Beijing Platform for Action, Chapter IV. A. Women and Poverty – Paragraphs 48 and 49
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/22
48. In the past decade the number of women living in poverty has increased disproportionately to the number of men, particularly in the developing countries. The feminization of poverty has also recently become a significant problem in the countries with economies in transition as a short-term consequence of the process of political, economic and social transformation. In addition to economic factors, the rigidity of socially ascribed gender roles and women’s limited access to power, education, training and productive resources as well as other emerging factors that may lead to insecurity for families are also responsible. The failure to adequately mainstream a gender perspective in all economic analysis and planning and to address the structural causes of poverty is also a contributing factor.
49. Women contribute to the economy and to combating poverty through both remunerated and unremunerated work at home, in the community and in the workplace. The empowerment of women is a critical factor in the eradication of poverty.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraphs 48 and 49 continue into the next portions of the section on Women and Poverty of the Beijing Declaration covering a range of topics including the poverty levels with disproportionate numbers of women living in poverty compared to the men. This leads to several questions about the sources and fairness and justice of this. In particular, the ways in which these can be seen as explicit areas of unfairness and injustice.
Those ways in which women, then and now, continue to be the world’s disproportionate poor for a variety of reasons with some stretching right into the areas of the economies in transition, again then and now, and the ways these can lead to disproportionate provisions of power and influence – including monetary – in the hands of the men far more often than into the hands of the women.
There are the often mentioned barriers to women including the ways in which gender roles are perceived to match biological sex and, therefore, women, by the necessity of the ethics of the ascribed gender roles, must adhere to and perform within the narrowly defined performative aspects of the role. If a woman moves outside these domains set about by the culture, this can lead to a social or even a professional-economic punishment for the woman.
This can come before this too, in the ways in which women are prevented from attainment in education or in professional life. Those, even if provided, and even if the woman becomes a productive member in the earning-aspect of society, can still not be enough as the family may, for example, garnish, even in their entirety, the wages of the woman for the family or, more often, for sole deliberation by the man.
The consideration of gender in the policy and program developments of the nation lead to the greater implementation of women’s rights. Without the provisions of the human rights of women in this way, the general international finding – often called the advancement and empowerment of women, as many of you know – is the economic and social development of the nation-state, and so the international system, as a result of the including of women, e.g., more productivity of the nation because of more individuals within the society working.
There is also the ongoing tacit crime of having non-remunerative work done mostly by women compared to the men, in both the workplace and in the community – as noted in the 49th paragraph. The eradication of poverty, in this sense, becomes a women’s rights derivative: if one implements women’s rights, especially in the economic and educational spheres, and if one invests in this over the medium to long term, then the, eventual, outcome slowly over time will be the paying dividends in the wealth of the nation and the health of its citizenry, which seems like a great deal to me.
But this will come with standard retorts to try to prevent this, as an affront to Man or God, or the design of some peculiar and failed economic theory, and so on; the main driver here should be both individual and collective will, sentiment, and interest, which will, as with most plans involving the implementation of women’s rights, pay off in the end if a country is diligent and consistent about it.
–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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