Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. B. Education and Training of Women – Paragraph 82(h)-(k)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/14
Strategic objective B.3.
Improve women’s access to vocational training, science and technology, and continuing education
Actions to be taken
82. By Governments, in cooperation with employers, workers and trade unions, international and non-governmental organizations, including women’s and youth organizations, and educational institutions:
h. Develop curricula and teaching materials and formulate and take positive measures to ensure women better access to and participation in technical and scientific areas, especially areas where they are not represented or are underrepresented;
i. Develop policies and programmes to encourage women to participate in all apprenticeship programmes;
j. Increase training in technical, managerial, agricultural extension and marketing areas for women in agriculture, fisheries, industry and business, arts and crafts, to increase income-generating opportunities, women’s participation in economic decision-making, in particular through women’s organizations at the grass-roots level, and their contribution to production, marketing, business, and science and technology;
k. Ensure access to quality education and training at all appropriate levels for adult women with little or no education, for women with disabilities and for documented migrant, refugee and displaced women to improve their work opportunities.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
This has been a rather packed paragraph. But it is, no less, salient for the consideration of the orientation of the international community in principles of description and prescription.
The statistics and empirical evidence point to the direct benefits to the advancement and empowerment of women through most or all systems within the society. One obvious reason: the societies begin to work at more full capacity rather than in a limited manner.
Furthermore, the opening of the channels in the populations’ workforce and postsecondary education systems raises the quality of jobs, of life, of the general population in addition to raising the cultural level of the country. There does seem to be a reason why fundamentalisms and bigotry associate with ignorance and culturally low-status nations.
The educational curricula and training materials developments with gender in mind, with women in mind, can be part of this effort to raise the floor of the nation on a variety of metrics.
Furthermore, the policies and programmes, too, should bear women in mind. But it is non-trivial. The advancement and empowerment of women remain the single most powerful driver of the development of nations known to us.
The terminology of “apprenticeships” bring to mind trades and vocational education, which will retain a similar level of importance in the 21st century as in the 20th; except, some will become automated or obsolete with the incursion or innervation of artificial intelligence and machinery into the market.
Robots will take many of the jobs. As we can see this being used to scapegoat vulnerable populations with misattribution of the real problem in 2018, this could be a basis for trying to repress women once more, to, where ‘things were better back in the day when women knew their place and men had a definite, pre-ordained role in society and in the family.’ Something like this.
Section (j) is interesting in its specification of a wide array of fields with import for much of the general population, where women can enter or be encouraged to enter into these fields as much as men.
But the economic generation in these areas should coincide with economic decision-making. Even in my own country, in several subpopulations, the familial and patriarchal system is such that the women are encouraged to work but not empowered by the work, thereby denuding the notion of work as empowerment as a farce. But why?
The reason: the finances of the women go back into the family mainly or to the man. Even though, in international studies, if finances are given to the men, the finances will be invested more in the men; if the finances are given to the women, the women will invest in themselves, their family, and community, as a general rule or a statistical-empirical generalization.
Indeed, the assurance of equal access to education is integral to the better lives and livelihood of women, but the assurance cannot be empty; there should be the assumption, culturally and legally, that women are empowered in such a way as to permit them economic independence rather than subordinate monetary lives.
Economics means choices. More money leads to more degrees of freedom in society. Women without this lack real choice or as much freedom as men in societies. This is one strong basis for sexism and the outright restriction of the possibilities of women in life.
–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.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 