This contribution is published as part of the Think Piece Series Let's Talk about Women's Rights: 20 Years after the Beijing Platform for Action. In this series, leading feminist thinkers discuss achievements in the field of women’s rights and gender equality; identify the challenges faced in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action; and consider ways of moving forward. They offer both critical insights and highlight opportunities for realizing women’s rights after 2015. Please share your thoughts on this article in the comments space below.
For decades, the women’s rights movement and women’s rights organizations have been severely underfunded. AWID research in 2010 revealed that the median budget for 740 women’s organizations all over the globe was a miserly US$20,000. In the same year, as a point of reference, the income for Save the Children International and World Vision International was US$1.442 billion and US$2.611 billion respectively. This is in spite of recent research which proves what feminists and activists have known for a long time—that women’s movements have been the key drivers defending women’s human rights and gender justice worldwide. As the world commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Conference this year, creates the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and holds the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development, it is critical to remember that real systemic impact for women’s rights needs significant resources.
— AIDS-Free World’s Campaign Calls for Removal of Immunity and Commission of Inquiry into UN’s Handling of Sexual Violence in Peacekeeping Missions —
New York, May 13, 2015 — Speaking just steps from UN headquarters today, celebrated experts Ms. Graça Machel, Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire, Ms. Theo Sowa, and Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury joined international advocacy organization AIDS-Free World to launch Code Blue, a campaign to end immunity for sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.
Recent revelations of child sexual abuse by French and other troops in the Central African Republic, the UN’s documentation of those crimes, and its failure over the next year to report the perpetrators or to protect the victims, are just the latest in a shameful litany of tolerance for sexual abuse and subsequent UN cover-ups.
For more than two decades, the media and non-governmental organizations have uncovered depraved acts by UN peacekeepers, including human trafficking in Bosnia, sex-for-food scandals in West Africa, and the rapes of women and children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With each new exposé, the UN re-asserts its policy of ‘zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse.’
For International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and TransphobiaSunday 17 May 2015
Speaking ahead of the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, a group of United Nations and international human rights experts* call for an end to discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex young people and children.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, a group of United Nations human rights experts, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe urge Governments worldwide to protect these young people and children from violence and discrimination, and to integrate their views on policies and laws that affect their rights.
“Around the world, children and young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) or intersex, or seen as such, still face stigma, discrimination and violence because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation and gender identity, or because their bodies differ from typical definitions of female or male.
As several countries around the world prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day, two new ILO studies provide new global and country data that point to the urgent need to increase social protection for mothers and children.
GENEVA (ILO News) – The lack of access to social protection* is still a reality for a large number of mothers and children worldwide, according to two studies released by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The Social protection for maternity: Key policy trends and statistics report shows that only 36 per cent of employed women are legally entitled to cash benefits during their maternity leave. In practice, however, maternity leave legislation is not implemented effectively, so only 28 per cent of working women are covered in case of maternity.
The study, Social protection for children: key policy trends and statistics , also paints a worrying picture. It shows that while there has been an explosion of small cash transfer schemes in recent years, there is also a considerable gap with regard to the availability of adequate child and family benefits. According to the study, 108 countries have specific child and family benefit programmes rooted in legislation, but they often cover small groups.
