Annex I(29)-(30): Beijing Declaration
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/27
29. Prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls;
30. Ensure equal access to and equal treatment of women and men in education and health care and enhance women’s sexual and reproductive health as well as education;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls is an important part of the international conversation and an integral component of the international rights documents including the Beijing Declaration. We can see this exemplified in Annex I(29), wherein it is stated that the prevention and eventual elimination of violence against women and girls is a priority.
It is not even an afterthought but, rather, a core piece of the international rights framework with the inclusion of a single statement of the first Annex of the document. Interestingly, we can see this reflected in some of the other international rights documents covered in some earlier writings, in which the foundational right of dignity and respect as a person can be upheld through not being violated psychologically, physically, or sexually.
Annex I(30) continues the same reasoning with the provisions for women not in explicit support for the prevention and elimination of violence against them. The stipulation orients more towards the general purpose of having the basics of life given to women in the world. If we look at the ensuring equity of access, as with the men usually in these societies, then the women can fulfill their potential as the men can too.
I do not mean to diminish the importance of the support for boys at the bottom and women at the top in the current period; however, I want to recognize the glass ceilings placed on women for centuries, at least, and only, truly, motivational ceilings placed on boys now, who become the unmotivated young men of the modern era. We see these happenings around the world.
The women are mature and focused and want to get ahead in life through education and a good job while the men do not seem to be that interested in all of this. It is an interesting asymmetry in the level of self-development of women by women and men simply opting out of what may seem to them as a world unrecognizable to their fathers and grandfathers. Because life is less handed to them, now, especially in contrast to the deep past.
The provisions for women listed in this section look at the equal treatment of women and men in not only education but also health care. The former is important with primary and secondary education, as well as equitable access to postsecondary schooling. The norm has been and arguably has remained, the simple restriction and barring of women from the levels of higher learning seen in the many nations of the world.
The questions then become what can be done to reduce and eventually eliminate those barriers to women in higher education. Our collective will need to work for the better access to the other half of the population into the areas of education, especially as the expansion of the knowledge economy truly plays on the strengths of women.
The other part is the provision of health care as a fundamental right. This is seen in several rights documents and international organizations for decades. There are many developed nation commentators stating that medical care and health care is not a fundamental right; these are either ignorant or lying individuals misleading the public and misinforming them in either case.
The ability of women to get their health care as they need it is an important part of the conversation around the right to health and wellbeing of women, and so children and families more often than if simply the men. The basic emphasis throughout much of the international community is the need to provide for the necessities of life for the general public.
Anything else, or most else, comes from deliberate propaganda and public relations designed to misinform the public about the nature of the rights and the ones extant, especially those relevant to the health and wellbeing of the general population including women and children. Pay attention, these are the folks for sale and often bought and sold to sell a particular brand of snake oil with a tinge of sophistication. Trust your nose.
–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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