Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. A. Women and Poverty – Paragraph 67
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/03
Strategic objective A.4.
Develop gender-based methodologies and conduct research to address the feminization of poverty
Actions to be taken
67. By Governments, intergovernmental organizations, academic and research institutions and the private sector:
- Develop conceptual and practical methodologies for incorporating gender perspectives into all aspects of economic policy-making, including structural adjustment planning and programmes;
- Apply these methodologies in conducting gender-impact analyses of all policies and programmes, including structural adjustment programmes, and disseminate the research findings.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration continues to focus on a wider range of actors with the need to implement gender-based methodologies here, or, at a minimum, develop them. The focus or emphasis is on “Governments, intergovernmental organizations, academic and research institutions and the private sector.” These become non-trivial for the improvement of the material – the life or death at times – conditions of women, especially, as is noted, with the feminization of poverty.
Women tend to be poorer than men in the society. This does restrict into any particular statistical segment of the population of women but does, in terms of ethnicity for an example, produce worse outcomes for some ethnic or another background. It is, in this sense, an important gender and ethnic consideration with the “feminization of poverty” being a multivariate problem with the need for some concrete solutions.
Now, the first section, (a), deals with the need to create the basic building blocks of the methodologies, which is the methodologies and the conceptual apparatuses for the gender-based perspectives around the feminization of poverty, which, as a clarification, simply means the disproportionately negative impacts on women compared to men in the society.
Indeed, this can take the form of explicit economic philosophy brought into the real world as well as the inclusion of women in the structural adjustment program planning, which – for those familiar with the issue or reading some of the prior articles – is implicated in the previous disproportionately negative impacts on women with the simple lack or void of consideration for the needs and wants of women when implementing these structural adjustment programmes.
Then (b) deals with the need to analyze the various policies and programs that will be implemented, to look for what is truly pie-in-the-sky and what is practically feasible. Those things that, in some fundamental or even derivative manner, improve the material livelihoods of women who are disproportionately living in poverty. It is important in the light of the feminization of poverty to see the ways in which the inclusion of gender as a factor can impact the outcomes of women in these circumstances.
Furthermore, once the data is gathered and the statistical analyses are complete, there is the need to let the internaitonal community know with more asily digestible presentation of the information in, maybe, handbooks, guidelines, reports, or summaries. Each important for the full realization of the rights of women through empirical research as to what works and also what does not work but also, and more importantly, why certain things work or not.
Not a simple thing to do or pull off; but this is an important part of the process of acknowledging and educating about women’s rights while, at the same time, taking the appropriate measures to ensure women enjoy their full rights as international and national citizens endowed with the same rights and protections as much who, more often than not, unfortunately, are dealt heavier loads of the negative aspects of life.
These empirics or evidences can help with the creation of a greater equality of the genders or the sexes in order to further the work started in the 20th century for not only universal suffrage and access to society but also respect and dignity as equal parts of the society.
–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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