THE WOMEN'S WATCH
Volume 9, Number
2
September 1995
WOMEN, LAW, AND HUMAN RIGHTS - FORWARD FROM BEIJING
Long after the Fourth World Conference on Women has become
a part of history, the connections and the words that emerge
from it will remain alive in the world of women human rights.
The Platform for Action will be scrutinized and invoked to
support claims to full participation in all areas of human
endeavor, and much of its language will be helpful. But while
the Platform for Action-and the Programmes of Action adopted
by the 1993 Human Rights Conference and the 1994 ICPD-represent
global consensus on the human rights of women, they do not
carry the force of international law. They can be used, but
they cannot be enforced in national or international fora.
The legal obligation to eliminate discrimination and to
ensure that women have full and equal opportunity to participate
in political, economic and social development predates the
Beijing conference-in fact, it predates the UN Decade for
Women. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and
the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights
and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) provide
that human rights shall be pursued without discrimination
on the basis of sex. The Convention on the Elimnation of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the Women's Convention)
elaborates on the rights stated in these documents-and states
the particular obligation to focus on these rights for women
and to report on progress made in implementing them.
With 143 ratifications as of July 1995, the Women's Convention
has become the international standard for protection and promotion
of human rights of women. The standard of the Women's Convention
can be used as a measure for monitoring compliance with the
promises in the Platform for Action and every other world
conference promise pertaining to women. The application of
other human rights treaties to promote the human rights of
women can be informed by reference to the Women's Convention-and
the other hman rights treaties must be seen as clearly referring
to women as subjects of their guarantees as well.
Recognition and implementation of women's human rights under
all the human rights treaties was a major subject on the agenda
of a recent Expert Group meeting held in July 1995 at the
UN Centre for Human Rights. Co-sponsored by UNIFEM and the
Centre for Human Rights, the Expert Group developed guidelines
for inclusion of gender perspectives in United Nations human
rights activities that will inform the agenda for human rights
advocacy long after Beijing. And immediately after Beijing,
the Centre will hold the sixth meeting of the Chairpersons
of the human rights treaty bodies-with gender issues on that
agenda. The results of the expert group meeting will be presented,
with a discussion of how the treaty bodies can effectively
increase their attention to the human rights of women.
But while progress has undoubtedly been made on international
fronts, the real issues of monitoring and implementation of
women's human rights can only be resolved effectively on the
national level-using international standards and examples
to back up local action. Ratification of the Women's Convention
is a key element of both international and national-level
action, the link between the vision and the achievement of
women's human rights. No country's claim to favor women's
rights can be taken seriously unless it has ratified the Women's
Convention.
As of July 1995, entering the last weeks before the Fourth
world Conference on Women, the ratification record for the
Women's Convention is perhaps as close to universal as one
could hope at this point, but not quite there. While ratification
is by no means a clear indication of absolute intent to implement-witness
the twenty-one countries that are four or more years behind
in initial reporting and twenty-four others that have owed
periodic reports for over four years-it is at least an acknowledgment
that the standard is significant and permanent. After the
Beijing conference, citizens of the following countries could
ask their governments-forcefully-about the contradiction between
participation in the Fourth World Conference and failure to
ratify the Women's Convention:
COUNTRIES THAT HAVE NOT RATIFIED THE WOMEN'S CONVENTION
- JULY 1995
Europe
and
North America |
West Asia
(Middle East) |
Latin America
Caribbean |
Asia Pacific
Central Asia |
Africa |
Andorra
Leichtenstein
Monaco
San Marino
Switzerland*(S)
United States
of America (S) |
Bahrain
Iran
Lebanon
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Syrian Arab Republic
United Arab Emirates |
All
ratified |
Afghanistan
(S)
Brunei Darussalam
Cook Islands*
Democratic People's
Repub. of Korea
Fiji
Kazakhstan
Kyrgystan
Kiribati*
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Myanmar
Nauru*
Pakistan
Palau
Singapore
Solomon Islands
Tonga*
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu*
Vanuatu |
Algeria
Botswana
Cote d'Ivoire (S)
Djibouti
Eritrea
Lesotho (S)
Mauritania
Mozambique
Niger
Sao Tome
and Principe
Somalia
South Africa (S)
Sudan
Swaziland |
*non-member
state of the United Nations (S) signed, not ratified or
acceded |
HUMAN RIGHTS -
Convention Articles 2 and 3
The Unity Dow
case continues . . . The Parliament of Botswana has failed
to enact a measure proposed by the Government to amend the
Botswana nationality law to eliminate discriminatory provisions.
Botswana has been without an enforceable law concerning the
nationality of children since the 1982 Nationality Act was
declared unconstitutional in Dow v. Attorney General in 1992.
The proposed new law provides that children take the citizenship
of either parent and also includes nondiscriminatory provisions
for citizenship of a foreign spouse. Until it is enacted,
however, Dow's children and all those in similar situations
remain in legal limbo.
Bangladeshi
organizations demand the prosecution of three former Bangladeshi
citizens for war crimes and gross violations of human rights
committed during the Bangladesh wars of liberation in 1971.
According to the International Solidarity Network of Women
Living Under Muslim Laws, the men, now British citizens prominent
in Muslim fundamentalist activities in the U.K., are accused
of inciting torture, mutilation and murder. Thousands of women
were raped during the war, abandoned and rejected by their
families and society. The Bangladeshi initiative is supported
by the Algerian organization Family of Victims of Terrorism,
the Algerian Rally of Democrat Women (RAFD), and other global
women's organizations.
One step forward,
one step back in Argentina. The National Ministry of the
Interior has established an Anti-Discrimination Program (Programa
Contra la Discriminacion), where women who feel they have
been discriminated against can find information and support,
especially for incidents that violate anti-discriminatory
legislation passed during the presidency of Raul Alfonsin.
At the same time, the Ministry of Culture and Education has
withdrawn support for a major educational reform program that
incorporated gender into the Basic Common Curriculum. The
senior educators who worked in this program have resigned
in protest-but after having trained more than 50,000 teachers,
conducted three major national campaigns and numerous international
seminars, and published educational materials, according to
Gloria Bonder they "are sure that many of the seeds [they]
have sown and seen as little trees will go on living in the
everyday life in the schools."
VIOLENCE AGAINST
WOMEN - Convention Articles 3, 5, 6, 12, and 16
In two recent
judgments, the Colombian Supreme Court underscored the legal
basis for protection against physical and emotional violence
in marriage. According to Mujer Fempress, the Court advised
the male abusers in these cases that threats or actual violence
warranted State intervention, and possible fines and imprisonment.
The Court added that any type of subordination in the relationship
of a couple is indefensible before the law.
The 1993 Prevention
of Family Violence Act has significantly reformed South African
common law regarding sexual and physical violence between
spouses. Reporting on the reforms, the Women's Health
Project says victims will find it simpler and cheaper to bring
charges against family members who commit violent acts. The
Act also makes it possible for a husband to be convicted of
raping his wife. However, Joanne Fedler, a law lecturer and
member of People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), argues that
the new Act does not give women adequate protection against
violence and places too much emphasis on maintaining family
unity and "rehabilitating" abusers in instances where it may
not be in the best interests of the women involved.
A Centre for
Girls and an SOS Hotline were established in Belgrade in March
1994. Both are voluntary, non-professional services aimed
at eliminating all forms of violence against women and providing
support services, information and institutional contacts for
girls. The Centre offers workshops, counseling and a gathering
place for girls. The email address for the Centre and the
hotline is: CENTRIC_BG@ZAMIR-BG.ztn.apc.org
Pakistani women
hope the recent sentencing of an Islamic religious leader
for abusing his wife will help change attitudes. The thirty-year
sentence, the highest ever imposed for spousal abuse, was
given after conviction for strapping his wife to a bed and
torturing her with electric rods. The case was first publicized
by the Progressive Women's Association.
PROSTITUTION AND
TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN - Convention Article 6
Between 5,000
and 7,000 women and girls are taken each year from Nepal to
Indian brothels. The sale of a woman or girl by her family
can bring in as much as ten years' income. Maita Nepal ( Mother's
House), an organization formed in 1993 by Anuradha Koirala,
lends money to female beggars and prostitutes to help them
operate street and runs a shelter for abandoned, abused and
neglected women and children. The shelter lost UNICEF funding
when she refused to return children to their families , arguing
that the parents had not gone through any counseling or rehabilitation
and the children would end up back on the streets.
Sixty-seven
percent of the children reported missing in Venezuela are
girls, and the number is steadily increasing. Mujer/fempress
reports that the situation was the focus of a conference held
in March 1995, which discussed the need for institutional
collaboration to develop a National Plan to Prevent the Trafficking
and Sale of Children. An estimated 40,000 girls are thought
to be working as prostitutes in Venezuela and are vulnerable
to further exploitation in the international network trafficking
in women and girls.
The Japanese
government will establish a fund to help the tens of thousands
of World War II "comfort women." Most of the comfort women
were Korean, but Dutch, Indonesian, Filipino and Chinese women
were also victims. The New York Times reported in June 1995
that the "Asian Peace and Friendship Foundation for Women"
will support medical and social welfare projects for victims
and will underwrite other projects to raise the general status
of women in Asia. Estimates of the number of women forced
into prostitution as "comfort women" range from 80,000 to
200,000, with an estimated 58,000 thought to be still living.
The Japanese government said that this action was based on
"remorse for the past," but stopped short of what victims
have asked for-a statement of regret by the Japanese government.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has made public
its recommendations for full restitution of "comfort women"
and full disclosure of all information concerning them. For
the complete text of the ICJ recommendations, see UNEWS No.
5, April 1995.
The Global
Alliance Against Women-trafficking, launched in Thailand in
1994, brings activists, policy-makers, social workers, researchers
and women trafficking victims together to work against the
global trafficking in women. The Alliance will also work
on a new UN Convention on trafficking in women. Information:
Stichting tegen Vrouwenhandel, P.O. Box 1455, 3500 BC Utrecht,
The Netherlands.
POLITICS AND PUBLIC
LIFE - Convention Article 7
At Radio Nadezdha
(Radio Hope), the first independent broadcasting station in
Russia, all program presenters are women, though men share
administrative and technical duties. The station first
began broadcasting 3 hours daily in 1992 and has since increased
to 23 hours daily. One of the founders of Nadezdha is the
Women's Union of Russia. Editor in chief Tatiana Zeleranskaya
claims Nadezdha is the largest women's radio station in the
world, with an audience extending throughout the Russian Federation,
the U.S., Australia and India, and more than 1.5 million listeners
in Moscow alone. Information: Radio Nadezdha, 25 Pyatnitskaya
Street, 113326 Moscow, Russia. Telephone: 095-233-65-88. Fax:
2302828.
As violence
and gangland killings spread across the French island of Corsica,
women have mobilized to protest and demand police crackdowns
on illegal weapons, according to the New York Times. After
four killings in one week in January 1995, 500 women joined
to publish an anti-violence statement in the newspaper which
they called "Manifesto for Life." Over 2,000 women have added
their signatures to the statement, and women-led protests
have spread across the island. The violence is linked to numerous
groups involved in the Corsican nationalist struggle.
Women seeking
equal participation in the transition to Palestinian self-rule
were dealt a blow when the Palestinian authority gave 90%
of the seats on its transitional committees to men. This
may have serious implications for the future direction of
gender relations and women's political and social participation
in Palestine. A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
report on the status of Palestinian women sees Palestinian
leadership at a crossroads, where a choice must be made between
building a nation based on equal opportunity and gender-based
partnerships, or risking the loss of women's hard-won accomplishments.
EMPLOYMENT - Convention
Article 11
Women in Taipei
protested government policies discriminating against women
workers. Carrying banners and armed with a petition bearing
more than 30,000 signatures, 200 protesters marched to the
gates of Taiwan's parliament to voice their opposition to
government ordinances that prohibit married and pregnant women
from working. The Solidarity Front on Women Workers and the
Pink Collar Solidarity organized the campaign, demanding an
equal right to work for all women. The Asian Women Workers
Newsletter reports that women in Hong Kong, Nepal, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, South Korea, Indonesia, China and Thailand also
have launched strikes and protests against unsafe working
conditions, poor pay, and lack of enforcement of international
laws to protect the rights of women workers.
Despite constitutional
protection against sexual discrimination, at least one Paraguayan
company continues to blatantly discriminate against women
in employment and training opportunities. Mujer/fempress
reports that Laura Cibils, a student at the National Technical
High School, was accepted for training at Aceros del Paraguay
(ACEPAR) along with her male counterparts. Despite being approved
by the Human Resources Department, Cibils was later rejected
by the General Management explicitly because she was female.
Cibils was refused training despite existing contracts between
the National Technical High School and numerous businesses,
including ACEPAR , to provide such opportunities for male
and female students.
The Self-Employed
Women's Union (SEWU) in Durban, South Africa helps to protect
self-employed women from exploitation and harassment.
As of October 1994, SEWU membership had reached nearly 300.
In addition to raising women's awareness of their legal rights,
SEWU faces the challenge of fostering women's participation
in non-traditional areas such as carpentry and electrification.
Many women are eager to learn non-traditional skills, and
SEWU is negotiating with the Khuphuka Skills Training and
Employment Project to run part-time classes for SEWU members.
HEALTH CARE AND
FAMILY PLANNING - Convention Article 12
Men participating
in clinical trials to test male hormonal contraceptive methods
found the injectable hormones highly acceptable as a method
of birth control. Progress in Human Reproduction Research
states that the majority of men who participated at centers
in Australia, Scotland, Singapore and Thailand, as well as
their partners, said they would consider using the method
if it were available, and found it much more acceptable as
a male method than condoms or vasectomy.
The abortion
debate has intensified in Thailand with recent crackdowns
on illegal abortions. Thai law allows a woman to terminate
her pregnancy in cases of rape and forced prostitution, or
if the pregnancy endangers the woman's life. The Friends of
Women Newsletter reports that an estimated 300,000 women seek
illegal abortions every year because of strict abortion laws.
The government has established special clinics, but they cannot
deal with the demand for abortions. At one clinic, of 500
women seeking services, four were given abortions and the
remaining 496 were given counseling and referred to NGOs.
The Health
Ministry of Brazil estimates that nearly 25 million women
have been sterilized, and that sterilizations are most heavily
concentrated in the poorest areas of the country, among Afro-Brazilian
women. Sterilization rates surpass 70% in some states,
and youth and adolescents undergo the procedure along with
adult women. The Servicio Brasileiro de Justica e Paz reports
that the high cost of birth control methods in Brazil, among
the world's most expensive, has led to dependence on female
sterilization as a simple, rapid, secure method of contraception.
Many firms demand a pregnancy test at the time of an interview
and even subsidize sterilization procedures, despite the fact
that sterilization is prohibited by law and by the Brazilian
medical ethics code.
Harsh restrictions
on international family planning organizations are included
in the June 1995 "American Overseas Interests Act" passed
by the US House of Representatives. Unlike previous appropriations,
the bill does not contain a specific line for population assistance,
which would instead be disbursed from the development assistance
account which has already been reduced by 40%. In addition,
the bill amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to include
as a ground for asylum as "persecuted," any person subjected
to or fearing forced abortion or involuntary sterilization.
The special consideration given to individuals prevented from
bearing children is not extended to those forced to have children.
RURAL WOMEN -
Convention Article 14
According to
Mujer/fempress, 96.7% of rural women who migrate to cities
in Ecuador must work daily to maintain their families, 92%
have no form of social security, and only 4.7% receive support
from a partner or husband. The majority of women who migrate
to the cities live in conditions of extreme poverty, and work
in the informal sector where they are unprotected by legislation
governing the formal sector of the economy. These are some
of the results reported in a recent study "Women Migrants
in Ecuador," published by the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Investigaciones
y Capacitacion de la Mujer (IECAIM), with support from UNIFEM.
A new ruling
governing land purchases in the Malaysian state of Perak protects
women's land rights. The Kinta land office issued a ruling
which requires all applications for land within the district
to be made in the name of the woman if she is Perak-born.
The ruling would prevent local-born women from losing their
land rights upon divorce, which previously resulted in at
least fourteen women being displaced from their homes and
land after divorce from non-local men. The ruling is effective
beginning this year.
FAMILY LAW - Convention
Articles 5, 15, and 16
Thousands of
Filipina women have joined to file suit against the United
States seeking support for the estimated 8,600 Amerasian children
in Olongapo, a town located next to the former Subic Bay Naval
Station. According to the New York Times, the class action
suit claims that the U.S. Navy-including officers and retirees-had
a direct role in encouraging and regulating the local bar
and sex industry, fostering prostitution, live-in arrangements
and marriages in which servicemen fathered thousands of children
who have since been abandoned. The women filed the $68 million
lawsuit arguing that the U.S. government has a moral and legal
responsibility to provide for the education and medical care
of children abandoned by U.S. servicemen.
Colombian lawyer
Ester Villamizar denounced Family Court judges who allowed
misogynist messages to be displayed, and in some cases participated
themselves in such displays. According to Mujer/fempress
messages such as "if women were good God would have one,"
and "a man is happy with a woman until the day he tells her
he loves her" were among those displayed on bulletin boards
in Colombian family courts. Villamizar called for these cases
to be made public, along with information showing judges'
lack of familiarity with the rights of women.
Militant Muslim
lawyers in Cairo succeeded in June 1995 in persuading a court
to annul the marriage of a university professor, arguing that
his writings are an insult to Islam. Nasr Abu Zeid and
his wife, Ibithal Younis, insist they want to stay married
and are now unsure of what to do. Abu Zeid, a professor of
Arabic literature at the University of Cairo, has been attacked
for his linguistic analysis of the Koran, and was declared
an apostate by the appeals court. According to the religious
laws that govern Muslim marriages in Egypt, an apostate is
not allowed to be married to a Muslim. The ruling was the
first time the courts have been used in Egypt to force avowed
Muslims to end their marriage, and it is still unclear how
the ruling would be enforced and what the penalty for violations
would be.
Turkish women
are appealing to women abroad to help pressure the Turkish
parliament to revise discriminatory family laws. A bill
to abolish discriminatory legislation has existed since 1984,
but has not been passed by parliament. When a recent petition
with signatures of 100,000 women failed to move the bill,
the Turkish Women for Women's Human Rights joined the struggle
and is asking others to lend support by signing an international
petition . For a letter with signature list contact: Women
Living under Muslim laws, Boite Postale 23, 34790 Grabels,
(Montpellier) France, or Women for Human Rights, fax 90-216-385162.
RESOURCES
Nearly 1,500
NGOs present at the NGO Forum during the Copenhagen World
Summit for Social Development in March, 1995 signed an alternative
declaration on social development. The declaration calls
on the Summit to address the structural causes of poverty,
unemployment and social disintegration, as well as environmental
degradation and the cultural structures of gender inequality.
The declaration is reprinted in the Women's Global Network
for Reproductive Rights Newsletter 49, January-March 1995.
The Once and
Future Action Network (OFAN) is a network of non-governmental
organizations working in the areas of gender, science and
technology. Information: OFAN Secretariat, Business District,
40 Duke Street, Kingston, Jamaica. Telephone: 809-967-2339
ext. 229, FAX 809-967-2397, e-mail ofan@igc.apc.org or eaglefnd@uwinoma.edu.jm.
OFAN has also produced, with UNIFEM and the International
Women's Tribune Centre, Women: Science and Technology for
Development: A Preliminary Guide to Who's Doing What. From:
IWTC, 777 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017 USA. FAX:
1-212-661-2704.
The Center
for Women's Global Leadership, UNIFEM, and the United Nations
Development Fund have published Demanding Accountability:
The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women's Human
Rights, by Charlotte Bunch and Niamh Reilly. A companion
volume,Testimonies of the Global Tribunal on Violations of
Women's Human Rights at the United Nations World Conference
on Human Rights, is also available. From: The Center for Women's
Global Leadership, Douglass College, Rutgers University, 27
Clifton Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08903, USA. Phone:
908-932-8782 Fax: 908-932-1180.
The Tanzania
Media Women's Association (TAMWA) published a special
issue of Sauti Ya Siti, Tanzania Women's Magazine, in March
1995 on the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) held
in Copenhagen in May 1995. To obtain this and other issues
of Sauti Ya Siti, contact TAMWA at: P.O. Box 8981, Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania. Tel: (255-51) 29089/32181/26534. Fax: (255-51)
44939/44834. E-Mail: TAMWA @HNETTAN. GN.APC.ORG.
The relationship
between women's health care needs and Catholic Church policy
are discussed in "Health Care Reform Crossroads: The Gap
Between Catholic Church Mandates and Women's Needs." From:
CFFC Catholics for a Free Choice, 1436 U Street NW, Suite
301, Washington, DC 20009. Tel: 202 986-6093.
WOMEN'S WATCH
subscriptions policy. Women's Watch is sent free to groups
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Other subscription points: In Great Britain and continental
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In Canada, Susan Bazilli, METRAC, 158 Spadina Road, Toronto,
Ontario M5R 2T8. In Japan, Japanese Ass'n of International
Women's Rights, Bunkyo Women's College, 1196 Kamekubo, Ohi-machi,
Iruma, Saitama 354 Japan.
WOMEN'S WATCH
is published by the IWRAW project, Humphrey Institute of Public
Affairs at the University of Minnesota, USA. Editors: Marsha
Freeman and Sharon Ladin. IWRAW is a global network of individuals
and organizations that monitors implementation of the Convention
on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against
Women, an international treaty ratified by over 130 countries.
The University
of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
The Humphrey Institute is hospitable to a diversity of opinions
and aspirations. The Institute does not itself take positions
on public policy issues. The contents of this report are the
responsibility of the editors. IWRAW is grateful to the Ford
Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
the Carnegie Corporation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Shaler
Adams Foundation, the Netherlands Foreign Ministry, SIDA and
numerous other individuals and foundations for financial support.
Contributions to the project are welcomed and are tax deductible
for U.S. citizens.