Paragraph 58(e)-(h) of the Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. A. Women and Poverty
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/26
Strategic objective A.1.
Review, adopt and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty
Actions to be taken
58. By Governments:
e. Develop agricultural and fishing sectors, where and as necessary, in order to ensure, as appropriate, household and national food security and food self-sufficiency, by allocating the necessary financial, technical and human resources;
f. Develop policies and programmes to promote equitable distribution of food within the household;
g. Provide adequate safety nets and strengthen State-based and community-based support systems, as an integral part of social policy, in order to enable women living in poverty to withstand adverse economic environments and preserve their livelihood, assets and revenues in times of crisis;
h. Generate economic policies that have a positive impact on the employment and income of women workers in both the formal and informal sectors and adopt specific measures to address women’s unemployment, in particular their long-term unemployment;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The basic necessities of life do not magically appear, nor did they for tens of thousands of years for the hunter-gatherer phases of our species; same with the 12,000-10,000 years of agriculture right into the present with industrial agribusiness methodologies for mass-production of foods including 3-dimensional stacking of crops to improve the volume yield of vegetables and fruits rather than through a 2-dimensional and imperfect methodology in traditional agricultural and farming practices.
The ability of changes, now, for the future is absolutely tremendous. Anyone who says otherwise is, probably, a fool. There are risks, but scientific inquiry can innovate, make more efficient current technologies, and create abundance, possibly, for more people than ever – even, likely, per capita. In the agricultural and fishing sectors, the ability for self-sufficiency is important for the ability of economic independence for many communities.
If the technology is developed or if a community does not want it, they have the right to self-determination to use the technology or not. But the introduction of methodologies to improve the allocation of these resources more equitably can be a powerful move for the implementation of the rights of women. Sae with section (f) dealing with the per household consideration of the distribution as well.
Now, these also tie not only into the resource provisions from the agricultural and fishing sectors for more equitable distributions within households, as per sections e and f, but also into the areas of a set of safety nets and community support systems; that is, these form a strong form of bond through “social policy” to “enable women living in poverty to withstand adverse economic environments.”
Let’s say we remove these supports knowing the consequences of a reduction or elimination of the bulwarks of poor women’s ability to fight against abject poverty, it would seem cruel in entire sectors of the population with a disproportionate impact on, as noted, women and, in particular, women of colour. It becomes a race-consequence in a negative sense – or an ethnic negative derivative. Women of colour become more adversely affected without the programs.
It becomes the consideration of women of colour’s well-being versus some other, which, given the number of citizens impacted some of these policies, would need to be a powerful “some other” because we’re talking about human beings with the same inherent respect and dignity as any other. It is, in this context, the ability to protect “assets and revenues in times of crisis” that becomes the issue for them – as it becomes for many of us.
The final section, (h), deals with some of the interesting aspects of the need for the state to provide supports through economic policies that can support the income generation possibilities of women workers, who continue to disproportionately be not equal with the men of the world. Take, for example, the uneven numbers of the world’s informal workers. Those are far more likely to be women.
The amount of energy and effort spent in the informal economy or in unpaid domestic work impacts women and remains an undue burden on them simply not taken into account by the vast majority of men; this is not institutional but cultural framing of the issue of discrimination against women, which can be changed easily – which will, or at least can, have downstream effects the economic livelihoods of women. Another solution, simply stated, could be economic enfranchisement of women through the provision of pay for those childcare and homecare services.
–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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