Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. A. Women and Poverty – Paragraph 60(c)-(d)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/30
Strategic objective A.1.
Review, adopt and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty
Actions to be taken
60. By national and international non-governmental organizations and women’s groups:
c. Include in their activities women with diverse needs and recognize that youth organizations are increasingly becoming effective partners in development programmes;
d. In cooperation with the government and private sectors, participate in the development of a comprehensive national strategy for improving health, education and social services so that girls and women of all ages living in poverty have full access to such services; seek funding to secure access to services with a gender perspective and to extend those services in order to reach the rural and remote areas that are not covered by government institutions;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
There is the need to continue the hard work of moving the dial forward on ethics, on women’s rights not only in specifications and education but also in the implementation around the world. What we continue to see are the pushbacks against the advancements of rights, where this indicates a continuous struggle for equality, the jagged line for the prior century, interestingly enough, has been near-continuous in the general trendline upwards with more rights implemented for more women.
As this has happened, we continue to see the positive economic developments around the world, especially regarding reproductive health rights. Some major groups who have worked to prevent the implementation of women’s personhood through bodily autonomy are seen in the enshrinement of the pro-life movement – so called – in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and others. To reduce maternal and infant mortality, a true pro-life would legalize abortion to reduce the rates of either, to be pro-choice becomes pro-human right and pro-infant and pro-maternal life as well – inasmuch as the evidence from international organizations tell us.
Once groups, especially ones based on dogma, authority, and deep pockets, take the evidence seriously and the impacts have grown adults who can die and will make the independent choice even for unsafe abortions, we can begin a mainstream serious conversation on it – tens of thousands are dead. Otherwise, it probably isn’t worth the breath.
This connects the NGOs and INGOs or the non-governmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations, and the local women’s groups, in a unified effort for the benefit of the women of the world. With the development programmes, there can, and indeed should be based on the prior discussion, be the inclusion of women’s reproductive health rights on the agenda.
With these NGOs and INGOs, women’s groups, and governments tied to the private sector, the move is for the “comprehensive national” strategies of the improved health and wellbeing and the nation-state and its citizenry. Indeed, looking into the comprehensive program, these should, as noted, include “health, education and social services” in order for women, and girls, to be able to fulfill their potential through being able to leave poverty.
There should be efforts to include women within the international system and the national infrastructure plans as countries begin to move from developing to developed societies. One of the main pivot points in the conscience of the world will come in the form of reproductive health rights for women without intrusion by the state or the international community on the individual lives and choices of women.
The economics and social development indices point to the strengthening of the nation and global community through the implementation and respect for women’s rights through the recognition of their personhood; furthermore, the inclusion of women in the conversation of rights recognizes their autonomy, at least in freer and more open societies, about the most consequential and intimate decisions in their lives, whether or not to have children – and how many, and when, by which means, and under other general circumstances.
This become, in particular, important to the large portion of the global population found in the rural and remote areas, who remain among the world’s most poor and unable to access some of the resources considered automatically accessible by much of the rest of the population. It is an important set of considerations for the equal rights considerations of women around the world.
This document, as noted several times, is old, almost by a quarter of a century, but this gives a lens in what ideals can be considered and then stacking of potential ways to make the world more equitable and just with a, sort of, implied rank-ordering of importance based on some of the practical realities of the world.
–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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