Today, at
the opening of CSW59 Lydia Alpizar, Executive Director of AWID (Association for
Women’s Rights in Development) made a strong statement on behalf of the NGO’s present,
pointing our joint concerns but also looking forward, calling for commitment on
key issues. Input for this was given from women’s rights activist worldwide
through the twittercampaign: #feministwant. The speech can also be found here.
Thank you
Ms. President and distinguished UN and government leaders. I would like to
focus my speech on five key messages, which have been shaped by hundreds of
women from around the world:
Firstly,
let’s celebrate! Today, I celebrate the women - lesbian, black, indigenous,
urban and rural women living in conditions of poverty, workers, disabled, trans
& intersex people, leaders from different generations - the relentless and
tireless work of women and girls, organized in all our diversity, in different
groups and movements, who are transforming our world.
The
achievements of the last 20 years have been significant, and the transformation
of some of the challenging conditions women and girls face is noteworthy. The level of awareness, recognition and
visibility that several women’s rights issues currently have in society is
clearly an important achievement and represents a major opportunity to be
tapped. Such transformations were advanced by the Beijing Agenda, and by the
commitment of some governments to its implementation.
We must
also commemorate the lives of thousands of feminists and women’s rights
defenders who are no longer with us -
either because they have died over the past 20 years, or because they were
killed or disappeared. And we honor all
the women human rights defenders who do their work under dangerous conditions,
from the corners of Congo to the mountains of Mexico, and those whose lands and
livelihood are under threat due to climate change in the Pacific and elsewhere.
Second,
today we must acknowledge that progress achieved has been very limited. The overwhelming lack of political commitment
and financial resources, plain old sexism and misogyny, along with increasing
religious fundamentalisms have affected the quality of the agreements produced
by governments within the UN and at other levels. All these have impeded the
fulfillment of key commitments made by governments and other actors in Beijing.
Third,
current challenges to gender justice and women’s human rights around the world
demand urgent and bold actions by governments, the UN, the private sector and
civil society. Key challenges include
deepening inequalities and the ongoing structural discrimination that exploits
women in the economy, climate change, increasing power of religious
fundamentalisms across regions and religions and the violence they exercise
over women and communities, the threats posed by other non-state actors such as
growing criminal networks and the increasing power by transnational
corporations over lands and territories, deepening conflicts and
militarization, and widespread gender-based violence in both conflict and
non-conflict situations.Fourth, over the years, we have observed a worrying trend of criminalization of social dissent, repression and shrinking democratic space in many countries. This trend is also affecting the UN and hampers meaningful participation by civil society. In order to be more effective, the Commission on the Status of Women, the key body for norm setting in this field within the UN, needs to build a more inclusive process through which civil society makes meaningful contributions. The process of negotiations on the Political Declaration that the CSW will adopt today – in which civil society was largely excluded - represents a step backward. 20 years after Beijing we cannot afford to go back.
Fifth, the
text of the Political Declaration is weak and does not go far enough towards
the transformative change that is needed for gender equality. We, women of the
world in all our diversity, deserve much better than this. We deserve that you
put aside your ideological, political and religious differences and fully recognize
and affirm the human rights of women and girls and gender justice. Nothing
less. We need full reaffirmation of the
Beijing Platform of Action, but also a strong commitment to ensure the
following:
•Allocation
of the financial resources needed to implement all agreements on gender
equality, gender justice and women’s human rights. This includes meaningful
resources to support the really crucial work done by feminist and women’s
rights organizations at all levels. The resources are clearly there, it is a
matter of reallocating them and making gender equality and women’s rights a
real priority.
•The
centrality of human rights, including all women’s rights, in the achievement of
gender equality, sustainable development and peace. No cherry picking of rights
should be allowed in any country.
•Sexual
rights and reproductive rights and health should not be used as trade-offs
among governments in negotiations. Women and girls die as a result of
this. This needs to stop.
•Culture,
religion and tradition, as Vienna and Beijing clearly stated, cannot be used as
the basis from which to violate, discriminate, and justify delay on issues
related to the rights of women and girls around the world.
•Appropriate
mechanisms for state accountability for commitments made.
•Negotiations
on Sustainable Development Goals, post-2015 and financing for development
should make gender equality and women’s human rights central to all agreements,
in addition to having a gender goal.
•A vital
prerequisite for the continuity of the achievements and the future progress of
our work is the integrated protection and prevention of violence against women
human rights defenders in all our diversity. It is a shame that all language on
defenders was removed from the Political Declaration.
This is the
moment; there are important opportunities before us. This is the moment when we
must have all resources needed - the political commitment and the action - to
achieve real transformations.Let’s move forward. La lucha continua!
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