Paragraph 165(e) of the Beijing Declaration
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/12/07
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
e. Undertake legislation and administrative reforms to give women equal rights with men to economic resources, including access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, credit, inheritance, natural resources and appropriate new technology;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165(e), of the Beijing Declaration, deals precisely with the nature of legislation and administration via-a-vis women’s rights. That which should be a truism, which is neither a truism or a reality to most.
In that, the nature of women’s rights brings into questions about human nature, as in that which one views as fundamentally human and, thus, the rights inherent in such a being, a human. Most advanced notions of a human being incorporate an equivalence in women’s and men’s rights.
Wherein, egalitarianism isn’t simply in mind, but it is reified in the body politic. Insofar as this becomes a reality, we come to the contexts of economics. It’s not the only item to consider as a big picture, but it is an important part of the big pictures.
With the economic resources, and in terms of this particular paragraph, we have to deal with the access to ownership, not simply ownership alone. In turn, this “access” would imply a form of breaking down the barriers to the ownership as a first and foremost point.
Following this, there may be some consideration of the ownership qua ownership, as in a hallmark of the control over forms of property, including “land… credit, inheritance, natural resources and appropriate new technology.”
Land is as simple as the house one owns or the house of one’s parents. It is that which tends to gather value outside of a Madoff catastrophic psychopathic criminal incursion on the decency and livelihoods of homeowners.
The control over credit has been a point of some feminist dystopian literature in which women are denied credit, as in ancient days, so as to prevent them from acquiring any finances and some modicum of equality.
In turn, there is a need for a provision of access to some credit and also as reflected in the inheritance. When the living depart, they have the full right to choose who gets what when they die, while, at the same time; there is an importance in considering women’s status regarding inheritance percentages.
Women may not acquire as much as would be deemed helpful. While, similarly, the improvement in women’s status in some areas will produce more equitable consideration of women in domains of inheritance.
While, on the issue of natural resources, think of an older woman who owns a mine, dies, and passes this off to her daughter, this can be an intersection of both inheritance and natural resources. Simply, though, the access to any formulation of natural resources, whether metals, food, or construction materials, important for an independent life or financial investment, or food on the table, are important.
The idea of women’s inherent dependence on men or on community stem from the lack of inheritance for them and the void of ownership, even, in the most extreme example, of themselves. It is this sense of ownership that, once more, ties into the other question on “appropriate new technology.”
Access to a phone, a computer, a washing machine, a dryer, a vacuum, etc., all amount to new technologies for each generation. As such, these represent the kinds of things mentioned in the paragraph, as in any new technology, given sufficient independence of funds, should permit women to go out and own one, of their own, acquired of their own accord.
That’s the heart of this paragraph. The purpose simply and solely to maintain independence of ownership for women, thus instilling the grounds for an economically viable life with or without attachment to another.
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(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The 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.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The 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).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
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
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