Paragraph 17 of the Beijing Platform for Action, Chapter II: Global Framework
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/07
17. Absolute poverty and the feminization of poverty, unemployment, the increasing fragility of the environment, continued violence against women and the widespread exclusion of half of humanity from institutions of power and governance underscore the need to continue the search for development, peace and security and for ways of assuring people-centred sustainable development. The participation and leadership of the half of humanity that is female is essential to the success of that search. Therefore, only a new era of international cooperation among Governments and peoples based on a spirit of partnership, an equitable, international social and economic environment, and a radical transformation of the relationship between women and men to one of full and equal partnership will enable the world to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The commons phrases for these sections of the Global Framework of the Beijing Declaration speak to not only the forms of poor living – abject poverty, absolute poverty, and so on – but also to the ways in which the majority of the poor, then and now, are women. This is termed the feminization of poverty. Interestingly, it relates to a variety of other, typically considered, negative outcomes for the society.
For example, if we look at the ways in which the unemployment rates of the world, or impacts on the unemployment – and probably underemployment too – disproportionately impacts the women of the world. Indeed, we can further see this in the increased fragility of the world’s ecosystems and capacity to deal with human junk and waste.
The violence against women and then the widespread exclusion of, approximately, half of the world’s populations leads to questions about the legitimacy of some aspects of the world system, even, perhaps, most of it. The ways in which the exploitation of the environment and the vulnerable becomes a basis to prevent individuals from flourishing.
Continuing into the document, we find stipulations about the need for both the power systems and the governance structures provide a stronger, or more robust, set of bases upon which to move the course of the world towards greater equality. Some of the key terms here are development, peace, and security. Those amount to identifiers of things including sustainable development.
Our basis for much of the history of the world has been the decreased ability of participation of the vulnerable groups. As per the previous paragraphs, the excess expenditures of military expeditions around the world or the build of arms, the lack of assistance to the women of the world in the structural adjustment programmes, and other issues relate to the prevention of the full flowering of the species, in a real sense, through the deprivation current or to be expected on these premises of the international order.
The sustainable and human-centred development of societies provides a basis to work towards a more positive future. One in which the world’s global governance and power systems include everyone, where, for much of history, they tended to only include a few through non-accidental and conscious policy and programme development for the most powerful and privileged among us.
Women are integral to this future. Now, if we examine some of the areas of international cooperation with national governments, the aim, though not always achieved goal, is to engage in partnership with equitable distribution of decision-making and power brokerage rather than the complete centralization based on the already powerful, the richest, and the well-established powers of the world.
These are radical notions, especially in an era of rising attempts to quash the developments for democratization and equality of the public systems, per nation and so – ideally – the world. This radical notion of equality of the sexes can be seen as far back as 1995, or the 1800s with John Stuart Mill. Our basic systems have been, through hard work and sacrifice from the bottom-up, moving more and more towards democratic decision-making at all levels of the society.
The interesting aspect of this, the general societal system continues to function in such a way as to create systems of alternative media and understanding of the world apart from the radical propaganda systems for individual global citizens to self-educate and see through the lies sold to them en masse.
We can see this in the political rhetoric in North American and Europe. We can, definitely, observe this in the cultural guardians & the dramatic media system and public relations of America in particular. Of course, this exists in other regional systems bound by autocrats, authoritarian regimes, theocratic regimens, and so on.
However, the radical notion enunciated by John Stuart Mill may represent the greatest threat to this system in the provision of equal consideration and rights for the women of the world commensurate with the men. It means more independent, and not faux ones, citizens bound more by common human sentiment.
–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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