Delegation Reports
Parliamentary meeting on the occasion of the 53rd session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, New York
4 March 2009
Delegation
Fiona Mactaggart MP
Baroness Uddin
Baroness Pola Uddin and Fiona Mactaggart MP attended the IPU conference entitled: The role of parliaments in promoting equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, on 4 March 2009. It coincided with the 53rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York.
It was Baroness Uddin’s second encounter with this auspicious gathering, she noticed the same tireless campaigners, same issues, DV, education, political equality, poverty, trafficking.
Fiona was there for the first time and was glad to be welcomed by Baroness Gould of Potternewton to a meeting of the UK delegation to the general meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which happened after the IPU conference was concluded.
If there had been a stronger integration of the conferences, this meeting could have been even more useful, and if parliamentarians were more involved in the national delegations this could also have helped support Britain’s contribution to the main sessions.
It is to be regretted that these events do not automatically connect with each other and we would recommend that in future the IPU takes steps to improve the integration of the two.
One opportunity arising from the fact that they coincide was to participate in a fringe event organised by the International Council of Jewish Women established in 1912 where we met several Muslim and Jewish women working together and talking peace amongst women activists.
But the two events clearly changed the face of the UN; everywhere you looked were women. If only the world leadership looked as the UN building does on these occasions, imagine the difference there would be for women of the world. Outside the halls, the euphoria of post Obama America resonated hope for a different world, which lifted some of the discussions inside about how we would cope with challenging economic times affecting every country.
Inside the conference, presentations by Panel members and contributions dealt with the need to recognise women’s unpaid work and provide better financial support for carers. There was a commitment to share the burden of caring more equally between women and men and a recognition that gender stereotypes can hinder progress and that in democratic institutions these contribute to holding back women.
The presentations included an excellent analysis of how much of women’s work is ignored because it is not paid and because women do more than one thing at a time, eg care for a child and farm the land. But counting systems only report on one activity at a time.
The distinction between paid and unpaid work means that the vast majority of women who are working and caring for families remain in poverty, out of the economy. Women are commonly invisible from the social counting for planning and implementing policies. Policy-making doesn’t include information on women not available for paid work because they have unpaid work to do.
About 30% of the value of global production is women’s unpaid work – working for families, on the land. As Winnie Byamia of the UN Development Programme argued, unpaid care for children and elders was unpaid work – suggesting that caring unrecognised was a global crisis for women’s economic independence.
There was a clear consensus that women parliamentarians need to recognise or assist their government to recognise that these hitherto unrecognised workers need to be brought into the labour force – a recognised state of being at work.This will require further changes: re prioritising budgets and implementing policies which reduce the burden of care.
While a large number of contributions were set piece statements, there were some moving and powerful contributions, such as that from Hannan Ashwari who spoke of the Gaza conflict and its impact on the women of Palestine.
The rape of women and girls as a weapon of war in places such as Darfur was discussed. It was stressed that a lack of post conflict planning caused women to suffer more especially when there is rape and torture
The meeting also considered gender stereotypes. Men who take responsibility for childcare risk being seen in a poor light ‘becoming a woman’. This was a great stigma in many countries.
In one session, we had a presentation on the Gender Transformative Programme which included work in Brazil and South Africa on the socialisation of men and boys. This work included addressing attitudes towards health, education, family and community norms. Your delegates wondered whether these countries were in the lead in challenging stereotypes, we wanted a clear understanding of the importance of role modelling.
The meeting also considered how sex discrimination can affect democratic institutions like parliaments where men’s dominance can exclude women.
It was dealt with in a session under the label I know Politics. This was sponsored by NDI, IPU and UNDPP.
This organisation was launched last year and has a panel of 61 experts representing 23 countries and membership of 1000 women. Both of us were unaware of whether there is any British participation in this, and we would have been pleased to know and perhaps to contribute.
The discussion was led by a Panel of Experts, including the South African deputy Speaker, and Members of Parliament from Egypt, Canada, Uganda and Rwanda. Some powerful experiences were shared and achievements described for others to aspire to, but we know that a handful of woman can camouflage inaction. Britain had a woman prime minister but it took nearly a decade after she had left for the number of women MPs to exceed the number of MPs called John.
Fiona Mactaggart described the work of the Speakers’ Conference which is looking at how we might tackle this issue in the UK. She argued for a stronger UN capacity to deal with discrimination against woman around the world.
Other aspects of sex discrimination were discussed from women’s pensions, which are unequal and not available in many parts of the world, to land laws which often discriminate against women. It was noted that such discrimination is one reason why maternity provisions remains poor and inaccessible in so many places.
There were numerous workshops including on HIV/AIDS, informal discussions on range of subjects from violence against women to trafficking for sexual exploitation. Many NGOs were there, because they were involved in the main conference and talking the opportunity to lobby for change.
And we wonder why things have not changed more since the UN Beijing meeting on the status of women. On her return from the UN conference, Baroness Uddin visited a girls school – the pupils had remarkable clarity of expectation when she talked about the discussions. Several students aged 15/16 asked– why are women still killed by their partners and husbands, why don’t women know their rights, why are women paid less then men, why honour killing prevails, if UN meets every year?
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