Paragraph 107(b)-(d) of the Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. C. Women and Health
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/03
Strategic objective C.2.
Strengthen preventive programmes that promote women’s health
Actions to be taken
107. By Governments, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, the mass media, the private sector and relevant international organizations, including United Nations bodies, as appropriate:
b. Pursue social, human development, education and employment policies to eliminate poverty among women in order to reduce their susceptibility to ill health and to improve their health;
c. Encourage men to share equally in child care and household work and to provide their share of financial support for their families, even if they do not live with them;
d. Reinforce laws, reform institutions and promote norms and practices that eliminate discrimination against women and encourage both women and men to take responsibility for their sexual and reproductive behaviour; ensure full respect for the integrity of the person, take action to ensure the conditions necessary for women to exercise their reproductive rights and eliminate coercive laws and practices;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The development of policies for improved social and human development, and education access and employment opportunities can be a powerful move towards reducing the level of poverty among women, especially, for instance, among young women, rural women, mothers, and single mothers.
The improved financial or economic status can also enhance the possibility for decent healthcare or a reduction in poor health with, perhaps, less financial stresses and strains in life. This is good for the woman’s health.
It can also be good, if a mother, good for the children’s and family’s health with better health and wellness of the mother. Now, there is an ongoing move to get further support in the home and with the kids from the men. This comes with a lament about the lack of support, which is true in general; however, there remain positives.
For example, does this problem remain the same or as bad as before? In other words, have men retained the entitlement of not providing support in-home care and with childcare or not? By several indices, in objective terms, it is bad, still, but, in trendline terms, it is improving and, thus, good.
The laws, the institutions, the cultural norms, and the social mores that promote discrimination against women are functioning in one and could, with some effort, be utilized for the opposite through the encouragement of women to actualize and exercise their fundamental human rights as well as promote responsible sexual activity on the part of men and women with consent, contraception knowledge, and so on.
The reduction in discrimination against women can be a powerful catalyst for the exercising of fundamental human rights. Indeed, if we look at the nuanced view of an important upcoming moral voice, Rebecca Traister, the anger of women can be, and certainly has been, a powerful catalytic force for the social movements in, at least, American history.
This could be extended to other parts of the world. When we look into the forms of reproductive rights and coercive laws and practices around sex enforced on women much less than the men, we can see the development of a problem or set of issues.
One in which the men have more tacit social ‘rights’ over women’s bodies than women can have over their own bodies. But this isn’t the focus for women’s rights; it is about the ability of women to know about and exercise their fundamental rights, and for those autonomous choices about their bodies to be respected.
If we look at the more advanced industrial economies, we can note the ways in which women and men differ in some distinct ways in life choices, but we can also see the boon to, for one example, the base level of the productive economy.
With more hands and minds in the economic system, the GDP of the nation rises. It creates a more productive society, as a basic rule of thumb, when women enter into the paid economy.
Furthermore, this raises some other fundamental questions about the nature of paid work. Should women be paid for the currently unpaid work or simply accept their lot as unpaid maid and babysitter?
Many women may think and say, “How about, ‘No’?” That seems more than reasonable. If anyone has babysat for an extended time or educated the young, or worked in home care on a continual basis, they can attest to the extensive level of work and, certainly, the work is difficult enough to qualify for some subsidies or pay, especially as this is the care and raising of the next generation of taxpayers.
–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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