Subject: [fem-women2000 611] Onsite Report from 45th Session of the UNCSW - No. 3
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 09:36:51 +0900
Seq: 611
---------------- Original message follows ---------------- From: kathy clarin <kathy@isiswomen.org> To: apwomen2000@isiswomen.org Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 15:44:54 +0800 Subject: [apwomen2000] Onsite Report from 45th Session of the UNCSW - No. 3 -- Distributed by Isis International-Manila - linking women, sharing knowledge, engendering change -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Onsite Report from 45th Session of the UNCSW - No. 3 source: Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, Isis International-Manila <mavic@isiswomen.org> <fgballeza@yahoo.com> date: 03.08.01 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are two reports on the 45th Session of the UNCSW for the day--07 March 2001. Please note that there are two stories for today. Thank you, Mavic ***** 07 March 2001 Onsite report from the 45th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, 1 Covering herself with the chadari (or Bunqa in Afghanistan, a veil that completely covers a woman's body, with only a net patch for the eye area, that the Talibans require Afghan women to wear), Nasrine Gross of NEGAR-Support of Women of Afghanistan called attention to the plight of Afghan women under the ruling of the Talibans. Speaking in today's NGO briefing prior to the official session, Ms. Gross referred to the regime of the Taliban militia as an example of an extreme violation of human rights. According to her, the Talibans have officially taken away Afghan women's right to education, work, health, and freedom of movement rendering them practically prisoners in their own homes. Afghan women are not allowed to leave their homes unless accompanied by their husbands or other male relatives.In the most extreme situation, Afghan women are thrown to material and moral destitution. Gross likewise presented the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women, which is an outcome of the meeting of several hundreds of Afghan women on 28 June 2000 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The Declaration affirms the rights of Afghan women spelled out in the Afghan constitution as well as in numerous international conventions and declarations. She emphasized that Afghan women reject the false assertions of the Taliban militia that these rights are in contradiction with the religion, culture and traditions of Afghan society. A number of NGO delegates made interventions on the floor to express strong support to the struggle of Afghan women. The NEGAR-Support of Women of Afghanistan may be contacted at: BP 10, 25770 Franois, France. Tel: (0148) 350-756; Fax: (0381) 590-439; E-mail: <negar@wanadoo.fr> ***** 07 March 2001 Onsite report from the 45th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, 2 "Contemporary racism is often characterised by denial of existence of racism,' thus stated Elize Delport of the Commission on Gender Equality in South Africa in her presentation at the Panel Discussion and Briefing on the World Conference Against Racism. According to Delport, some of the most common questions that women activists asserting gender perspective in the Racism discourse are often accused of dividing the movement against racism. A fact that she says should not go unchallenged since failure to respond to discrimination at the intersection of race and gender has serious consequences. Delport identified the following experiences of African women that highlight the intersectionality of race and gender issues: Harmful traditional practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which was first brought to the attention of the World Health Organisation in 1958. However, WHO rejected the request of the UN Economic and Social Council on the grounds that "the ritual operations in question are based on social and cultural backgrounds, the study of which is outside the competence of WHO." Nothing happened for 20 years and FGM as a health hazard , was only addressed again in 1979 when the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean conducted a seminar on "Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children." Another traditional practice that serves a barrier to African women's full enjoyment of their human rights is virginity testing. Support for this practice is premised on the desire to reject Western culture; the prevention of the further spread of HIV/AIDS; the prevention of teenage pregnancy; the promotion of morality; detection of cases of sexual abuse and incest; and the preservation of virginity before marriage. Health - the most glaring example of this is the disproportionately high rate of HIV/AIDS amongst African women. Another is the high incidence of malaria and cholera. Gender bias against African women is evident in government policies, programmes and practices. Forced sterilization and other coercive measures on reproduction have also targeted women of particular racial groups. In South Africa for instance, reports have been received that some Black women were being forced by their employers to use experimental reproductive technology such as Depo Provera. Education - Delport cited a UNIFEM report that said: "Women's education and training are intimately linked to women's experience of poverty. UN treaties and declarations establish the right to education, including the right to educational opportunities. Despite these guarantees, a race and gender analysis indicates that women from certain disadvantaged racial, ethnic, immigrant and indigenous communities have lower rates of literacy, secondary school attendance and graduation, access to higher education , and enrolment in scientific and other training programmes that cultivate skilled workers." Violence Against Women - Delport stressed that while various human rights instruments prohibit state-sanctioned violence against individuals, the de facto position of African women has remained largely unchanged. Violence against women is rife, and the silence appears not to have been broken as successfully as elsewhere in the world. She cited the UNIFEM background paper on "Integrating Gender into the Third World Conference Against Racism" that reported: "In some cases where gender and race converge to make women of disadvantaged racial groups amongst the most powerless in society, rates of violence are particularly high. As an example, due to the lingering effects of apartheid and colonialism in South Africa, there is a high incidence of sexual violence by White male farmers who prey on African women farm workers who work on their lands. Aissata De Diop, another panelist underscored the fact that racism is not a scientific theory but rather a collection of opinions without logical conclusions and more or less precise biological data. She also added that neither biological superiority nor psychological difference have been proven by scientific research. De Diop also presented this definition of racism: "a generalised and definitive valorization of biological differences, whetehr real or imagined, favorable for the racist, devaluating the other, with the aimn to justify an aggression or privilege." The other panelists were Jane Real from the Asia-Pacific Women and Law and Development network and Yayori Matsui from the Violence Against Women Network. Real emphasized the Asia-Pacific women's position of bringing back gender into the Racism debate. She also drew attention to groups of women who are most vulnerable to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance such as women in situations of armed conflict; indigenous women; refugees and displaced women, women of certain religious groups; women in migration and trafficked women. Matsui, for her part, pointed out to the racism as manifested in the crimes committed by American soldiers stationed in US bases in Asia. According to her, crimes such as the rape of Korean women by American soldiers stationed in US military bases in Korea are an impossible occurrence in US military bases in Europe. In addition, Matsui shared some of the outcomes of the Tokyo International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women that took place in Japan in December 2000. The panel discussion was organised by the Women in Law and Development in Africa and FEMNET as a side event on the second day of the 45th Session of the UN Committee on the Status of Women. Prepared by Mavic Cabrera-Balleza Isis International-Manila 07 March 2001, New York _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. =============================================================== APWOMEN2000 is a general announcement list created to facilitate information and resource sharing for the NGO review process in Asia and the Pacific for the Beijing Platform for Action. Send postings to <owner-apwomen2000@isiswomen.org>. APWOMEN2000 is archived at: http://www.isiswomen.org/womenet/lists/apwomen2000/archive _________________________________________________________________________ fem-Women2000@jca.apc.org for Women 2000, UN Special Session on Beijing+5 Searcheable Archive http://www.jca.apc.org/fem/news/women2000/index.shtml visit fem-net HomePage for other mailing lists http://www.jca.apc.org/fem