Subject: [fem-women2000 629] Onsite Report from 45th Session of the UNCSW - No. 7 "Asia-Pacific Statement to the Racism Panel at the CSW"
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 00:51:05 -0500
Seq: 629

Subject: Onsite Report from 45th Session of the UNCSW  - No. 7, 
source:   Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, Isis International-Manila 
<mavic@isiswomen.org>
date: 03.14.01
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Asia-Pacific Statement to the Racism Panel at the CSW"

45th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW),
New York. USA, March 6-16, 2001

Statement of the Asia Pacific Caucus on Gender and Racism
Presented by: Maria Victoria Cabrera-Balleza, Isis International-Manila, 
on behalf of the Asia-Pacific Caucus

Honorable Chairperson, Distinguished Delegates and Fellow Members of the 
NGO Community

We, the women from the Asia-Pacific region currently attending the 45th 
Session of the UN CSW would like to draw attention to the specific ways in 
which caste-, race-, religious- and ethnic-based discrimination affects 
women in this region. In line with this, we urge you to include the 
concepts of the intersectionality of race and gender in your deliberations 
on the thematic issue of racism.

While it is acknowledged and clearly expressed in the Convention on the 
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that 
women are discriminated against on the basis of their sex, the specific 
and complex forms of discrimination that are experienced by women on 
account of their caste, race, national and ethnic origin, religion, 
descent, and
occupation is little understood.

We therefore recommend that the UN Member States attending this 45th 
Session of the UN CSW consider and include in their discussions the following:

1. The immediate ratification without reservations and the implementation 
of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial 
Discrimination (ICERD), the Rome Statute of the International Criminal 
Court, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination 
Against Women and particularly its Optional Protocol.

2. In the context of intersectionality of race and gender, it is important 
that the ICERD and CEDAW committees work more closely together to 
strengthen recommendations for legislation, policy and programmes that 
decisively address the multiple discrimination against women in racially, 
ethnically and economically marginalised communities.

3. Create temporary special measures as outlined in Art. 1 (4) of ICERD 
and Art. 6 of CEDAW to ensure conditions of equality for historically 
disadvantaged communities, including women, using a perspective that looks 
at the intersectionality of various forms of discrimination.

4. Review, reform, and enact  national and local laws related to violence 
against women to guarantee that they also address violence against women 
on the based on racism, racial, caste-based discrimination, xenophobia and 
related intolerance and that special programmes be created to address the 
needs of women victims of such forms of violence. In addition, governments 
should also invest resources in providing women victims of such violence 
with legal aid programmes and other forms of recourse.

5. Include a perspective on the intersectionality of various forms of 
discrimination in all educational programs, with a special focus on the 
eradication of stereotypes based on race, caste, sex, descent, national or 
ethnic origin, occupation and other factors.

6. Create special training programmes for public officials, members of the 
judiciary, and the legal profession and members of law enforcement 
agencies to make them more sensitive to the intersectionality of various 
forms of discrimination, with a special emphasis on gender-sensitivity.

7. Recognise the key role that the mass media including the Internet plays 
in shaping opinions and inculcating attitudes of tolerance, pluralism and 
avoidance of gender and racially stereotyped messages.

Thank you for your attention.




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