Soroptimist International and other women’s organisations have expressed anger and disappointment at attempts to backtrack on existing international agreements on violence against women and girls at the 57th session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW57), currently taking place in New York.  

"It is alarming that states are continuing to negotiate established standards that they themselves have agreed to, as we are witnessing in the last few days of negotiation", says a statement endorsed by SI and other international organisations.

"We strongly demand that all governments and the international community reject any attempt to invoke traditional values or morals to infringe upon human rights guaranteed by international law, or to limit their scope."

CSW is the principle global policy-making body dedicated to gender-equality and the advancement of women; this year the primary focus is on eliminating violence against women and girls. But NGOs fear that it will once again fail to reach firm agreed conclusions, as in 2012, or worse that the outcomes may weaken existing international standards. These include the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

In particular, this year’s session of CSW has seen controversy over issues surrounding reproductive health/rights and harmful practices carried out in the name of culture or tradition. The statement affirms that "customs, tradition or religious considerations must not be tolerated to justify discrimination and violence against women and girls", a position whole-heartedly supported by Soroptimist International.  Read more in the recent SoroptiVoice blog post:  "When Culture Clashes with Law".

Other key issues to emerge from CSW have been the important role of educating men and boys in preventing gender-violence and the need to consider how the rights of women and girls can be promoted in the post-2015 development agenda (the Millennium Development Goals cover the period 2000-2015). 

CSW is now in its second and final week. Soroptimist International delegates, led this week by International Assistant Progamme Director Anusha Santhirasthipam continue to lobby hard, meeting with many countries’ Ambassadors/Permanent Representatives and UN Committees to highlight the powerful reasons to take action on violence against women and girls, share experience gathered from Soroptimist projects worldwide and push for firm action.

Soroptimist International has endorsed the Statement of Women’s and Feminist Organisations issued by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) and International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW Asia Pacific) on Wednesday 13 March.

More Resources on CSW57

• See the latest updates from the SI delegation at www.soroptimistinternational.org/CSW57
• An A-Z of UN-Speak – key terms from CSW57
• UN Women "In Focus" pages on CSW including updates, webcasts and more

 

10 Reasons to ELIMINATE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS and Ensure GENDER EMPOWERMENT

1.         The healthcare consequences of violence against women and girls exceed that of cancer in women (World Bank estimate).

2.         WHO findings prove that medical care costs of rape or sexual assault victims are twice that of non-victims.

3.         World economic data reveals that countries that empower women to contribute to the economy by 2-3% increase GDP by 6-8%.

4.         Women are primary producers of up to 90% of food for the rural poor and produce 60-80% of essential food in most developing countries.

5.         Many developed countries have documented substantial productivity losses and negative socio-economic impact due to high incidence of violence against women.

6.         Every minute a woman dies in childbirth; teen brides are twice as likely to die. Maternal mortality affects families and communities.

7.         72% of the world’s 33 million refugees are women and girls, most are victims of violence who require medical aid, food and shelter.

8.         80% of transnational trafficking victims are women and girls and up to 50% are minors. Social welfare service costs are rising  fast.

9.         70% of the world’s poor are women; 1.2 billion women  earn less than US$1 A DAY.

10.       50% of the world’s population are women and in most countries they are registered voterswho can determine Governments.