Tebtebba Foundation advocates for indigenous peoples’ rights, working to ensure that the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is properly implemented.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, executive director of the Tebtebba Foundation for indigenous rights. Photo credit of Victoria Taul-Corpuz.

In an interview with IPS, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, executive director of the Tebtebba Foundation and chair of the Asia Indigenous Women’s Network, discussed how indigenous women and girls can confront discriminatory practises and how the international community can support them in doing so.

Tauli-Corpuz also worked as lead consultant on the report “Breaking the Silence on Violence Against Indigenous Girls, Adolescents and Young Women“, a joint effort of different U.N. agencies aiming at addressing “the ‘statistical silence’ around violence against indigenous girls and women”.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: In some cultures, women’s submission to men and acts of violence against women and girls are seen as part of the cultural tradition. How can this idea be addressed?

A: Violence against women and girls is a violation of human rights and should not be tolerated in any way, even through qualifying it as “part of local tradition” or as something “cultural”.

Violence is experienced by individual women, although there are situations which make women that belong to a particular group, such as an indigenous people, who are at higher risk of suffering from violence because of historical and current situations of colonisation, domination, racism and discrimination.

If there are cultural practises that promote violence against indigenous women and girls, these should be severely criticised and changed."If there are cultural practises that promote violence against indigenous women and girls, these should be severely criticised and changed."
-- Victoria Tauli-Corpuz

Q: How can effective measures against violence be implemented in indigenous groups in which the internal hierarchy of family and social obligations are particularly important?

A: Measures to address violence against indigenous women and girls can be effectively implemented if state agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) take certain steps.

They can help strengthen indigenous women’s organisations to address this issue, document and monitor this phenomenon, and help local governments to implement gender and culturally sensitive ways of handling this issue and to develop programs with budgets.

They can also help raise awareness among indigenous peoples (traditional authorities, indigenous organisations, including women’s organisations) of women and children’s rights and of violence against women and girls.

Q: Colonialism has led some indigenous peoples to internalise racism and indigenous women to accept violence. Could you discuss the relationship between colonialism and violence against indigenous women?

A: Colonialism, which is linked with patriarchy, has deprived indigenous women of their basic human rights to own and control their own lands, territories and resources. It has perpetuated racism and discrimination against indigenous women to the point where some of them deny their indigenous identities and try to emulate the colonisers’ ways.

This is just one way women internalise their oppression, which makes them highly vulnerable to trafficking and prostitution.

Alcoholism and drug dependence have also been used by colonisers to dehumanise indigenous men, and colonial patriarchy has reinforced or promoted machismo among the men. These are factors that lead to violence against indigenous women and girls.

Colonisers’ efforts to extract minerals, oil and gas from indigenous territories also led them to build enclaves where male workers live and prostituted women are brought in.

Q: Sometimes the state exacerbates factors that lead to violence against women and girls and can even perpetrate some forms of violence itself, such as with discriminatory policies or culturally insensitive education and health services. In these cases, what can bodies of the United Nations do?

A: The United Nations can help facilitate possibilities and opportunities for indigenous women to use U.N. treaty bodies, like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) or the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), or the Human Rights Committee, to file complaints against discriminatory policies and programmes of states.

The special representative of the secretary-general on violence against women and children can also visit countries where cases of violence against indigenous women and girls are reported.

U.N. agencies and funds like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), U.N. Women and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), should allot more technical and financial assistance to address this issue at the country, regional and global levels.

Q: The U.N. report “Breaking the Silence” is based on the assumption that violence against indigenous girls and women should be addressed as a specific problem, within but distinct from the phenomenon of violence against women in general. Does this approach risk putting a label on these women? How can it help tackle the problem?

A: Asking that violence against indigenous women and girls be addressed as a specific problem is just stating the fact that if there are few services to address this issue for women and girls in general, this is even more so for indigenous women and girls. It does not risk labelling them. It is just naming the problem so that this can be addressed more appropriately, adequately and effectively.

It is also to clarify that indigenous women generally do not agree that culture or tradition should be used to justify the violence they suffer from and to highlight that the people who are most effective in dealing with this issue are indigenous women and girls who are empowered to assert their rights as women and as indigenous persons.

Excerpt:

Hardly a day goes by without a news story on some violation of women’s rights. In recent months, appalling incidents of violence against women and girls, from Delhi to Johannesburg to Cleveland, have sparked public outrage and demands to tackle these horrific abuses.

Lakshmi Puri. UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz

In Bangladesh and Cambodia, the shocking loss of life by garment factory workers, many of them women, sparked global debate on how to secure safe and decent jobs in our globalised economy. In Europe, the disproportionate impact on women of austerity cuts, and the use of quotas to get more women on corporate boards continue to make headlines.

Even though women have made real gains, we are constantly reminded how far we have to go to realise equality between men and women.

World leaders recognised the pervasiveness of discrimination and violence against women and girls when they signed onto the visionary Millennium Declaration in 2000. Amongst the eight Millennium Development Goals, they included a goal to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

With these goals set to expire in 2015, we are now in a race to achieve them. We are also in the midst a global conversation about what should replace them. It’s time for women to move from the sidelines to the centre.

In a new post-2015 development agenda, we must build on the achievements of the MDGs while avoiding their shortcomings. Everyone agrees that the goals have galvanised progress to reduce poverty and discrimination, and promote education, gender equality, health and safe drinking water and sanitation.

The goal on gender equality and women’s empowerment tracked progress on school enrolment, women’s share of paid work, and women’s participation in parliament. It triggered global attention and action. It served to hold governments accountable, mobilise much-needed resources, and stimulate new laws, policies, programmes and data.

But there are glaring omissions. Noticeably absent is any reference to ending violence against women and girls. Also missing are other fundamental issues, such as women’s right to own property and the unequal division of household and care responsibilities.

By failing to address the structural causes of discrimination and violence against women and girls, progress towards equality has been stalled. Of all the MDGs, the least progress has been made on MDG5, to reduce maternal mortality. The fact that this has been the hardest goal to reach testifies to the depth and scope of gender inequality.

To make greater progress, UN Women proposes a stand-alone goal to achieve gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment that is grounded in human rights and tackles unequal power relations. We envision three areas that require urgent action.

First, ending violence against women and girls must be a priority. From sexual violence in the camps of Haiti and Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to intimate partner shootings in the United States and elsewhere, this violence causes untold physical and psychological harm. It is one of the most pervasive human rights violations, and carries tremendous costs for individuals, families and societies.

Second, women and men need equal opportunities, resources and responsibilities to realize equality. Equal access to land and credit, natural resources, education, health services including sexual and reproductive health, decent work and equal pay needs to be addressed with renewed urgency. Policies, such as child care and parental leave, are needed to relieve working women’s double duty so women and men can enjoy equality at work and at home.

And third, women’s voices must be heard. It is time for women to participate equally in decision making in the household, the private sector and institutions of governance. Despite progress in recent years, women comprise just 20 percent of parliamentarians and 27 percent of judges. For democracy to be meaningful and inclusive, women’s voices and leadership must be amplified in all public and private spaces.

Any new development agenda must be grounded in human rights agreements that governments have already signed onto. This includes the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, and U.N. resolutions, including the recent agreement of the Commission on the Status of Women on eliminating and preventing all forms of violence against women and girls.

There is plenty of evidence to show that countries with a higher status of women also enjoy higher levels of social and economic performance. There is also evidence to guide countries on what works, from equitable labour market policies, to the removal of discriminatory laws and policies, to universal social protection and social services, to security and justice reforms that end impunity for violence against women and girls. The activism of the women’s movement everywhere has been critical in demanding and driving change in all of these areas.

The discussions to shape the post-2015 global development agenda offer a real opportunity to drive lasting change for women’s rights and equality. A strong global goal can push our societies to the tipping point of rejecting violence and discrimination against women and girls and unleash the potential of half the population for a more peaceful, just and prosperous world and a sustainable planet.

*Lakshmi Puri is Acting Head of UN Women and Assistant Secretary-General.

The face of migration is changing dramatically as women and girls now represent about half of the over 214 million migrants worldwide.

Bolivian migrant in the airport in El Alto, next to La Paz. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS

And in some regions of the world, they outnumber their male counterparts, says Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Addressing a weeklong meeting of the 46th session of the U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD), which concluded Friday, he pointed out that many women migrate on their own as heads of households, to secure a livelihood.

“Others leave their homes in search of more open societies, to get out of a bad marriage, or to escape all forms of discrimination and gender-based violence, political conflicts, and cultural constraints.”

Like other migrants, Dr. Osotimehin said, women contribute to the well-being of their households, through remittances that benefit the family.

An increasing number of migrants were women and children who bore the brunt of human rights violations around the world.

After a contentious debate, the CPD adopted a belated consensus resolution late Friday, recognising the central role of sexual and reproductive rights giving it prominent visibility.

This year’s CPD session focused on new trends in international migration. And the change in the gender composition among migrants is one of the growing new developments.

Yasmeen Hassan, global director of the New York-based Equality Now, told IPS, “In our experience, the so-called migration of women is deeply linked to trafficking, whether for sex or for domestic labour.”

She said women who see themselves as voluntary migrants find themselves trapped in situations of deep exploitation.

“And these are made possible and exacerbated by their vulnerable legal situation, their lack of social and family contacts, their isolation, their inability often to understand the language or to access systems of protection,” she said.

These factors make them a very attractive target of traffickers, said Hassan, formerly with the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women and who worked on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Speaking on behalf of the United States, Margaret Pollack said women migrants were often the victims of exploitation and sexual abuse, often lacking access to health care. She said this was particularly true for young migrants and others belonging to vulnerable migrant populations, such as LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) persons and the disabled.

Pollack called for specific policies aimed at helping those groups and for the collection of data on the abuses to which migrants were subjected.

A study released last week by the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO) said an estimated 600,000 migrant workers “are tricked and trapped into forced labour across the Middle East”.

Based on more than 650 interviews conducted over a two-year period in several countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the report points out the Middle East alone hosts millions of migrant workers, who in some cases exceed the number of national workers substantially.

In Qatar, about 94 percent of workers are migrants and in Saudi Arabia the figure is over 50 percent.

Last month a Sri Lankan maid, accused of allegedly killing an infant in her care, was beheaded in Saudi Arabia.

“Human trafficking can only be effectively tackled by addressing the systemic gaps in labour migration governance across the region,” Frank Hagemann, ILO deputy regional director for the Arab States, told the commission.

The resolution, adopted by the commission, calls on all member states to ensure migration is integrated into national and sectoral development policies, strategies and programmes.

At the same time, there should be due consideration to the linkages between migration and development in the further implementation of the 1994 Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, and in the elaboration of the post-2015 development agenda.

The resolution specifically calls for the protection of the rights of migrant women and children, including those related to sexual and reproductive rights.

In a new report on migration released last week, the United Nations says new poles of economic growth in the global South have created new migratory flows between countries of the South.

In recent years, there has also been a significant increase in migration from developing to developed countries.

“Growth in migration from the South to the North has generated significant remittance flows to the South that can spur economic growth,” the report said.

And according to the World Bank, officially recorded remittances to developing countries reached 406 billion dollars in 2012.

Many of the rapidly growing economies in East and Southeast Asia, South America and West Africa have become poles for migration within their respective regions, the study adds. In addition, the oil-producing countries of Western Asia and some countries of Southern Europe experienced a rapid growth in the numbers of international migrants between 1990 and 2010.

Following the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, some trends slowed or reversed temporarily, but more recent national data indicate that migration to most of those countries rose in 2011.

The treaty is a practical blueprint for countries to achieve equal rights for women and girls. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 8 2013 (IPS)

The United States continues to be in the dubious company of six countries that have either refused or are reluctant to ratify the landmark U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Now a coalition of more than 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), human rights groups and women’s organisations is renewing a longstanding demand for U.S. ratification of the treaty.

The reason for the renewed demand? A record number of 20 women senators, including existing and newly-elected, who took the oath of office last week.

So far, 187 out of 194 countries have ratified CEDAW, but the non-ratifiers include Iran, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Palau, Tonga and the United States.

June Zeitlin, director of the CEDAW Education Project at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told IPS, “The (current) 113th Congress has the highest number of women the U.S. Senate has ever achieved.”

Asked how confident she was of a possible ratification, she said women in the U.S. Senate have often come together as a bipartisan group to advance women’s issues, including in relation to violence against women.

“We believe this is an unprecedented opportunity to move forward on CEDAW and issues of women’s human rights,” Zeitlin added.

A renewed campaign seeking ratification of the treaty is being spearheaded by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and GlobalSolutions.org.

In a letter to senators last week, the coalition said the record number of women senators will fuel momentum for ratification of the U.N. treaty which declares that women’s rights are human rights.

The landmark international agreement, which affirms principles of fundamental human rights and equality for women around the world, has the strong support of President Barack Obama.

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Lakshmi Puri, deputy executive director of U.N. Women, told IPS that the United States, through its advocacy, policies and programmes domestically and abroad, has shown significant leadership in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

“U.N. Women looks forward to continuing its strong partnership with the United States government to improve the lives of women and girls everywhere,” she added.

As part of its mandate, Puri pointed out, U.N. Women promotes and supports the implementation and reporting on CEDAW, often described as an international bill of rights for women.

“The convention and its monitoring committee have played a vital role in the quest for the elimination of discrimination against women and the achievement of gender equality,” she added.

U.N. Women hopes that more countries will join the convention to get closer to the goal of universal ratification and accelerate efforts to ensure the convention’s full implementation, Puri added.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted CEDAW back in 1979. The treaty consists of a preamble and 30 articles, which according to the United Nations, “defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.”

And countries that have ratified CEDAW are legally bound to put its provisions into practice.

In 1982, the General Assembly also established a U.N. committee, composed of 23 experts on women’s issues worldwide, to monitor progress in the implementation of the treaty and review national reports.

In its letter, the NGO coalition said that while in previous sessions of the U.S. Congress, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has held hearings on the treaty and has favourably reported it out of committee with bipartisan support, CEDAW has never been brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

The coalition said it seeks to make ratification of CEDAW a priority for the United States Senate in the 113th session of Congress.

“The record breaking number of women who will serve in the 113th Congress lends significant momentum for the United States to increase its global leadership role on women’s rights issues,” it said.

The letter said 20 female senators will either return to or take office in the Senate – “a truly historic accomplishment”.

It says the treaty is also a practical blueprint for each country to achieve progress for women and girls.

CEDAW is already making a difference for women and girls worldwide, specifically by strengthening civil society’s efforts to persuade governments to respect women’s human rights and adopt policies to reduce sex trafficking and domestic violence; provide access to education and vocational training; ensure the right to vote; end forced and child marriages; secure inheritance rights; and ensure the right to work and own a business without discrimination.

The letter also said ratification of CEDAW would strengthen the United States’ standing as a global leader in standing up for women and girls.

“It is essential that the U.S. ratify CEDAW and continue to play a leadership role in advancing women’s and girl’s rights globally,” the letter added.

The United States is the only Western industrialised nation that has not ratified the treaty.

The approval of the treaty requires two-thirds of the vote in the Senate: 67 out of 100 senators in a legislative body which is still predominantly male. The Senate approves or rejects a resolution of ratification.

According to Senate archives, the U.S. Senate has approved more than 1,500 treaties and rejected only 21 over the last 200 years.

The NGO signatories to the letter include: United Nations Association – USA (UNA-USA), Women’s Environment and Development Organisation, Women’s Equity Council, American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, International Federation of Women Lawyers, International Women’s Rights Action Watch, Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch.

In 2008, delegates meeting for the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) agreed that much greater investments in women and gender equality were a critical – and overlooked – aspect of sustainable development.

For example, according to UN Women, while the international community gave 7.5 billion dollars in official development assistance to rural development and the agricultural sector in 2008–2009, a mere three percent was spent on programmes in which gender equality was a principal objective, and only 32 percent to those in which gender equality was a secondary objective.

Four years later, there has been some forward movement in a number of countries, but in many others, progress remains slow and uneven, a situation that is exacerbated by the ongoing global financial crisis.

Rural women continue to face limited access to productive resources, such as agricultural inputs and technology; only five percent of agricultural extension services are provided for women farmers.

As the CSW meets again here from Feb 27 to Mar. 9, panellists from around the world sat down Thursday to evaluate the evolution of financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment in their home countries, and chart a way forward.

“It’s time to promote gender equality and for that purpose we need a change of paradigm, we definitely need to change our way of thinking,” said Maria Almeida, vice finance minister of Ecuador.

Cambodia

Dr. Ing Phavi, minister of women’s affairs in Cambodia, cited a series of measures taken by the Cambodian government that have proved successful in enhancing gender equality across different areas.

“In Cambodia, in the context of a public administration reform, the prime minister has launched a major drive in 2008 to address the gender imbalance in the public administration,” she said.

As a result of extensive promotion across ministries and affirmative action policies, the number of female civil servants increased by 34 percent. At the sub-national level, more women were appointed as deputy governors or heads of government departments.

“In education, gender disparity has been eliminated in the primary and lower secondary education,” she noted. “Remarkably, with the focus on training and deploying female teachers, the female ratio at the primary level reached 46 percent in 2009/2010.”

However, fewer girls than boys continue on to get a higher education.

Asked what more needs to be done, Phavi told IPS, “The most important thing to understand is that gender equality is a government policy and it has to mainstream the poverty reduction strategy.

“Poverty reduction means taking care of growth, trade, agriculture development, well-being in terms of health, education and so on,” she said. “Gender is already inside all sectors so it should be part of the poverty reduction strategy.”

Morocco

Mohammed Chafiki, director of studies and financial forecasts for the ministry of economy and finance in Morocco, spoke about Morocco’s transition to equal rights and liberties for men and women.

In April 2011, the country ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a key instrument often described as an international bill of rights for women.

Morocco also adopted a new constitution in July that included many articles which expressly enshrined gender equality. For example, Article 19 affirms that men and women have equal civil, political, economic, cultural and environmental rights and liberties.

“In Morocco, we now need to continue the institutional reform. We are reforming our financial laws so it integrates gender considerations irreversibly,” Chafiki told IPS.

“But in order to move forward with gender equality, it is not all about the government. Local communities will also have to take concrete actions,” he said.

“To finance gender equality and women empowerment, we also need partnerships. We need partnerships with the private sector, with NGOs, with governments, of course, and we need international cooperation.”

Chafiki cited significant progress in reducing educational disparities as one of the country’s primary achievements.

“In 2010/2011, 96.3 percent of the girls from six to 11 years old are sent to school,” he said.

Austria

Gerhard Steger, director general of budget for the ministry of finance in Austria, explained how the government now integrates gender considerations into budgets.

The concept of gender responsive budgeting (GRB) was included in a comprehensive budget reform package that was unanimously adopted by parliament. It features a medium-term expenditure framework, accrual budgeting and accounting and performance budgeting.

“First of all, we transformed our budget from a traditional steering instrument of resources, asking the question ‘who gets what?’, into a comprehensive instrument for resources and results,” Steger told IPS.

“So we ask two questions: who gets what, and who has to deliver what for public management,” he added.

“We ask each and every ministry to define no more than five top objectives for the ministry, which are part of the budget decision in parliament, and at least one of those objectives has to be a gender objective.

“Gender is directly interpreted into the performance budgeting process in Austria. Therefore every ministry has to contribute – with no exceptions.”

Steger stressed crucial lessons that can be drawn from the Austrian experience.

“To make GRB a success, the design needs to be simple and focused on the most important aspects. If the design is too complex, GRB will very likely be a failure,” he said.

“We also have to make gender relevant and thus integrate it into the budget and to create awareness for gender issues to convince decision makers to support GRB.”

While national governments must take the lead, key agencies like UN Women are also working hard to steer funds into gender-oriented development.

On Thursday, UN Women announced it will give out 10.5 million dollars in grants to organisations working to advance economic and political empowerment of women in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.

The grants will start at 200,000 dollars for initiatives that “make tangible improvements in the lives of women and girls, from enabling women candidates to run for office, to managing resources to support themselves and their families.”

“At this moment of historic change, we cannot afford to leave women out. These grants will advance women’s efforts to achieve greater economic and political equality during this time of transition,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director for UN Women.

Since its creation in 2009, the Fund has invested a total of 43 million dollars in 40 countries around the world for projects working for gender equality.

(END)