Annex I(16)-(18) of the Beijing Declaration
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/25
16. Eradication of poverty based on sustained economic growth, social development, environmental protection and social justice requires the involvement of women in economic and social development, equal opportunities and the full and equal participation of women and men as agents and beneficiaries of people-centred sustainable development;
17. The explicit recognition and reaffirmation of the right of all women to control all aspects of their health, in particular their own fertility, is basic to their empowerment;
18. Local, national, regional and global peace is attainable and is inextricably linked with the advancement of women, who are a fundamental force for leadership, conflict resolution and the promotion of lasting peace at all levels;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Beijing Declaration (1995) Annex I(16)-(18) stipulates need to eliminate poverty. There is no specification about real or relative poverty. I suspect this means real poverty within the current world system: food, shelter, education and the general infrastructure of the society, and so on.
In the elimination or eradication of poverty, we can observe the reliance of the mechanisms of economic progress tied to social and environmental responsibility. Part of the social and environmental responsibility links to the control of women over their own fertility and so bodies, in general, and reproductive systems, in particular.
With the equal consideration of women within society, we can, thus, see the emphasis on the generalized benefits for the society as a whole; as it is implied, the economic, and social life of the nation improves with women’s empowerment. Annex I(16) notes the eradication of poverty through these mechanisms, and with the inclusion of social justice, for the long-term targeted objective.
The provision of equal opportunities and participation of women within the society, alongside the men, as “agents” of the nation, can improve the country. Women making free educational and economic choices for the long-term benefit of the nation, where women increase the total GDP of the nation with further inclusion within the job market even as the males in many nations continue their gradual slide in workforce participation – quite starkly noted, by economists, and noteworthy within the United States of America.
Women shall be given due consideration in the sustainable development – think of the Sustainable Development Goals, mostly seen in the UN infographics, where the emphases of the sustainable development work within a people-centered framework. People as the core consideration of it.
Annex I(17) looks into the recognition and affirmation of women to control personal lives through the current rights battleground with the right to control their own bodies. Through this control, the health of the nation on all metrics improve, as the lack of wellbeing and wellness of a nation tends to come from too many children from too few women with too few provisions from the government to help raise and care for – properly and comprehensively – those children as they become adults. Margaret Atwood notes the enforced motherhood without proper provisions as a form of slavery by another name.
This is described as “basic to their empowerment.” Duly note that, if you are in support of the empowerment of women, you are in support, at the root or from the start, to the means that is considered basic to their empowerment. Similarly, as Human Rights Watch describes, equitable and safe access to abortion is first and foremost a human right.
We see safe and equitable access to abortion as a human right, in Human Rights Watch, and then control over fertility as basic to their empowerment, in the Beijing Declaration. Any form of empowerment of women statement starts with themselves and personal decisions over their own bodies.
Annex I(18) looks into the various levels of peace in the world. Where the advancement of women becomes not only attainable but also an inextricable admixture to the solutions of war and the advancement of peace; once more, we can, duly, note the reasons why women should be considered in the fundamental decision-making and economic livelihood of the nation-states of the world.
Women become integral for both leadership, conflict resolution, and then the promotion of peace the world over. It is within this context that we find the need to have women as part of the societal mechanisms – all of them – to better instantiate the stipulations in Annex I(18).
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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