Beijing Platform for Action, Chapter II: Global Framework – Paragraph 16
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/07
16. Widespread economic recession, as well as political instability in some regions, has been responsible for setting back development goals in many countries. This has led to the expansion of unspeakable poverty. Of the more than 1 billion people living in abject poverty, women are an overwhelming majority. The rapid process of change and adjustment in all sectors has also led to increased unemployment and underemployment, with particular impact on women. In many cases, structural adjustment programmes have not been designed to minimize their negative effects on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups or on women, nor have they been designed to assure positive effects on those groups by preventing their marginalization in economic and social activities. The Final Act of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations/10 underscored the increasing interdependence of national economies, as well as the importance of trade liberalization and access to open, dynamic markets. There has also been heavy military spending in some regions. Despite increases in official development assistance (ODA) by some countries, ODA has recently declined overall.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In regards to the ways in which economic recession cause damage to not only the central victims of the decline in an aspect of the economic, apparently, this effects a wide variety of individuals within the economic and labour networks connected or linked up with the economic system that went in decline. This was stated in 1995 and existed prior to a number of popped bubbles, probably most notably the housing bubble crash in the mid-2000s.
This is almost 10 or more years ago now. But it is something to bear in mind with respect to the statements here. The widespread economic recession and political instability within some regions can create problems for some regions – not simply a country or a couple of countries. With even a glance at some of the effects or reading some of the generalized reportage about the effects of the economic recessions, we can see the “expansion of unspeakable poverty.” This seems to take the modernist’s view of time. But certainly, these recessions triggered through the global economy can create waves of misery, especially among the already penurious living in precarious lifestyles if these circumstances can be called that.
At the time, more than 1 billion people lived in what was termed “abject poverty.” The majority of these individuals, at the time, were women. Furthermore, this seems easily expandable to this period too. Women and children remain the main population of the world’s poor, even more so for the world’s extreme or abject poor.
The cycle of poverty can continue with the increase in unemployment and underemployment. As repeated, the impacts, according to the experts who research this issue, are disproportionately harming the world’s women more than the men. Intriguingly, there appears to be an open admission, based on an evaluation, that the world’s “structural adjustment programmes” of the time – potentially even now too – continue to fail at the minimization of these negative effects on the poor and, in particular, the world’s women.
The same for any positive effects. In short, the programmes for structural adjustment simply do not take into account the effects on women or on marginalized groups of the world. This does lend credence to the notion of some populations, sometimes half of the world’s population, being seen as simply superfluous to the programmes designed around the possibilities of economic recessions..
“The Final Act of the Uruguay Round” for multilateral trade negotiation showed the international interdependence of economies, with, as well, a note described in some of the more recent paragraphs about the ways in which military excess expenditure has been a problem in some regions of the world.
The issue with the structural adjustment programmes and the excess spending on militarism mean, in the latter case, fewer resources to e able to be spent on the social services and programs that could benefit the poor; and then in the former case, we have the structural adjustment programmes without the considerations on the effects on women and marginalized groups in the societies.
The military adventures are the focus and most of the public – if only taking into account women and marginalized groups – are not the focus. Here we see the problem in the international system circa 1995, one may, possibly, extrapolate a worse system in some regards on these metrics for women and with increased expansion of military expenditure to the detriment to the most vulnerable in the society. This decline is even in spite of the investments in the official development assistance or ODA resource provisions.
–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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