Paragraph 18 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): 2018/09/08
18. Recent international economic developments have had in many cases a disproportionate impact on women and children, the majority of whom live in developing countries. For those States that have carried a large burden of foreign debt, structural adjustment programmes and measures, though beneficial in the long term, have led to a reduction in social expenditures, thereby adversely affecting women, particularly in Africa and the least developed countries. This is exacerbated when responsibilities for basic social services have shifted from Governments to women.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In the international economic system, the developments up until the mid-1990s continued to represent – and probably still represents – the degraded status of women, the lower status of women, as indicated by outcomes on these economic metrics. Women are half, or even slightly more than half, of the population of the world.
The bounded nature of their treatment provides an insight into our societal consideration of the proper place of women. It seems as if a sad commentary on the nature of our treatment of not only the natural environment but of women, too – as described astutely by Canadian author and speak Lee Maracle. One need merely look at the treatment of the natural world and then reflect on the rest of the equation.
The disproportionate impact on the lives of women and children indicate and self-describe our consideration of the economic livelihoods of, more often than not, the most economically, and otherwise, vulnerable among our global populations. We can see this in the attempts too prevent the rights provisions for women in the form of equal consideration in the structures of power and influence, and the rather explicit attempts to try to denigrate and outright prevent the work of women to enter the mainstream of dominant political power.
The majority of the world’s poor, living in the poorest nations of the planet, are women and children. There is a great deal of debt and “structural adjustment programmes and measures” utilized for the long-term benefit, purportedly. However, the consequence tends to be in the reduction, as noted in prior writings, the provisions for the populations least of us. It is a serious issue, and even more so now than in simply 1995.
The least among us, whether women or developed nations, show the most need; yet, the greatest levels of international inequality and lack of consideration and resource provisions. The economic issues around the globe, at the time and easily arguably now, create a situation in which women and the developed nations with disproportionate numbers of poor women bear more and more of the burden of the society in light of the poverty and the reduced provisions of the government for women.
This negatively impacts women and children, reduces the rights and freedoms of women, produces contributory factors to the cycle of poverty, and reduces the quality of life overall for the citizens of the country as the main predictor of the wellbeing and wealth of, at least a developed, nation is the advancement and the empowerment of women.
This is an important paragraph because it highlights the ways in which women are disproportionately impacted by economic hardships and problems in the world of not only 1995 but also reflect in the modern period as well. It is integral to the solutions of global poverty to bear in mind the issues of the women of the world, as they comprise the majority of the poor of the world.
With these demographic insights, the solutions can be targeted from a global perspective at the women of the world, in terms of their concerns; but also, they can then segmented per region and nation with the religious, cultural, and socio-political peculiarities in each region or nation while keeping the global perspective of the greater plight of women in view.
–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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