Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Girls, Ageing and Intergenerational Justice : Building a Common Future; Recommendation 8




a)      Adopt an intergenerational justice approach to women’s human rights and empowerment, recognising the specific priorities, needs and circumstances of women at different of stages of their life course, especially girls and older women, and mothers.

b)      Eliminate age-based stereotypes which undermine the full potential and effective participation and leadership of women and girls of all ages.

c)      Develop an international convention on the rights of older persons, incorporating rights articulated in CEDAW.

d)      Raise and implement the legal minimum age of marriage to 18, as part of full implementation of CRC and CEDAW, in all countries where this has not yet been done.

e)      Recognize young women as a critical population group in achieving development and ensure young women’s effective participation in leadership and decision-making at all levels.

f)       Ensure older women adequate income to live in dignity and implement social protection laws and policies that enable older women to be autonomous, full participants in the development of society.  

g)      Recognize and address the intergenerational and intersectional dimensions of all forms of violence, abuse and neglect.

h)      Collect, analyse, report and utilize data disaggregated by sex, age, disability and marital status.

i)        Enable age-friendly rural and urban physical and social environments, structures and services accessible to and inclusive of older women with varying capacities, and women with disabilities.

j)        Ensure mutual respect and equal partnership between girls and boys and among women and girls of all ages.



The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.
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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Women and Health: Wellbeing for All Recommendation 7




a)      Protect women’s rights and freedom of choice to control their body, fertility and sexuality.

b)      Ensure political will, commitment to and investment in making sexual and reproductive health and rights a reality for all, including ensuring access to age-appropriate evidence-based comprehensive sexuality and HIV education, as well as women’s and girls’ access to legal, safe, modern and free contraception, abortion services and family planning to end preventable maternal mortality and morbidity.

c)      Urgently address the emerging incidence of sex selection and foetal abortion in some ECE countries.

d)      Ensure accessible, affordable and quality health care services for all to ensure health for women and reduce women’s unpaid care burden.

e)      Ensure women’s equal access to health care services throughout their life course, including women’s shelters, without discrimination based on legal or migration status, disability, sex work, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, age or religion.

f)       Ensure gender specific health research and medical practices.

g)      Provide comprehensive mental health care services and support for all women of all ages.

h)      Provide effective health care services targeted at non-communicable diseases, including diabetes , heart disease

i)        Support and promote nutrition for holistic health and well-being.

j)        Ensure every woman has access to a clean and healthy environment, especially water, sanitation, and clean cooking technologies.




The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.
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Saturday, December 27, 2014

Human Rights and Migrant Women : Together in Solidarity; Recommendation 6



   
a)      Uphold and promote equality and non-discrimination for all migrant women, recognizing first and foremost their humanity and dignity.

b)      Extend the Beijing Platform for Action with specific reference to the inclusion of all migrant women and girls, regardless of status.

c)      Ratify and fully implement all international conventions on migration as well as international labour standards to strengthen the protection of migrant women.

d)      Empower migrant women to self-organize, and support migrant women’s organizations including networking and advocacy.

e)      Recognize and regularize all migrant women and their children; extend social protection, social security, and full health care, including covering sexual and reproductive health and rights, to all migrant women and girls.

f)       Support migrant family unity and integrity by family reunification policies and an immediate end to deportation practices that separate families.

g)      Provide equal treatment for refugees, asylum seekers and displaced women.

h)      Provide quality secondary, vocational, and tertiary education and lifelong learning for migrant girls and women, particularly to support integration and access to employment.

i)        Allocate robust financial, political, diplomatic and legislative resources and efforts to prevent trafficking of girls and women, recognizing the lifelong impacts of displacement, lack of legal protection, and associated trauma.




The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.

  Fragmento de obra de Roberto Noboa  http://www.no-minimo.com/2012/08/tramando-el-azar/
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Thursday, December 25, 2014

Environment and Climate Justice : People and Planet . Recommendation 5



a)      Systematically include a women’s rights and gender equality perspective in all aspects of domestic and development environmental, climate, water, forest, biodiversity, transport and energy policy, research and data collection at all levels.

b)      Incorporate intergenerational and gender equality perspectives in climate and environmental decision-making, policy and programmes. 

c)      Ensure legal and policy protection of Indigenous and women’s access, control and ownership rights in land and natural resources, extraction and pollution prevention, especially from private interests and transnational corporations including in post-conflict, post-disaster and post-displacement situations.

d)      Invest in innovative alternative technologies and recognise and value indigenous-owned knowledge for environmental and climate justice.

e)      Prevent and monitor the trafficking of women and girls following environmental and climate-related disasters.

f)       Hold ECE-based corporations accountable for women’s rights violations, including gender-based and sexual violence, in all communities where industries are located, including outside of this region.

g)      Ensure adequate resourcing for environmental and climate justice, including for eliminating reliance on high risk energy sources such as fossil fuels and nuclear energy, especially for communities at risk and for women’s networks and organisations as partners for change.



The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.

Fragmento de obra de Roberto Noboa  
http://www.no-minimo.com/2012/08/tramando-el-azar/
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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Participation and Decision-Making: Shifting Power; Recommendation 4




a)      Implement measures to achieve an equal distribution of decision-making power between women and men, including parity/quotas in political leadership, economic governance and all other sectors, and ensure leadership that advances women’s rights

b)      Adopt proportional representation or mixed systems as preferred electoral systems to achieve gender parity in decision making.

c)      Ensure adequate financial, moral, social support and opportunities for all women’s effective participation and decision-making in political and public life

d)      Strengthen mechanisms for young women’s participation in political leadership.

e)      Support civic dialogue and protect human rights activists/defenders.

f)       Deliver a Fifth World Conference on Women to address emerging gender equality issues and women’s access to power and decision-making.

g)      Ensure strong and robustly funded institutional mechanisms, national and international human rights machineries, independent human rights institutions, ombudspersons and comprehensive monitoring frameworks to protect achievements from being eroded and to further advocate and advance gender equality and women’s rights.

h)      Ensure public sector and parliamentary accountability to women’s rights and empowerment through gender-responsive policy, budgeting and programmes.

Recommendation 4 from the NGO Forum review of the Beijing Platform for Action

The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.

Fragmento de obra de Roberto Noboa  
http://www.no-minimo.com/2012/08/tramando-el-azar /
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Sunday, December 21, 2014

Poverty, Economics and Social Development : Money Matters; Recommendation 3




a)      Develop an alternative macro-economic framework, based on women’s human rights approaches, that institutionalizes feminist economics at all levels and in all policy domains. Facilitate monitoring by women’s organizations.
b)      Institutionalise and implement gender responsive budgeting at all levels and in all policy domains, including in government procurement policies.
c)      Reform all national tax and other fiscal systems to provide progressive redistributive tax revenues that generate annual revenues sufficient to finance the progressive realization of women's rights, and eliminate all gender discrimination and sex role stereotypes embedded in tax and spending measures.
d)      Eliminate the gender pay-gap and take necessary steps to ensure equal pay for work of equal value.
e)      Ensure labour market policies and practices recognise and value motherhood and family care work, ensure support to balance these responsibilities with flexible work and careers and take effective measures to close the gender pension gap.
f)       Recognise the social and economic value of unpaid care work, and reduce the negative gendered impacts on women through redistribution of care services within and between households and adequate government services.
g)      Address women’s time poverty by resourcing and ensuring access to high-quality public services and infrastructure including clean water, energy, transportation, ICTs, health care and childcare.
h)      Adopt, implement and enforce laws on social protection and against all forms of gender-based discrimination in the labour market and within the economy, including the informal economy.
i)        Ensure women’s access to safe, secure and adequately paid work, free of intimidation, harassment and violence.
j)        Promote women’s entrepreneurship and economic autonomy through equal access to education, training, resources and innovation; with special focus on women in vulnerable situations.
k)      Austerity measures have had a disproportionate negative impact on women, increasing women’s precarious and unpaid care work. Ensure and extend the provision of social protection in times of economic crisis, especially for part-time workers, unpaid care givers, and women working in informal sectors or precarious jobs.
l)        Implement a broad-based program of study and knowledge mobilization on the causes of poverty in response to the unacceptable rates of people living under and around the poverty line in ECE countries.
m)    Regulate and hold companies based in ECE countries accountable for women’s rights and abuses, including banks and multi-nationals, especially in extractive industries in countries around the world. Use the UN guiding principle for Business and Human Rights as a basis for legal frameworks.
n)      Introduce disability-responsive budgeting; invest in programmes to address lack of education and unemployment among women and girls with disabilities; ensure lifelong protection of human rights.

Recommendation 3 from the NGO Forum review of the Beijing Platform for Action

The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.
  
Fragmento de obra de Roberto Noboa  

http://www.no-minimo.com/2012/08/tramando-el-azar/
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Friday, December 19, 2014

Violence Against Women and Conflict : Building a Culture of Peace: Recommendation 2



i.          Violence Against Women
a)      Prevent and eliminate,  through  effective implementation, all forms of violence against women of all ages, Indigenous women, women with disabilities, widows, single mothers, women in conflict and post-conflict settings, LGBTI women, and rural women.
b)      Eradicate harmful practices including discrimination against widows, FGM, sexualisation, and child, early and forced marriage.
c)      Grant migrant women and undocumented women who are victims of forced prostitution and trafficking with residence permits, and develop prevention policies in countries of origin. 
d)      Sign, ratify and effectively implement the Istanbul Convention on Violence Against Women.
e)      Ensure national laws criminalize non-State torture perpetrated by non-State actors and hold perpetrators accountable for gender-based non-State torture crimes.
f)       Transform gender stereotypes that normalize and trivialise violence against women and girls.
g)      Redefine masculinities and increase participation and accountability of men and boys in violence prevention and gender equality.
h)      End criminalisation of victims and impunity of perpetrators through effective gender justice systems, and acting in solidarity with women and girls experiencing conflict, forced prostitution, occupation, violations of sexual and reproductive rights, and situations of crisis including in Ukraine and Palestine.
i)        Partner with faith based communities and cultural leaders to prevent violence against women and girls.
j)        Establish non-discriminatory reporting systems and support victims during legal processes including through gender sensitivity training of police and legal professionals.
k)      Provide One-Stop Centres with medical/legal/social supports for victims, and fully resource short term shelters and permanent affordable housing for women and children as well as vocational training for survivors.
l)        Address new and emerging forms of violence against women and girls, including violence as a consequence of new technologies, and ensure cyber safety for girls.

ii.        Women and Conflict
a)      Reduce military expenditure by a minimum of 2% per annum and robustly resource development to ensure progressive realisation of social and economic rights from a gender perspective.
b)      Ensure conflict prevention by transforming the gendered power structures that facilitate and encourage violence, conflict and occupation.
c)      Resource implementation of Resolution 1325 through applying affirmative action/quota systems for decision-making in conflict prevention, peace negotiations, peace-making and peace building.
d)      Ensure the equal participation of women in peace processes by providing financial support to organise during and post-conflict and under occupation, and engage in meaningful consultations.
e)      Prioritise support for women in situations of displacement to end their invisibility; address issues such as sexual violence, murders under the discourse of honour, civil status and statelessness, and trafficking and sexual exploitation.
f)       Grant asylum to women and children on the basis of sexual and gender-based violence and conflict.

Recommendation 2 from the NGO Forum review of the Beijing Platform for Action

The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.

  Fragmento de obra de Roberto Noboa  http://www.no-minimo.com/2012/08/tramando-el-azar/
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Women’s Rights are Human Rights : Accountability and Resources; Recommendation 1


a)      Resource full commitment and implementation of CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, UN Resolution 1325 and all human rights instruments as the global policy framework for women’s rights, empowerment, and gender equality and ensure mainstreaming across all post-2015 SDGs and frame as a stand-alone goal.

b)      Adequately fund women’s organizations and civil society for advancing and implementing the commitments of the Beijing Platform for Action and the post-2015 agenda.

c)      Implement and enforce existing laws and policies that protect human rights for all women, every minute and everywhere, especially for girls, young women and older women, ethnic minorities, indigenous women, Roma women and girls, women with disabilities, rural women, and LGBTI persons.

d)      Ensure access to justice redress and remedial actions in cases of violations of women’s human rights, including by developing and fully funding legal aid systems, accessible to all women especially in rural areas and vulnerable situations, and supporting the legal literacy of all women and girls.

e)      Ensure the collection of comprehensive gender, age and disability disaggregated data in all statistical fields.

f)       Ensure full civil and birth registration for all.

Recommendation 1 from the NGO Forum review of the Beijing Platform for Action

The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.

  Fragmento de obra de Roberto Noboa  http://www.no-minimo.com/2012/08/tramando-el-azar/
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Monday, December 15, 2014

DECLARATION from the NGO Forum review of the Beijing Platform for Action





We, the 700 participants in our diversity from around 350 groups, networks, and institutions and 56 countries of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe region, gathered in Geneva from 3-5 November 2014 for the NGO Forum review of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPA) 
We recognise and celebrate the significant achievements made in this region impacting women’s lives, as well as at policy and institutional levels.
However, the ECE region is economically and socially diverse, and many changes over the last 20 years raise deep concerns for sustainability, women’s and human rights. We are at a tipping point as a region with convergence of multiple crises: financial, energy, climate and food. The austerity measure response to the economic and financial crises has resulted in unprecedented unemployment, drastic cuts to public expenditures, and household level social and economic insecurity, disproportionately impacting women and girls. We recognize the global demographic shift to an aging population - particularly relevant to our ECE Region. The global gap between rich and poor grows daily.
We face myriad threats to the Beijing commitments. Women experience time poverty; overburdened by unrecognised unpaid work. In addition to gender mainstreaming, we must urgently address the root causes of inequality. Violations of and threats to girls and women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights call for protection and advancement of the BPA and prior commitments, ICPD and CEDAW in the post 2015 agenda. Transformation requires addressing the structural and macro issues that perpetuate inequalities, discrimination and exclusion.
The increase in violent extremism, bio-politics, and wide range of population phobias, has resulted in gross violations of human rights of women and girls. Militarization is increasingly used as the answer to conflict, leading to skyrocketing military and arms expenditures at the expense of social and human rights protections.
The approach to development cooperation has been shifting, inextricably linking development, aid, trade, investment and foreign policy; reducing women’s rights to a sub-text of global capitalism rather than central to achievement of peace and sustainable development. Financing for civil society and women’s organising has been reduced to government subcontracting, jeopardizing fundamental civil society self-organizing and partnership.
We are especially appalled by the situation of women in specific regions on particular issues. Increasing unemployment in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and complacency toward women’s issues in Western Europe and North America, reinforce and compound one another. Violence against women and girls remains pervasive, and is further perpetuated through technology and social media. Racial discrimination, especially against migrants who are often undocumented and have no public voice, results in gross violations of women’s rights. Women in vulnerable situations, including Indigenous women and women with disabilities, experience disproportionate rights violations; while girls and older women lack social protections.
Therefore, we call for:
1.      Fulfilment of the Beijing commitments to all human rights and systematic implementation of a women’s rights approach delivered through and monitored by strong well-funded Institutional Mechanisms for the Advancement of Women; buttressed by an accountability, resourcing, tax and public fiscal and revenue framework capable of sustainably financing progressive realization of women’s human rights.
2.      Women are at the heart of sustainable development; the post-2015 SDG agenda must include a clear and stand-alone goal on gender equality and women’s rights with clearly articulated means of implementation for women’s rights and empowerment. Girls and women’s rights must be recognized throughout the other SDG goals and specific strategies.
3.     CEDAW must remain the framework for monitoring and accountability of BPA commitments.
4.      Demand women’s equal access to resources including land, credit and funding towards intergenerational social, cultural, development, environmental, economic, civil and political rights and justice;
5.     Robust and sustained investment in women and girls’ rights including Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights; ending violence against all women and girls; and particularly ending child, early and forced marriage as well as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM);
6.     Urgent and systematic focus on women of all ages as users, shapers and leaders of new technologies.
7.    Sharing power with young women and girls as leaders and agents of change and ensure responsibility and accountability of men and boys for gender equality.

5 November, 2014

The Geneva NGO Forum appreciates the extensive volunteer support and contributions of women’s and feminist organizations and individuals, as well as all the partners that supported the Beijing+20 NGO Review especially the Governments of Switzerland, the State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA, among others. We deeply extend our gratitude to the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) and UN Women for their collaboration. The forum was convened by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), Geneva. Further information is available on http://beijing20.ngocsw-geneva.ch/.

Fragmento de obra de Roberto Noboa  
http://www.no-minimo.com/2012/08/tramando-el-azar/
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