Mother and daughters eke a living from street food stall outside their house in Fajara, The Gambia. Support for small businesses and women's access to decent work should form part of the post-2015 agenda. Photo by: Sylvia Chant / LSE.
By Sylvia Chant, Gwendolyn Beetham
In 1975, the United Nations held the first World Conference on Women in Mexico City. Planned to coincide with the U.N.’s International Women’s Year, the gathering triggered an explosion in research on gender around the globe, with poverty featuring prominently.
Four decades later, the task set out for us as the editors of the recently published four volume Routledge major works collection "Gender, Poverty and Development" was no small one, and it came at a timely moment. As we get closer to the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, development practitioners, policymakers and researchers worldwide have been debating the successes and failures of the poverty reduction framework set out in the MDGs.
For gender advocates, one of the main critiques of the MDGs was that gender was not fully integrated throughout each of the eight goals, and that, as a result, the focus on these goals caused gender to remain heavily circumscribed in poverty reduction policy and programming.
Daniela Cojocaru (left) and Chiara Dimastromatteo, both 16, stand next to a graffiti-covered wall in Turin, Italy. Daniela is originally from Moldova. Chiara does not attend school and does not have a job. Photo: UNICEF/Giacomo Pirozzi
Some 2.6 million children have sunk below the poverty line in the world’s most affluent countries since 2008, negatively impacted by the wave of recessions that rippled through their economies following the meltdown of blue chip financial intuitions, according to a new United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report out today.
“Many affluent countries have suffered a great leap backwards in terms of household income, and the impact on children will have long-lasting repercussions for them and their communities,” said Jeffrey O’Malley, UNICEF’s Head of Global Policy and Strategy in a press release.
The findings were published in a new report released by the agency, which ranks 41 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union according to whether levels of child poverty have increased or decreased since 2008.
The Security Council held an open debate on women, peace and security, with a focus on the theme, “Displaced women and girls: leaders and survivors.” UN Photo/Amanda Voisard
As the world is swept by unparalleled levels of displacement, festering conflicts, and a convergence of crises, the international community must fully endorse the role of women's empowerment and gender equality in ensuring global peace, security and development, the Security Council and top United Nations officials declared today.
In a unanimously adopted Presidential Statement this morning ahead of a day-long debate on “women, peace and security,” the Security Council reaffirmed the need to dismantle the “persistent barriers” facing gender equality, calling on Member States to embrace a “dedicated commitment to women's empowerment, participation, and human rights” and ensure their full and equal participation in peace and security issues.
Held annually, the Council's open debate provides an opportunity for the wider UN membership to reflect on the progress made, and accelerate action on implementation of the Security Council resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, which requires parties in a conflict to respect women's rights and support their participation in peace negotiations and in post-conflict reconstruction.
Future Policy Award 2014: Duluth Model Is World’s Best Policy
Hamburg/Geneva/New York – 14 October 2014: The “Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence” by the City of Duluth in the US State of Minnesota is the winner of the 2014 Future Policy Award for Ending Violence against Women and Girls. It beat 24 other nominated policies to the prize. The Gold Award is to be presented to Minnesota Representative Michael Paymar from the Minnesota House of Representatives today at a ceremony in Geneva by the World Future Council, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women.
The “Duluth Model” won the Gold Award for effectively prioritizing the safety and autonomy of survivors while holding perpetrators to account through a coordinated response involving the whole community. This approach to implementing legislation on violence against women has since inspired violence protection laws and policies in other countries such as Austria, Germany, UK, Romania, and Australia.
On learning about the Gold prize for the pioneering “Duluth Model”, which he helped initiate with the late Dr. Ellen Pence in the early 1980s, Representative Paymar said: “This is a great honor. We never imagined the global impact that the Duluth Model would have, but more importantly how many lives would be saved”.
If we look recently at the case of the young woman hung to death in Iran, and the 23 women human rights defenders sentenced to 3 years in prison (after time in prison waiting for trial), we see examples of how judicial accountability can be exceedingly important to women. We see human rights advocates, citizens against corporate abuse, extremely poor women trying to get justice for violation of their rights, and the challenges on all levels for defending our human rights as women in this complex world. This report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Indpendence of Judges and Lawyers, is an important resource.
This Special Rapporteur also presented at our UN Panel Against Stoning of Women at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Her Statement at this Panel is Attached.
Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Report of the Special Rapporteuron the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul
UN Human Rights Council - Session 20 stop stoning globally - UN processes - International law
Извор: WUNRN – 28.10.2014
