Annex I(7) of the Beijing Declaration
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/23
7. Dedicate ourselves unreservedly to addressing these constraints and obstacles and thus enhancing further the advancement and empowerment of women all over the world, and agree that this requires urgent action in the spirit of determination, hope, cooperation and solidarity, now and to carry us forward into the next century.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration Annex I(7) speaks to the direct dealing with the issues facing women. Where their particular woes and inequalities are dealt with in a complete and comprehensive manner, and within these dealings, more equity between men and women is delivered to the societies. The ignoring of women’s subordinate status in many states around the world will not give a lasting equality or prosperity.
The degree to which we excuse ourselves from the hard work for equality is the degree to which we remove any moral legitimacy to our own lives in the world, as everyone struggles and most religions – and the majority, probably, of non-religious philosophers – adhere to some version of the Golden Rule. As John Stuart Mill reminds us, Utilitarianism amounts to the ethics of the Nazarene, of Jesus of Nazareth, whether fictional or non-fictional, found in the core message of ‘do as you would be done by.’
The work to remove those obstacles, let alone identify them, and to remove the constraints placed on the lives of women stays in the moral universe above and remains an imperative for both the fuller freedom of women and of men in the international scene. The development of the equality initiatives becomes integrally important for the equality of the sexes with the need to empower and advance women, as has been shown to be the single greatest predictor of the development of a society.
If women are freer and have more ability to determine the shapes of their lives, then the more prosperous on economic and other metrics. It is in everyone’s self-interest, except for those who wish for total control of women’s lives in restrictive enclaves in the sub-cultures of the nations in which they inhabit, to have women’s interests advanced.
Not as a simple means by which women can show their full flourishing, but also because it remains a fact that the majority of the world’s contributors to the families and the communities are women; often times, far more often than not, the work of women is not and has not been paid or if paid then not highly so, and the work by women become simply expectations to be handled by women to the general welfare of the state.
It is in this sense the late Marie Alena Castle considered many nations viewing women as simply public utilities for free labor and reproductive purposes. If women are the majority home caretakers and homemakers, and if the birthing and raising of children produce the next generation of taxpayers in a society, the parenting and homemaking tasks taken on by women around the world should be given a proportionate financial payback for their public services.
Now, no boundaries have been given within the consideration of the equality of the women within the society. However, we do have the need for “urgent action” circa 1995 – and duly consider how this reflects some of the language of urgency in some of the other documentation for international rights for women listed as an addendum to the article.
We can see the ways in which high ideals and abstract values of “determination, hope, cooperation and solidarity” are invoked as means by which to have women as more equal partners in the operations of the society. These are important, very humanistic values. Things upon which the ability of women to flourish may need to be invoked at many turns, especially reasons other than economic drive human nature.
The change in the current ordering and relations of human beings is desired to be changed by many internationalist representatives in the world. But there is also the fact that the rights to vote and work could not have happened for women without the assistance and inclusion of all groups of women, and men, for the advancement of the right.
Especially as some of the vanguard nation-states were full or partial democracies, the sometimes tyranny of the majority became the self-liberation of the majority in these movements for equality. There is no real absolute reason that this cannot be some of the drivers for the next change as we move “forward into the next century.”
–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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