Today’s Soroptivoice blog comes from International President of SI Ann Garvie who yesterday spoke at an panel event at CSW58 entitled ‘Preventing
gender-based violence and discrimination for equality and empowerment of women
and girls of all ages‘. The panel consisted of five leading
women’s NGOs
and discussed empowering women and girls through combating violence and
discrimination, increasing educational opportunities and
realizing that equality in all spheres must be of primary importance as we move
into the Post-2015 era.

"Tuesday 11^th March 2014 I participated in a panel alongside Zonta International, the International Federation of University Women (IFUW), Widows for
Peace through Democracy (WFPTD) and Virginia
Gildersleeves International Foundation (VGIF).

Zonta, IFUW
and VGIF described the many projects undertaken throughout the world by their
organisations to prevent gender-based violence and discrimination and to promote equality
and empowerment illustrating the levels of empowerment from each project.

WFPTD
outlined the cruelty suffered by women in various parts of the
world where certain cultural traditions continue
to result in widows being stripped of every asset they have leaving them in destitution, and even worse having their
children taken away from them by the deceased husbands’ family. Non- existent laws or a failure to
implement them denies many widows of any human rights. WFPTD asked the audience to push for the inclusion of the plight
of widows on the 2016 CSW Agenda.

On my turn to speak I conveyed that still 30 years on from 3^rd International Conference of
Women, after countless interventions and policies, the world is still faced with a global
pandemic of gender-violence; I explained that the MDG’s
were ground breaking but that they have not achieved half as much as they should have and furthermore they do
not address the root causes of why women and girls are worse off than men.

Soroptimist International has some Key Asks of which we hope will be included in the Post 2015 Development Agenda and that we believe will work to address this pandemic and make for a more equal society:

·        
Whatever goals and targets are agreed, the data
collected on each and every one must be disaggregated
by sex

·        
While we welcome a standalone target which focuses on eliminating violence against women, SI
wants to ensure that this is measured in
a progressive and reliable way  

·        
There must be additional attention paid to community-wide transformations or else
society will remain status quo. A women with vocational skills is no better off
if she is barred from using those skills in stable employment

·        MEN and
BOYS must be an integral part of empowerment programmes as we work to address the underlying social
and economic determinants of the vulnerabilities of women and girls

·        
Take extreme caution to avoid implying that
gender equality is about women taking on male roles

·         We must guarantee that discussion around the
financing and resourcing for the Post-2015 agenda takes a gender-responsive approach and includes gender audits. This is non-
negotiable".

Read more updates from CSW58

Photo:  International President Ann, left, with other leading NGO speakers.

Photo credited to Margaret Clark