Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. A. Women and Poverty – Paragraphs 52 and 53
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/23
52. In too many countries, social welfare systems do not take sufficient account of the specific conditions of women living in poverty, and there is a tendency to scale back the services provided by such systems. The risk of falling into poverty is greater for women than for men, particularly in old age, where social security systems are based on the principle of continuous remunerated employment. In some cases, women do not fulfil this requirement because of interruptions in their work, due to the unbalanced distribution of remunerated and unremunerated work. Moreover, older women also face greater obstacles to labour-market re-entry.
53. In many developed countries, where the level of general education and professional training of women and men are similar and where systems of protection against discrimination are available, in some sectors the economic transformations of the past decade have strongly increased either the unemployment of women or the precarious nature of their employment. The proportion of women among the poor has consequently increased. In countries with a high level of school enrolment of girls, those who leave the educational system the earliest, without any qualification, are among the most vulnerable in the labour market.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The 52nd and 53rd paragraphs to the Beijing Declaration continue to speak on the disproportionate levels of poverty faced by women compared to others. Indeed, the levels of poverty in many, many countries around the world in 1995 and right into the present indicate, yes a decline in poverty levels overall but also, a continued disproportionate spread of the poverty with far more for women compared to men.
This seems as if a universal. The various social services, often either piddly or non-existent – and if extant sometimes being retracted through various legal and economic means, are insufficient to the needs of women around the world. The question is to what degree people deserve basic survival necessities through the purpose and mandate of a government to serve “the people” or the general population, especially those more often vulnerable, e.g., women and children.
The possibility of poverty becoming a reality of life is far greater for a woman in 1995 and remains so to this day. This becomes a problem for women without much of a pension too, where the social security networks or “nets” are not as good for them. Women have far more interruptions to their work, which creates a series of problems for the economic livelihood of women around the world.
Women have only been seen as equals in some societies only recently, and only by some sectors of the nations by the way. Powerful and rich interests are hard at work trying to deceive and firmly work in order to restrict the economic livelihoods, and otherwise, of women throughout the world. As noted, there are “older women [who] also face greater obstacles to labour-market re-entry.”
Paragraph 53 continues in a similar tone with even the economically advanced nation-states having opportunities for education and professional training of women, which can work to construct some bulwarks against the bias and bigotry against women as professionals. These can work to empower and advance the rights of women, while also including more individuals into the economic system for the financial flourishing of the country.
The women who have been long-term unemployed or stuck in precarious economic situations can be better off than what may otherwise be the case. It is in this sense that we can see the ways in which women can be seen as given lesser status through even subtle drivers into poverty and less well-off economic situations. Often, far more often, this occurs to women and single parents, who, as is known in the demographic analyses, far more likely to be women.
The women or girls who leave education early for a variety of reasons throughout the world; they will be, again far more probable, to be left in poorer and more poverty-stricken circumstances for their entire lives based on the lack of access to or opportunity for bothe advanced or even basic education & jobs with decent economic outcomes. Those jobs, or even hopefully careers, with greater chances for higher pay, benefits, healthcare and dental coverage, and so on.
It is thesecases that need a deeper examination because these continue to be the ways in which there are attacks on the general public through trying to delete or eliminate the options for women, who are more often poor women of color; what will you do?
–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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