Beijing Platform for Action, Chapter I: Mission Statement Paragraph 1
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/31
1. The Platform for Action is an agenda for women’s empowerment. It aims at accelerating the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women /1 and at removing all the obstacles to women’s active participation in all spheres of public and private life through a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural and political decision-making. This means that the principle of shared power and responsibility should be established between women and men at home, in the workplace and in the wider national and international communities. Equality between women and men is a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice and is also a necessary and fundamental prerequisite for equality, development and peace. A transformed partnership based on equality between women and men is a condition for people-centred sustainable development. A sustained and long-term commitment is essential, so that women and men can work together for themselves, for their children and for society to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Platform for Action represents one of the large pieces of the Beijing Declaration after the Annex covered in several articles prior to this one. If we look at the opening statement, the emphasis remains the empowerment of women, which, I would argue, amounts to the greater realization of the Golden Rule envisioned in prominent religious ethical systems and in Utilitarianism built on by John Stuart Mill with the extension or recognition of women as fundamentally persons, human beings, deserving the same consideration as men and freedom/autonomy as men in modern societies.
The Platform for Action is important for not only the empowerment of women but also, in accordance with the metrics of national development, the health and wellbeing of the society. Obviously, this connects to the health and wellbeing of the nation-state too, and of men in fact. If families do well, then the men and women, on average, will do well too.
The purpose is to take the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and begin to implement them. With the strict purpose to take away the restrictions of the livelihoods of women around the world, the obstacles, this includes both the professional and personal, the public and private, lives of the women in order to create a world in which the power and influence is more shared in the “economic, social, cultural and political decision-making” spheres of life.
Whether the further power and responsibility of women come from the national or the international communities, or the equality is seen as fundamentally a human rights and social justice issues, the active participation of women in societies can improve their status and lead to a more just and equal world for all. Indeed this may be one of the core pre-requisites for the desired equal and peaceful world by many or most; wherein the equality of the sexes leads to greater quality of life in nations, it seems straightforward to need to create the foundations for this in a non-pollyannish manner.
Now, the partnership between men and women in multiple societies, often based on tradition or fundamentalist religion, has been one between master and slave, owner and owned. Within this unfortunate relationship, we constructed a number – naturally and non-consciously, probably – of myths convenient for the perpetuation of the old relationship, which can, at times, become crystallized in religious texts and the formal mandates of even a secular society.
The proposal is for a people-centered society and not one for organizations, corporations, or religions, but of the people. Then a society that is sustainable for not only one, two, or three generations for the long-term survival of civilizations and peoples. Without sustainable development, we lose the capacity for a world for the future generations, or possibly one not worth living.
The equality of the sexes is and can continue to be an important part of this, especially we meet those challenges of the 21st 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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