It does truly defy understanding that given that roughly half of the human occupants on planet earth are women anyone would think that you can resolve a global economic crisis without their full and equal participation. Via IPS News:
A groundbreaking U.N. General Assembly conference on the global economic crisis and its impact on development, set to begin Wednesday, may sideline women’s numerous concerns, civil society groups say.
The three-day meet does include a Women’s Working Group for Financing and Development, and the draft text to be debated by diplomats and heads of state, which was submitted and finalized Monday, mentions the differential impact the economic crisis is having on women.
However, the working group’s participants are gender equality and rights activists, not member states or delegates.
“We are counting on member states to recall their commitments to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment,” Yassine Fall, economics advisor for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), told IPS.
And while the General Assembly conference includes a women’s working group to address these issues, according to Bien Aime, that is part of the problem.
“The U.N. is very good at segregating women’s issues,” she told IPS. “It is critical to incorporate gender into all issues, that’s where the U.N. fails a lot.”
“They reserve an afternoon for women, almost as an afterthought,” she added.
Gender is an issue the U.N. has long struggled to properly address, even within its own structure.
According to a 2008 report by the office of the secretary-general, progress in the percentage of women represented in professional and senior appointed posts at the U.N. over the past decade was “disturbingly slow”, with only a three percent increase in female representation since 1998.
“It’s very necessary to have women in politics, to have women in society who come into power,” Barbara Prammer, president of the Austrian parliament, told IPS in May. “We need women in leading positions in the economy, everywhere, I’m deeply convinced.”
The U.N.’s official summary of the conference states explicitly that one of its main goals is to mitigate the impacts of the crisis on “vulnerable populations”, but nowhere are gender issues specifically noted.
Wow–these are known issues and it should truly be crystal clear that they must be considered. Sadly it is doubtful that a conference that is this disdainful of women’s lives will accomplish anything truly productive.
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