Paragraph 165(g) of the Beijing Declaration
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/09/11
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:
g. Seek to develop a more comprehensive knowledge of work and employment through, inter alia, efforts to measure and better understand the type, extent and distribution of unremunerated work, particularly work in caring for dependants and unremunerated work done for family farms or businesses, and encourage the sharing and dissemination of information on studies and experience in this field, including the development of methods for assessing its value in quantitative terms, for possible reflection in accounts that may be produced separately from, but consistent with, core national accounts;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165(g) of the Beijing Declaration is an interesting one for the focus on knowledge of work and employment. These are the core ways in which women can become self-empowered for a life. It’s not merely a matter of making inroads in the work force. It is about the systematic alteration of norms and processes to enable to become commonplace. That’s not an easy task; it’s monumental.
Similarly, it’s impacts will be enormous, too. When it speaks of “inter alia,” it means “among other things.” It is a manner of speaking about the foci of the subject and then the periphery too. The purpose of this paragraph is to look at the types of work women may engage in without proper pay.
Lots of women, and some men, engage in unpaid or unremunerated work around the world. Think of childcare, homecare, care for the elderly, and the like, these can be considered work, as it is labour. This labour is, by and large, unpaid and subsidized by the cultural inputs of women.
The idea is to quantize and gather proper information about these gaps in proper pay or equity in sharing the unremunerated work to make nations consistent and accountable about the unremunerated work of women compared to men in many context, again around the world.
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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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