One of the topics that will be talked about at the CSW will be on the topic of early and child marriage.
Child early or forced marriage4 is a phenomenon that affects both the developed and the developing world. In some countries prevalence is extremely high across the whole population. In others, overall prevalence might be low but early marriage is still widely practiced in particular communities that are marginalized from mainstream society because of race or religion, for example, and as a result the issue may be ignored by governments. Its far-reaching effects go beyond the individual, affecting the entire community, and even national and global development.
Child marriage is a human rights violation, often following from and leading to further human rights violations. We cannot tackle child marriage in isolation - it is inextricably linked to abuses that affect many girls and women throughout their lives.
To read the just released report on Protecting the Girl Child - http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/Protecting_the_Girl_Child.pdf
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
Countries that are members of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (45 Members)
Forty-five Member States of the United Nations serve as members of the
Commission at any one time. The Commission consists of one representative from
each of the 45 Member States elected by the Economic and Social Council on the
basis of equitable geographical distribution: Members are elected for a period
of four years.
- 13 members from Africa
- 11 from Asia
- 9 from Latin America and Caribbean
- 8 from Western Europe and other States
- 4 from Eastern Europe
58th SESSION-2014
COUNTRY MEMBERSHIP OF THE UN COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN (45 Members)
Alphabetical list (Term expires at close of session in year:)
1.
Argentina 2014
2.
Bangladesh 2014
3.
Belarus 2017
4.
Belgium 2015
5.
Brazil 2016
6.
Burkina Faso 2017
7.
8.
China 2016
9.
10.
Cuba 2016
11.
Democratic Republic of the Congo 2015
12.
13.
Ecuador 2017
14.
El Salvador 2014
15.
Estonia 2015
16.
Finland 2016
17.
Gambia 2014
18.
Georgia 2015
19.
Germany 2017
20.
Indonesia 2016
21.
22.
Israel 2017
23.
Jamaica 2015
24.
Japan 2017
25.
Lesotho 2017
26.
Liberia 2015
27.
Libya 2014
28.
Malaysia 2014
29.
Mongolia 2014
30.
31.
Niger 2016
32.
Pakistan 2017
33.
Paraguay 2017
34.
35.
36.
Russian Federation 2016
37.
Spain 2015
38.
Sudan 2016
39.
Swaziland 2014
40.
Switzerland 2017
41.
Thailand 2015
42.
Uganda 2017
43.
United States of America 2016
44.
Uruguay 2014
45.
Zimbabwe 2015
|
List by regions:
AFRICAN STATES (13 Members):
1.
Burkina Faso 2017
2.
3.
4.
Democratic Republic of the Congo 2015
5.
Gambia 2014
6.
Lesotho 2017
7.
Liberia 2015
8.
Libya 2014
9.
Niger 2016
10.
Sudan 2016
11.
Swaziland 2014
12.
Uganda 2017
13.
Zimbabwe 2015
ASIAN STATES (11 Members):
1.
Bangladesh 2014
2.
China 2016
3.
Indonesia 2016
4.
5.
Japan 2017
6.
Malaysia 2014
7.
Mongolia 2014
8.
Pakistan 2017
9.
10.
11.
Thailand 2015
EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES (4 Members):
1.
Belarus 2017
2.
Estonia 2015
3.
Georgia 2015
4.
Russian Federation 2016
LATIN AMERICAN & CARIBBEAN STATES (9 M.):
1.
Argentina 2014
2.
Brazil 2016
3.
Cuba 2016
4.
5.
Ecuador 2017
6. El
Salvador 2014
7.
Jamaica 2015
8.
Paraguay 2017
9.
Uruguay 2014
1.
Belgium 2015
2.
Finland 2016
3.
Germany 2017
4.
Israel 2017
5.
6.
Switzerland 2017
7.
Spain 2015
8.
United States of America 2016
|
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Background paper available
Background document to prepare for CSW 58 is now available:
Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Structural and Policy Constraints in Achieving the MDGs for Women and Girls
UN Women in collaboration with The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
Mexico City, Mexico 21-24 October 2013
The report is available here.
Friday, December 20, 2013
A new development paradigm post-2015, a comprehensive goal for health that includes sexual and reproductive health and rights, and another for gender equality
An important part of the discussion about the MDGs is Sexual and Reproductive Health for women and girls. What will a new paradigm on health look like?
Here is an editorial from Reproductive Health Matters that brings home the point -
These are our bottom lines… We are counting on all governments to have the courage to champion the ‘controversial’ issues by addressing the difficult realities, many of which are related to the root causes of inequalities… 1. Keep your Promises. 2. Champion our Sexual Rights. 3. We Demand Economic Justice. 4. Leave us a Healthy Planet. 5. We are Stakeholders, not a Target Group.” (Post-2015 Consultation Youth Statement, October 2013)1
What a wordstorm the ICPD Beyond 2014 and Post-2015 Sustainable Development agendas have unleashed! What a tsunami of consultations, meetings, reports, statements, shopping lists of wishes and demands, and overflowing expectations has been pouring in from every corner of the globe! I don’t know how the UN Secretary-General deals with it, but my inbox can barely cope. On the other hand, this storm has brought in a treasure trove of comments, policy analysis and critiques, which I’d like to share with you. And the same is true of the excellent papers in this journal issue.
There are two issues I want to emphasise in this editorial which, together, reflect the crux of what this journal issue is about and what I think is going on in the world beyond the verbal explosion:
The MDGs on health scuppered the focus on comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) articulated officially for the first time in the ICPD Programme of Action, and MDG5 pretty much narrowed the agenda to reducing maternal mortality, to the detriment of almost all other SRHR issues. Maternal mortality has fallen but not enough and not at all in the poorest countries, while skilled attendance at birth has not risen concomitantly. We SRHR advocates are faced with a number of urgent problems. Specific aspects of health will not become goals, SRHR certainly not. So how can we ensure, this time around, that sexual and reproductive health and rights as a whole get included in the post-2015 sustainable development goal for health, along with all the other pressing health and development issues being championed by others?
Who is taking the leadership in our movement this time round? Do we have a plan? A strategy?
Some of these issues/questions are immediately outward-looking. They demand global, national and local action from the inter-governmental, governmental, donor, health system and health policy communities, as well as civil society, ultimately looking for solutions at country level. Others are initially inward-looking. We in the SRHR advocacy community are brilliant at articulating our issues and what is needed to achieve them if only…. But we sometimes seem to get stuck there. The opposition to our issues is not getting any weaker. What will be included under all the goals is being debated and negotiated at all levels, right now, within a complex network of players, and those of us who are expert at this work need to be in there as the list of goals and their details are drawn up, negotiated and re-negotiated, every day between now and 15 September 2015. Even more of us should be negotiating at country level with our national leadership. Are enough of us doing this right now? How do we get a consensus among us as to what, besides SRHR and gender equality, our community supports and is fighting for in the wider arena? ICPD was anything but a doddle, but it looks like child’s play by comparison to this.
Here is an editorial from Reproductive Health Matters that brings home the point -
These are our bottom lines… We are counting on all governments to have the courage to champion the ‘controversial’ issues by addressing the difficult realities, many of which are related to the root causes of inequalities… 1. Keep your Promises. 2. Champion our Sexual Rights. 3. We Demand Economic Justice. 4. Leave us a Healthy Planet. 5. We are Stakeholders, not a Target Group.” (Post-2015 Consultation Youth Statement, October 2013)1
What a wordstorm the ICPD Beyond 2014 and Post-2015 Sustainable Development agendas have unleashed! What a tsunami of consultations, meetings, reports, statements, shopping lists of wishes and demands, and overflowing expectations has been pouring in from every corner of the globe! I don’t know how the UN Secretary-General deals with it, but my inbox can barely cope. On the other hand, this storm has brought in a treasure trove of comments, policy analysis and critiques, which I’d like to share with you. And the same is true of the excellent papers in this journal issue.
There are two issues I want to emphasise in this editorial which, together, reflect the crux of what this journal issue is about and what I think is going on in the world beyond the verbal explosion:
•We have the opportunity to articulate sustainable development goals which avoid the many limitations of the MDGs and broaden the remit of responsibility and commitment to improving global health and human rights. These must of course include health, gender equality, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. There is strong evidence, however, including in these pages, that efforts to implement gender equality are only barely succeeding, and many governments are grossly under-funding health in spite of existing, long-standing commitments, particularly in Africa,2 though Africa is far from alone. The new goals need to be configured in the recognition that they are inter-dependent and must be based in a human rights approach, which means no one can be left out. Until this commitment can be achieved in principle, a new development paradigm and with it new goals will remain an aspiration that cannot be expected to succeed.
The MDGs on health scuppered the focus on comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) articulated officially for the first time in the ICPD Programme of Action, and MDG5 pretty much narrowed the agenda to reducing maternal mortality, to the detriment of almost all other SRHR issues. Maternal mortality has fallen but not enough and not at all in the poorest countries, while skilled attendance at birth has not risen concomitantly. We SRHR advocates are faced with a number of urgent problems. Specific aspects of health will not become goals, SRHR certainly not. So how can we ensure, this time around, that sexual and reproductive health and rights as a whole get included in the post-2015 sustainable development goal for health, along with all the other pressing health and development issues being championed by others?
Who is taking the leadership in our movement this time round? Do we have a plan? A strategy?
Some of these issues/questions are immediately outward-looking. They demand global, national and local action from the inter-governmental, governmental, donor, health system and health policy communities, as well as civil society, ultimately looking for solutions at country level. Others are initially inward-looking. We in the SRHR advocacy community are brilliant at articulating our issues and what is needed to achieve them if only…. But we sometimes seem to get stuck there. The opposition to our issues is not getting any weaker. What will be included under all the goals is being debated and negotiated at all levels, right now, within a complex network of players, and those of us who are expert at this work need to be in there as the list of goals and their details are drawn up, negotiated and re-negotiated, every day between now and 15 September 2015. Even more of us should be negotiating at country level with our national leadership. Are enough of us doing this right now? How do we get a consensus among us as to what, besides SRHR and gender equality, our community supports and is fighting for in the wider arena? ICPD was anything but a doddle, but it looks like child’s play by comparison to this.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Watch the live webcast: Millennium Development Goals – what have they brought for women and girls? -
The 58th Session of the Commission on Status of Women to be held in March 2014 will focus on the "Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls". -
Background: As the 2015 target date for their achievement approaches, efforts to accelerate implementation of the MDGs are intensifying. Simultaneously, the post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being discussed. Since 2015 also marks the twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, implementation of the commitments made towards women's rights and gender equality nearly 20 years ago has taken on new urgency. At the Stakeholders' Forum, sessions include a civil society panel focusing on women's life cycle which will explore how the MDGs affect women and girls from across the age spectrum. Another session will spotlight approaches to champion women's voice, leadership and rights and the lessons learned from experiences on the ground. For more information: Programme Concept note with detailed panel information -
See more at: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/12/millennium-development-goals-what-they-have-brought-women-and-girls#sthash.9KQZMpVM.dpuf
Background: As the 2015 target date for their achievement approaches, efforts to accelerate implementation of the MDGs are intensifying. Simultaneously, the post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being discussed. Since 2015 also marks the twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, implementation of the commitments made towards women's rights and gender equality nearly 20 years ago has taken on new urgency. At the Stakeholders' Forum, sessions include a civil society panel focusing on women's life cycle which will explore how the MDGs affect women and girls from across the age spectrum. Another session will spotlight approaches to champion women's voice, leadership and rights and the lessons learned from experiences on the ground. For more information: Programme Concept note with detailed panel information -
See more at: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/12/millennium-development-goals-what-they-have-brought-women-and-girls#sthash.9KQZMpVM.dpuf
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Parllel Event Deadline is December 12, 2013.
Final
Alert!
The
deadline to apply for parallel events at the
NGO CSW Forum is this Thursday, 12 December 2013
NGO CSW Forum is this Thursday, 12 December 2013
After sending your application, you will be notified about the status of your event by 31 December 2013
The NGO CSW/NY organizes NGO CSW Forum Parallel Events as a volunteer-based service to NGOs. Participation at these events is open, free of charge to the public from 10-21 March 2014.
However, if you wish to organize a parallel event, fees apply ($125 USD) to help cover costs. Priority will be given to events that address the UN CSW priority theme of “Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls” and the review theme of “Access and participation of women and girls to education, training, science and technology.” However, all topics are welcome.
Please note:
- Due to a severe limitation of space, NGOs cannot be assured of more than one time slot each.
- New events cannot be scheduled on site.
- NGOs are strongly encouraged to co-sponsor events in groups. This encourages more people to attend your event.
- We cannot accept cash payments.
- The NGO CSW/NY reserves the right to accept or reject all applications received.
In order to register, please create or
log-in to an existing account. From there, you will be prompted to enter
payment information and can
register.
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