Paragraph 58(i)-(k) 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): 2018/09/27
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:
i. Formulate and implement, when necessary, specific economic, social, agricultural and related policies in support of female-headed households;
j. Develop and implement anti-poverty programmes, including employment schemes, that improve access to food for women living in poverty, including through the use of appropriate pricing and distribution mechanisms;
k. Ensure the full realization of the human rights of all women migrants, including women migrant workers, and their protection against violence and exploitation; introduce measures for the empowerment of documented women migrants, including women migrant workers; facilitate the productive employment of documented migrant women through greater recognition of their skills, foreign education and credentials, and facilitate their full integration into the labour force;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
As explicitly stated in this set of sections for paragraph 58 of the Beijing Declaration, we can see the need to develop various forms of policies with a gendered lens because of the number of female-headed households. Those homes built by women for their family. The standard image is one man, one woman, and children.
The structures in place for the country become restricted within this context. It is a way in which the economic policies flow from the sociocultural assumptions of women. Thus, the economic policies with a gendered lens would include more modernized and rights-of-women oriented economic policies given not only a changing sociocultural landscape but also the shifts in the emphasis, of equality of women with men.
The development of policies with the context of “economic, social, agricultural” contexts can provide a generalized basis for the improved livelihoods of women. If we look at section (j) of paragraph 58, we see the next developmental stage with the anti-poverty programmes as a broad-based way in which to alleviate the difficulties for women living in poverty conditions.
The issues for many women is the ability to access food in any meaningful sense over a sustainable period. It can be that basic, that problematic. This realization of the rights of women to food, similar to those of women migrants, simply works to recognize the basic humanity of women around the world.
The violence and exploitation of women is a problem. In particular, the women around the world who suffer from a variety of problems to do with lack of home-feeling, of an own-context, of the cultural community, and so on; the basis for a sense of belonging with the rest of the world. It is these forms of deprivation that particularly break my heart for these migrant women.
It is not for lack of striving; it is for the inability to be able to provide for their basic needs because of systemic deprivation, by which I mean the systems in place are not or intended with them in mind. These are the circumstances or the realities for migrant women. Their most basic rights get extirpated at the root upon the removal from their place of origin; their home.
The ability to garner or gain any credentials or education from within their new locale is a difficulty because women tend to lack appropriate resources to integrate into the mainstream workforce. Is this a form of discrimination or barrier of migrant women? Yes, it is a difficulty, which is an issue with real consequences on the overall life trajectory of women.
The questions implied within this particular section of the Beijing Declaration deal with the means by which to improve to alter macroeconomic policies in order for the vulnerable to integrate into the society. This then becomes a sub-category problem within the larger context of women without appropriate resources to be able to participate in a society, because of migrant status.
Most contexts of poverty create more issues for women compared to the men. These questions harken back to the fundamental values of the United Nations. In this sense, the right of to individual men and women to dignity and respect. If this is felt as if not needing implementing for women (or men) because of the state of their being a migrant, or not, then this should be taken into consideration as a discriminatory attitude with consequences – prejudicial ones – for the lives of people who did not want their lives uprooted and destroyed.
–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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