CIVICUS

FROM THE DESK OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

GCAP celebrates International Women’s Day calling for Gender Equality to End Poverty
By Kumi Naidoo, Ana Agostino & Sylvia Borren, GCAP Co-Chairs

Issued Date: 5 March 2008

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The words Gender Equality to End Poverty will resonate around the world as part of International Women’s Day celebrations on 8 March. Marching to the door of parliament in Dhaka Bangladesh, presenting a new Women’s Charter Against Poverty in India, debating gender policy in communities across Peru, driving the ‘Future Without Poverty’ campaign bus to hospitals where maternal mortality rates are high in Georgia, or simply mailing an e-card to your government representatives, are just some of the actions led by GCAP coalitions in over 50 countries this weekend.

As long as 70% of poor people in the world are women, the issue of gender justice cannot be separated from the fight to end poverty. Current international policies rob women of their livelihoods, healthcare and other economic rights, while feeding a fundamentalist backlash and militarism that deprive women of personal autonomy and choices.

As GCAP has grown since 2005, so too has the group driving its gender agenda, the Feminist Taskforce, and their demands are reaching an increasingly high level audience. In New York last week, GCAP focused on the theme of this year's meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), "Financing for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment," calling on the UN for increased financing for gender equality and women's empowerment as well as support for an improved gender equality architecture at the UN. The Feminist Task Force (FTF), which was founded three years ago at these same meetings of the CSW, held an event to present the findings of ground-breaking International Women's Tribunals on Poverty held in India and in Peru in 2007 (www.whiteband.org/blog) and to launch the mobilisation plan for International Women’s Day.

We will be carrying the call forward from Johannesburg this week when we launch GCAP’s global mobilisation of 2008 with a special International Women’s Day Press Conference on Constitution Hill. Along with the South African Human Rights Commissioner and leaders from the South African Women’s Rights movement, we will present our demands to the media and we will state the importance of 2008 as a year when real change is needed to the pace of poverty eradication policy in both the North and South.

Women's Tribunals
Women's Tribunals against poverty are an innovative way of hearing, recording and acting on the injustices faced by women living in poverty. Hearing women's first hand testimonies, seeing their faces and denouncing the injustices they live with, serves to inform and ultimately exert pressure on governments. The tribunals took place in Peru and India and were tremendously valuable for documenting the cases of human rights abuses, of social exclusion and marginalisation as well as informing the lobby strategies for gender justice in these countries for the years to come. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXyy1tMi2-k).

Women in the Arab region struggle for a voice
A third tribunal organised by the FTF will be held in Egypt later this month. The Arab region is a particularly challenging part of the world for women. The 2007 Arab MDGs report states that the participation of women in non-agricultural employment in the least developed Arab countries decreased by almost 5% between 1990 and 2004. On average, women in the Arab region accounted for only 18.3% of total paid employment in the industrial and services sector in 2004. Moreover, the continuous military occupation in Palestine and Iraq and some regions of Lebanon and Syria has increased the level of poverty in these zones and undermined their progress, thereby limiting opportunities for women's economic empowerment. Given that the same report shows women held only 8.7% of the region's parliamentary seats in April 2007, a figure among the lowest in the world, the struggle for gender justice has particular resonance here.

GCAP believes that four pillars of reform for gender equality need to be met:

Demands
The first pillar is trade justice for women's social, economic, cultural and political empowerment. Trade expansion - both within and across borders - has been dependent on poor women's labour. Trade justice therefore implies not only more equitable terms of trade and national economic sovereignty, but also guaranteeing women's land rights, labour rights and decent jobs, protecting women's agricultural activities, maintaining food security, livelihoods and traditional knowledge, ensuring essential public services for all, and developing policies so that the benefits of trade will advance development objectives and reach the most marginalised members of society, particularly women living in poverty.

The second is debt cancellation to lift the burden on women and their families. Much of the debt of developing countries is being paid by women. Currently women are providing healthcare, education, child and elder care, and other services which support families, societies and economies as part of their unpaid labour. In order to eradicate poverty and advance human rights therefore, debt must be cancelled, resources shared equitably to meet the needs of the poor, especially women, and sufficient essential services for all must be provided by the state.

In the area of overseas development aid, the volume of development assistance given by rich countries must be increased to the 0.7% of GNP/ GNI goal promised in order to help poor countries lift themselves out of poverty. This aid should prioritise empowering women and achieving gender justice in order to eradicate poverty.

And finally, democratic, transparent, participatory and accountable national policy processes are needed to open doors for women and eliminate discriminatory policies: National strategies to eliminate poverty need to empower women through education, health care and HIV/AIDS treatment, reproductive rights, strategies to end violence against women, full political participation, equal citizenship, inheritance and property rights, and access to essential services including affordable housing. Moreover, processes must be developed that facilitate inclusive democracy, which means the participation of all - especially women, youth, migrants and indigenous peoples in policy development, implementation and monitoring, with mechanisms for information sharing, input, and redress.

We often hear the phrase "Poverty has a female face". The fundamental demands presented by GCAP's Feminist Taskforce and GCAP must break through this paradigm. What is needed is an internal transformation in the form of dedicated funding and integration of a gender perspective into all existing policy decisions. The face of poverty is our face; only we can change it.

“Equality between women and men is a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice and is also a necessary and fundamental pre-requisite for equality, development and peace”

Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 1995

“The feminisation of poverty has deepened…. We demand that gender equality and women’s rights be recognised as a central issue for poverty eradication”

GCAP Global Montevideo Declaration 2007

“Women’s rights are intrinsic to the concept of human rights as developed through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).”

To send you comments, suggestions or contributions of articles, e-mail editor@civicus.org.

Below you will find all previous columns published.

• CIVICUS issues call for statements of interest for the implementation of the Civil Society Index (2008-2009 phase)

• Why civil society should support the Call to Action for Decent Work

• Reflections from the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland

• Civil society heroes languish in prison for over two years

• Civil society seeking collective reponses for the year 2008

• A time for peace, reflections and rededication

• 10 December - Human Rights Day

• International Volunteer Day: A Day for recognition and reflection

• The crossroads at Bali -- Choosing our destiny

• 16 Days of nActivism against Gender Violence

• Civil society under siege in Pakistan

• Aid must be more effective...and more accountable too