Paragraph 36 of the Beijing Platform for Action, Chapter II: Global Framework
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/16
36. Global trends have brought profound changes in family survival strategies and structures. Rural to urban migration has increased substantially in all regions. The global urban population is projected to reach 47 per cent of the total population by the year 2000. An estimated 125 million people are migrants, refugees and displaced persons, half of whom live in developing countries. These massive movements of people have profound consequences for family structures and well-being and have unequal consequences for women and men, including in many cases the sexual exploitation of women.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
There were several trends noticed in 1995 and marked in the Beijing Declaration’s print. These same trends continue right into the present. The basic group unit recognized by the Beijing Declaration is the family unit. The line in the conceptual sand and interpersonal space has been drawn there.
The international trends, at the time and to this day, impact the ways in which families work to live and stay at a relative level of comfort and quality of life, for them and their children. One of the impacts over the last few decades of the radical changes in the world systems has been migration as a necessity for many people, e.g., because of war, climate change, poverty, terrorism, political or religious disputes, and so on.
Those living in urban city centers rather than in the rural areas of the world was projected to reach under half of the world’s population by 2000. At the time, the number of migrants, refugees, and displaced peoples were sitting at 125 million people. It has only increased, especially with flare-ups in terrorism, war, political strife, and, as we are only beginning to notice strongly, climate change.
Most of these individuals in geographically precarious livelihoods are from developing countries, as they are stuck in a situation in which the infrastructure seen in developed countries does not exist. That is to say, if, or when, a catastrophe hits their nation or community, the internal support mechanisms to ameliorate the impacts simply do not exist, which leave them in worse circumstances compared to the other nations or communities with the proper bulwarks.
As noted in some prior writings, there are distinct disadvantages meted out to women based on climate change, reduction in finances for social services based on excessive spending on militaries and the associated adventurism in foreign countries, and also in the three main forms of violence against women: psychological, physical, and sexual, especially with the latter two.
The impacts of geographic and economic dislocation impacts women, rural and Indigenous especially, more than men, which provides the basis to examine the consequences of it. One is the obvious statistics around the sexual exploitation of women who live in precarious land situations, where they live on the move; they will more likely be subject to sexual misconduct, sexual assault, and rape.
The shake-up of the family survival strategies through the changes in the various global trends impacts women disproportionately in this way. The standard family structures and level of well-being expected by most peoples for them and their children will be changing, and have been for decades, with the increased tension and pressured put on them through the alterations in the international systems, whether ecological, economic, or social.
We simply live in times of rapid change that disproportionately impact women and children more than men for a variety of reasons including outright sexism to historical inertia to economic policies geared against women to religious injunctions to restrict the possibilities of the futures and capabilities of women (especially in education and paid labour), and so on.
The solution to these issues are multiple and will require vigilance on the multi-correlative nature of the problems. The solutions will need to be multipronged as a result as well. The question before us is how long we actually have to implement each of the solutions before the degradation and chaos ensuing from these changing global situations become uncontrollable with negative feedback loops.
–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 