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Beijing Declaration Paragraph 165 (h)-(k)

2024-07-25

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/20

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

  1. By Governments:
  • (h)  Review and amend laws governing the operation of financial institutions to ensure that they provide services to women and men on an equal basis; 
  • (i)  Facilitate, at appropriate levels, more open and transparent budget processes; 
  • (j)  Revise and implement national policies that support the traditional savings, credit and lending mechanisms for women; 
  • (k)  Seek to ensure that national policies related to international and regional trade agreements do not have an adverse impact on women’s new and traditional economic activities; 

I began this project several years ago to give a casual run-through of the relevant human rights documents dedicated to the equality of women, not in abilities or preferences, but in the access and opportunities for them if they so choose to achieve in different areas. 

The particular paragraphs here speak to a few things. They represent a financial and legal focus. (h) is a pure equal gender statement. The emphasis sits on the premise of women as being more beleaguered in most countries, which is true. The review of the laws provides a basis for setting a bar, for understanding what is happening in a particular legal context. 

Then the amendment(s) can follow from the review for the financial institutional change. (i) deals more with the lack of transparency in the processes “at appropriate levels” in terms of budgetary processes. To me, this sound suspicious, not the premise of (i) or (i) in relation to (h), but mores the fact that this has to be stated. It must be a serious problem in many contexts. Transparency in business and budgets is the key. 

(j), as with any of the stipulation in so many of these documents, deals with the issues facing women at a fundamental level for survival and advancement in society, which is the economic barriers for them. So “traditional savings, credit and lending mechanisms” in many countries may not be available for many women, or may be wholly newly to the lives and rights actualization of many women. 

The emphasis on (j) merely has to follow from the general statements about “Governments” at the outset, where the issue is the “national policies” of “Governments.” Both revisions of those national policies and the implementation of those revisions so as to ensure women have support in the “traditional savings, credit and lending mechanisms.” 

A lot of the formal economy was not available to many women for a long time. So this idea of the work at a national level has both precedent and justification.These aren’t merely cultural changes, and there are numerous social forces working against the furtherance of the equal rights of women. These must be taken into account. 

Some things that could be done to make this a reality have been thought through and proposed by national representatives through the Beijing Declaration. Anything to do with the revision and implementation of supporting traditional savings, credit, and lending mechanisms. Processes to ensure regional and international trade agreements with an emphasis on the equality of women, especially when it comes to “women’s new and traditional economic activities.”

This could have knock-on effects. Things like a stipend for taking part in traditionally unremunerated areas of work. These can include childcare and housecare. Maybe, there could be this move to further incentivize men to enter into these roles where there is some income and to help women who are struggling. These types of egalitarian moves would be helpful. 

The knock-on effects could be the proliferation of other areas of unremunerated work being paid, especially as automation takes over people’s jobs. It could be a universal basic income and particularized supplementary income or a universal secondary income when taking on these care roles for stay at home parents and home workers.

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(Updated 2024-07-07, 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

International Standards

Regional Instruments

Strategic Aims

Celebratory Days

Guidelines and Campaigns

Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners (Thanks to Sikivu Hutchinson for help with the list)

License & Copyright

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.

From → Chronology, Jacobsen's Bank, The Good Men Project

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