Mar. 8th, 2013

Women’s Days greetings from the UN CSW

Happy International Women’s Day!

This year I had the opportunity to spend Women’s Day and a few days leading up to it at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations in New York City. This is the 57th session of the Commission and the theme this year is Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls, a key issue for KAIROS and our partners. Huge gains have been made for women since the founding of the CSW, but there is still much to be done. In the words of Soon-Young Yoon, chair of the NGO CSW Forum:

At CSW 57, we have the opportunity for the world’s governments- and the UN as its collective body- to support the social movement for gender equality in a campaign to end violence against women and girls within a generation … For all the activities in the past – worthy as they are- what is missing at the UN is the highly visible, bold and dramatic exercise of the world’s moral authority on this issue.

There are at least three thousands women here from all over the world. There are NGO and government delegations, multilateral organizations and grassroots groups. There are a diversity of women and representation from Indigenous, labour, human rights and environmental groups. There are women, elders of the CSW, who have attended almost since the beginning, along with women who are here for the first time. There are a number of us Canadians here as well, including delegations from labour, the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), and the Voice of Women (VOW).

There are a multitude of events and workshops available to delegates within the official Commission and at the parallel NGO CSW Forum, and there is quite a bit of fluidity between the two. Over the years, women’s organizations and networks have used these meetings to network and to share experiences and strategies, as well as to lobby governments and the UN. Participation has continued to grow and this year is the largest CSW ever. I am writing this from the lobby of the UN where there is an energetic buzz generated from all the lobbying, strategizing and networking between the official meetings.

I have had the opportunity to attend numerous interesting panels – both official and parallel. I have met some amazing women delegates and participants whom I hope to collaborate with in the future. I willl take all of this home to reflect on further, to share and to include in my work with KAIROS. My experience here has reaffirmed our work with partners in addressing violence against women and ending impunity. In particular, the importance of human rights training and mobilizing women around human rights instruments like UNSCR1325 has been a prevalent theme here. Anne Marie Goetz, Chief advisor on UN peace and Security, noted that the biggest gap in the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, a resolution which calls for women’s participation in conflict prevention and peace building, is support for women civil society organizations. This echoes what we have been saying in the women of courage program and reaffirms the importance of our direct support for partners’ work. I was struck by the words of Bineta Diop, founder and president of Femmes Africa Solidarite (FAS) at a workshop on the UN Security Council Resolution What lies Ahead?

If peace agreements do not talk about sexual violence, they will not bring durable peace … But most of the time we put those who hold the guns at the table …We do not want these negotiations to take place on the bodies of African women.

Meanwhile, the member states of the Commission are working on a statement and there is heated discussion about wording. Sadly, the struggle in this arena seems to be around hanging on to existing agreements and gains. Last year, there was no final statement from the CSW because consensus was not reached and there is a risk that the outcome will be the same this year. Although it is clear that tremendous progress has been made on women’s rights in the more than half a century of the CSW, there is a danger that gains that have been made even in the last 20 years are at stake. Within the NGO caucus, the majority position seems to be that no agreement is better than one that erodes previous gains. But, the CSW will be meeting for another week. I am hopeful that member States in the Commission will listen and respond to the energy, courage, experience and expertise of the thousands of women from all over the world who make up the CSW NGO forum, and that this will produce a strong statement. This is needed to support the struggle to eliminate violence against women around the world.