Women's Day Celebrates 90 Years
Women's Day Celebrates 90 Years
US State Dept
backgrounder
Tue, 6 Mar 2001 19:45:14 -0500
Backgrounder: International Women's Day
Celebrates 90 Years
(Continues the quest for equality for
women in all areas) (1900)
By Deborah M.S.
Brown
Washington File Staff Writer
March 8 is the 90th
anniversary of International Women's Day,
which was first
celebrated March 19, 1911, in Austria, Denmark,
Germany
and Switzerland. According to a U.N. chronology,
more
than one million women and men attended rallies to
mark the
occasion then, calling for the right of women
"to vote and to
hold public office, the right to work, to
vocational training
and to an end to job
discrimination."
From those early years, International
Women's Day has grown into
the international women's
movement, which has been strengthened
by four global
United Nations women's conferences. Each has
helped make
the commemoration a rallying point for
coordinated
efforts to demand women's social, political
and economic rights.
Women around the world continue to
celebrate International
Women's Day, and in many
countries it is a national holiday.
This year in the
United States, President Bush has proclaimed
the entire
month of March as Women's History Month, and
celebrations
commemorating the struggle for equality will take
place
throughout the country. For example, Chicago is hosting
a
conference March 10 to look at how the women of that
city have
advanced in their everyday lives and also to
look at what still
needs to be done.
In countries like
South Africa, the constitution specifically
guarantees
women's rights to human dignity, freedom and
equality.
And in keeping with its commitment to women,
the
government of South Africa has ratified numerous
U.N.
conventions, among them, the Convention on the
Elimination of
all forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW); the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC);
the Convention on
Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for
Marriage and Registration
of Marriage (CCM); the
Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees/Protocol
Relating to the Status of Refugees (CRSR); and
the
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons
and
the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others
(CSTPEP). In
1996, South Africa also ratified the African
Charter on Human
and Peoples' Rights, a convention
adopted by the Organization of
African Unity
(OAU).
Although South Africa is generally the exception
when it comes
to championing women's rights
constitutionally, the women of
that country say they
still have a long way to go before they
can enjoy all
rights in reality, such as the ability to live
without
the fear of violence against them, or the destitution
of
poverty.
Just how far have women around the globe
come in their struggle
for equal rights with men?
Since
the 1993 Conference on Human Rights in Vienna,
"Women's
Rights are Human Rights!" has been a rallying
cry for women
worldwide. Every major international human
rights treaty
explicitly prohibits discrimination against
women, and yet,
statistics show that women are treated as
second-class citizens
in most areas of life. For
example:
-- Violence against women both in and out of the
home has
reached epidemic proportions worldwide. UNICEF's
May 2000
edition of Innocenti Digest, titled "Domestic
Violence Against
Women and Girls" reported that domestic
violence against both
young and old female citizens is
"present in every country,
cutting across boundaries of
culture, class, education, income,
ethnicity and age."
Such violence also includes the trafficking
of women and
girls, which remains a serious problem in many
parts of
the world, particularly in Southeast Asia.
-- The U.N.
cites that women contribute up to 70 percent of
their
local and national economies, but receive less than
10
percent of the world's income. The Afghan Taliban, for
example,
has restricted women from working outside the
home except in
very limited circumstances such as in
health care and
humanitarian assistance. According to
1997 statistics, the
majority of women worldwide earn
about three-fourths of the pay
of males for the same work
outside of the agricultural arena, in
both developed and
developing countries. And women in rural
areas produce
more than 55 per cent of all food grown in
developing
nations.
-- Although women make up half the world's
population, they
account for only 5 to 10 percent of
formal political leadership
positions worldwide. In
January 2001, the highest court in
Kuwait dismissed a
case seeking to grant women the right to vote
and to run
for office. Judge Abdullah Issa, president of
the
Constitutional Court, stated that women's "rights are
denied"
under the current law until the legislature
amends it.
-- According to a U.N. fact sheet, two-thirds
of the world's
nearly one million-million illiterate
people are women.
Sixty-six percent of the world's 130
million children who are
not in school are girls. And
during the past 20 years, the
combined primary and
secondary school enrollment ratio for girls
in developing
countries has increased only 40 percent.
Yet men and women
of good will around the world continue to
press for
better conditions for women across the board.
At the
Fourth U.N. World Conference on Women in Beijing in
1995,
delegates from 189 countries established the
Beijing Declaration
and Platform for Action, which
stated: "Women's poverty is
directly related to the
absence of economic opportunity and
autonomy, lack of
access to economic resources, including
credit, land
ownership and inheritance, lack of access to
education
and support services and their minimal participation
in
the decision-making process. Poverty can also force
women
into situations in which they are vulnerable to
sexual
exploitation."
In 1996, a landmark decision in
U.S. courts ruled that fear of
female genital mutilation
(FGM) can be grounds for granting
asylum to the United
States. The ruling was put to the test in
1997, when
Adelaide Abankwah fled her native Ghana in fear of
FGM
and sought asylum in the U.S. After two years of
legal
battles, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals in
August 1999
granted her asylum after a federal court in
New York decided
that she had a "well-founded fear of
being subjected to FGM" if
returned to her homeland.
As
a result of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action,
in 1998, the United Nations adopted a treaty to
establish an
International Criminal Court (ICC), whose
purpose if it becomes
operational would be to hear cases
of genocide, other crimes
against humanity and war
crimes. The court's mandate explicitly
lists rape and
other forms of sexual abuse including
enforced
prostitution, forced pregnancy and sexual
slavery as crimes
against humanity when "they are
committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack
directed at any civilian
population."
On February 23 of
this year in The Hague, the International
Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted
three
Bosnian Serbs of the rape, torture and sexual
enslavement
of Muslim women during the Bosnian war. The
crimes took place in
the town of Foca, southeast of
Sarajevo, in 1992 and 1993, at
the height of Bosnia's
ethnic conflict. It is estimated that
tens of thousands
of rapes took place during the war in Bosnia.
The
February verdict was a stunning victory for women's
human
rights, because it was the first time an
international tribunal
had ruled that rape is indeed a
"crime against humanity."
In October 1999, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted the
21-article Optional
Protocol to CEDAW and called on its members
to become
party to the new instrument as soon as possible.
The
Optional Protocol is significant for a number of
reasons. It
reaffirms existing remedies available under
other international
human rights instruments, and
advances the development of
international human rights
law, incorporating practices
developed by international
monitoring mechanisms over the last
30 years. The
Protocol entered into force in December 2000.
In assessing
the effectiveness of the new Protocol, Angela
King,
assistant secretary-general and special adviser to
the
secretary-general on gender issues and advancement of
women,
said the new Optional Protocol "provides an
international remedy
for violations of women's rights,"
by acting as an incentive for
governments to take a fresh
look at the means currently
available to women at the
domestic level to enforce their
rights. King added that
such action at the national level of
governments would
create an environment for women and girls to
fully enjoy
all their human rights, and it would also allow
their
grievances to be addressed with "the efficiency and
speed
they deserved."
In June 2000, the United Nations
General Assembly held a special
session entitled "Women
2000: Gender Equality, Development and
Peace for the 21st
Century," which was also known as "Beijing
plus 5" to
commemorate the five years that had passed since
the
Fourth Women's World Conference.
Women 2000 gave
priority to 12 critical areas that should
receive
attention on the world stage: poverty; education
and
training; health; violence against women; women and
armed
conflict; the economy; power and decision-making;
institutional
mechanisms for the advancement of women;
human rights; the
media; the environment; and the girl
child.
The special session provided a snapshot of the
status of women
at the turn of the 21st century in terms
of both achievements in
the past five years and the
obstacles that need to be overcome.
It also suggested
almost 200 measures that international
institutions,
governments, the private sector and
nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) can take either alone or
in
partnerships to secure women's equality.
But despite
the almost global reaction to Women 2000 and
past
conferences, protocols and other U.N., government
and NGO
participatory bodies, many women are impatient at
the slow rate
of their sex to gain even the most basic
human rights. They are
upset, and to paraphrase a popular
American movie of the 1980s,
"they're not going to take
it anymore."
So much so, that in Ireland in 1999 women
called for a general
strike in that country. On
International Women's Day 2000, the
first-ever Global
Women's Strike called on women everywhere to
lobby for a
"millennium that values all women's work and all
women's
lives" and an end to "no pay, low pay and
overwork."
Women from 60 nations participated, leaving
behind "diapers and
vacuum cleaners, computer screens,
farm work and factory lines
for protests and celebrations
speak-outs and marches."
And they are not done. A second
Global Women's Strike is called
for March 8, 2001, and
women around the world are once again
demanding the most
fundamental of rights, including "payment for
all caring
work in wages, pensions, land and other resources;
pay
equity for all, women and men, in the global
market;
accessible clean water, health care, housing,
transport,
literacy; protection and asylum from all
violence and
persecution, including by family members and
people in positions
of authority; and abolition of Third
World debt, which falls
heaviest on women and
girls."
Despite the threat of strike by half the world's
population,
however, everyone must continue to work
together to see that
women gain these and all rights of
equality.
Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights said
it best when she gave an address on
International Women's Day in
1998. She said: "Women
throughout the world have found that
Declarations and
Conventions are not enough to guarantee their
human
rights. It is past time to move from fine words to
firm
action by international organizations, national and
local
governments and civil society to ensure that the
rights of women
everywhere are fully
honored."
ENDS