A woman’s right to control her own body is a pre-condition for sustainable development

Without women’s contribution, it will be impossible to achieve sustainable development, which implies a three-pronged demand for social equity, economic efficiency, and environmental quality, and imposes respect for fundamental principles, including solidarity and participation by everyone in the collective effort.

The fact that women, who constitute half of humanity, are the object of discrimination and of sometimes extreme violence is one of the main obstacles to a sustainable development as defined above.

This is a question not only of justice, but also of efficiency, in that women have the primary responsibility for the care of children and, moreover, in many societies they play a major social role in managing natural resources such as water and energy, and in agriculture.

Consequently, it is essential to implement programmes to eliminate such discrimination and situations of violence so that women can become full economic players.

We cannot side-step the essentials

The complexity of the cultural, social, economic and legal implications of action programmes dealing with gender relations in society leads us to fear that future conferences on these subjects will merely produce a rash of proposals similar to those already put forth in the past. The risk is that they will overlook an essential requirement that precedes all the others: the immediate and unreserved recognition of a woman’s fundamental right to control her body.

As has already been stressed in a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (Anand Grover, Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, in accordance with Human Rights Council resolutions 15/22 and 6/29 —report presented to the United Nations General Assembly A/66/254: distributed on 3 August 2011/Sixty-sixth session), what is at issue here is a right to health, which States have a duty to respect:

“Realization of the right to health requires the removal of barriers that interfere with individual decision-making on health-related issues and with access to health services, education and information, in particular on health conditions that only affect women and girls. In cases where a barrier is created by a criminal law or other legal restriction, it is the obligation of the State to remove it. The removal of such laws and legal restrictions is not subject to resource constraints and can thus not be seen as requiring only progressive realization. Barriers arising from criminal laws and other laws and policies affecting sexual and reproductive health must therefore be immediately removed in order to ensure full enjoyment of the right to health.”

Rights and sustainable development go hand in hand

It is clear that women cannot become full economic players unless they are able to choose the number and the timing of the children they will bear.

Today the link between demographics and women’s education level is recognized in Europe, where the decline in demographic growth has been brought about by access to contraception and abortion, linked to the education level of girls. The reverse side of the coin is that when demographics are not controlled by the women concerned, this leads to the abandonment of studies.

When it comes to the environmental aspect, the latest UN projections of the world population place it at 10 billion human beings by the year 2050. While we know that the ecological footprint of a Bengali baby is much smaller than that of a French baby, there is no denying that demographic growth and population imbalances have a severe impact on the environment. Moreover, many international reports show that, in most developing countries, these imbalances associated with climatic disruption are exacerbating women’s poverty, their food insecurity, and the violence committed against them.

In conclusion, while recognition of women’s right to control their fertility, including through resort to abortion, seems essential in order to guarantee their autonomy throughout the world, this issue is in fact underestimated, marginalized and even excluded from the matters debated in many international meetings, under cultural, religious or geopolitical pretexts.

In the end, there can be no sustainable development without respect for the fundamental rights of individuals, starting with the right of women to exercise free control over their body.

The post Statement to CSW60 submitted by CLEF, EWL and IAW appeared first on International Alliance of Women.

Dear Colleagues

I invite you to join this global effort to end child, early and forced
marriage. Many of us have been pushing and lobbying for this issue to be
in the post 2015 agenda. Real change has to happen in communities, where
we have to address the root causes and give opportunities for girls. When
I was appointed the African Union Goodwill Ambassador for the Campaign to
End Child Marriage, its was clear to me that we have to galvanise this
strong social movement that builds o efforts already underway, and we need
a very strong action in Africa.
I invite you to join this facebook page and support this effort.

Please LIKE and Share. I treasure your support

https://www.facebook.com/pages/End-Child-Marriage-in-Africa-Citizens-Campaign/663684157050884​

Thank you.

The post Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, African Union Goodwill Ambassador for the Campaign to End Child Marriage, invites you to join the global effort appeared first on International Alliance of Women.

LAHORE: 

The Women Development Department in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the All Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA) on February 19 launched Decent Work for Domestic Workers (DW4DW), a skill development initiative to train 1,000 women at the APWA’s premises in Lahore.

Current situation
APWA Chairperson Ruhi Sayyid said, “There is a lack of reliable data…There are approximately 8.5 million domestic workers in Pakistan, most of them women…they also include a large number of boys and girls.”

She said domestic workers were a significant portion of the informal economy. These workers remain unregulated, are not covered by labour laws…are also vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation, she said.

DW4DW
Programme Manager Durre Shahwar told The Express Tribune that the programme aimed to provide high quality training to women in communication, health, safety and security in domestic work environment, personal health and safety, planning, organising and managing their work.

The APWA’s premises will be modified into a training facility and four staff members will be trained as co-facilitators to conduct similar training sessions in the future. She said upon completing training, the participants will be registered with placement service providers.

Shahwar said the women will also be taught basic principles of hygiene and how to clean and maintain bedrooms. She said the programme aimed at training women as certified domestic workers with enhanced capacities to manage household tasks.

She said they also aimed to establish a data bank of trainees and link them to placement service providers, initiate a legislative framework for domestic workers and advocate for the ratification of the ILO convention on domestic workers. “We hope to engage women parliamentarians in this programme,” said Shahwar.

She said at least 90 per cent of the trainees will be able to get jobs that will raise their income levels by 30 to 50 per cent.

She said the women would also be trained in occupational health and safety, personal hygiene and grooming, time management, protection against various types of harassment and communication and negotiation skills, and made aware of their rights and responsibilities.

The APWA will also advocate minimum wage legislation for domestic workers and mandatory written contracts between employees and employers specifying responsibilities, work hours, time of wage payment, benefits and notice periods, she said.

Legislation
Advocate Shamsa Ali, head of legal aid at the APWA, said in 2011 the ILO had adopted the Domestic Workers’ Convention 189. She said the C-189 called for specific protection to domestic workers. The standards specified under it had helped create a momentum for the recognition of domestic workers as employees with salient rights, just like any other worker.

Salient features of the convention include the promotion and protection of human rights for all domestic workers, respect for fundamental principles and rights at work, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, protection against all forms of abuse, harassment and violence, fair terms of employment and decent living conditions, reasonable working hours, weekly rest of at least 24 consecutive hours, a limit on in-kind payment and clear information on the terms and conditions of employment.

Ali said if Pakistan ratified the C-189, the status of domestic workers could be enhanced. It would also reflect well on the government showing its commitment to human and workers’ rights and women’s empowerment.

She said several countries had started changing policies and laws on domestic workers. In Pakistan, a bill has been drafted and recently submitted to the Senate. Ali said the bill carried elaborate provisions on age, contract signing, minimum wage, social security and formation of associations or trade unions. “This is a welcome step, but if we really want to make a difference, we need a profound change in attitude towards the profession,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2014.

The post Decent Work for Domestic Workers (DW4DW) appeared first on International Alliance of Women.