Human Rights of Women
Source: Bernama
UNITED NATIONS -- South African Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has slammed the political declaration adopted at the start of this year's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), arguing that it makes very little reference to women's human rights while completely excluding language on sexual and reproductive health.
She was speaking at a session hosted in New York Tueday by Ilitha Labantu, a South African non-governmental organization (NGO) which strives to end violence against women and children in New York. NGOs in the main have expressed concern that the watered-down language in the declaration will erode the gains made since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
There was applause from member states when the political declaration was adopted through consensus last week. However, the South African government and NGOs believe it does not go far enough.
Dlamini told the NGO session at this year's CSW that "we can no longer tolerate attitudes that say the rights of women are too controversial to be addressed".
"This time the declaration was adopted on the first day, that has never happened before because there is fear that people will go on and on removing the important issues such as the issues of human rights," she said.
"Women's rights are human rights and you can never agree to a declaration that does not talk about women's rights as human rights as well as reproductive health and sexual rights. Because those are also about women having control of their lives."
The political declaration is a non-binding document, yet meant to fortify the Beijing Platform of Action that has delivered uneven progress 20 years on.
However, it scantily makes reference to the question of women's human rights and the contentious issues of rights pertaining to a women's reproductive and sexual choices; contentious because some conservative countries push and often win to limit language on these issues.
Ilitha Labantu Board Member Mmabatho Ramagoshi believes consensus at the United Nations is not consensus at all. "Yes, countries are diverse and maybe we need to agree on issues that need to come to the UN, because then you come with countries where culturally, religiously we'll never find a consensus, then we want to come here and we want to agree," she added.
"Maybe there should be in the UN, in the General Assembly, to say from now on let's agree on economic empowerment, let's leave all these patriarchal issues that we'll never agree on, because we waste two weeks not agreeing on an issue, go back home, come back again next year, so maybe regional, maybe SADC (the Southern African Development Community) comes up with a declaration that they would adopt as SADC and its easy to implement, easy to monitor."
South Africa has called for countries to negotiate in good faith if gains for women globally are to be achieved by 2030.
Dlamini said: "Is it really controversial to save lives of women through providing them with needed services guaranteed by the human rights framework?
"What is controversial is when we let the lives of women perish from preventable diseases. What is even more controversial is when a global gathering dedicated to advance the rights of women such as the CSW shies away from confronting head-on the challenges of women across the globe."
Inter-governmental negotiations at the UN on a stand-alone goal for women will be concluded as part of the Sustainable Development Goals by September this year.