Women’s
issues captured attention only in 1962, when the United Nations (UN) General
Assembly asked the women’s commission to prepare a report on the role of women
in the social and development plans. The reasoning behind this was that
economic and social development would enhance women’s status. As a result, the
‘Women in Development’ (WID) approach was introduced in 1970 based on liberal
feminist theory. Immediately, UN general Assembly adopted this approach to
fully integrate women in developmental sectors. It was introduced to
incorporate women in the development process, but it failed to consider women’s
roles. So, in 1975, the first international conference on Women and Development
was held in Mexico City, in combination with the celebrations of international
women year where 7,000 women and men from various nationalities, races, and
creeds, exchanged views and experiences.
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| United Nation’s International Women’s Year in 1975. Photo: AND Zentralbild. Source: ARAB |
Needs differentiated according to geographical area. In the North,
especially the industrial countries, women were seeking gender equality in the
work place and home but in the South, especially the newly independent
(emerging) countries, women faced oppression and still had a long way to go to
reach the needs of the North. Rural development had become a major theme for
the advancement of women both at local and national level. An example of this
is the introduction of women in civil society and scholarships for women, which
strengthened the transformation, and connected women and development.
During 1976-85, there was an
institution-building decade for women’s rights and WAD. For example, the UN
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) model was established at regional level to
foster socioeconomic development among its member states and focuses on ICT,
science and Technology for Development. The United Nations Development Fund for
Women (UNIFEM) was set to finance women’s activities in low-income countries
and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of
Women were established to engage in research and training. However WAD failed
to analyze the relationship between patriarchy, capitalism and marginalization
of women by ignoring the reproductive aspects of women’s work and lives. It
emphasized the value of income-generating activities without considering social
and cultural reproduction.
In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the first human rights treaty for women,
was proposed to eradicate sex-based discrimination and focus on the advancement
of women and girls. It later became a useful tool for women to pressure their
government. For instance, as a consequence of this, in 2002, Nepal went through
the Amendments in Civil Code and granted women’s right to property, divorce
right, the right to abortion and greater punishments for polygamy and rape. A
step forward.
Later
on, the second women Conference (1980) in Copenhagen recognized that there was
a disparity between women’s guaranteed rights and their capacity to exercise
them. The identified needs were equal access to education; equal access to
employment opportunities; and equal access to adequate health care services.
The consensus was found when representatives of women of the south were ready
to speak more freely about gender relationships.
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| Conference on United Nations Women’s Decade Meets in Nairobi, 15 -27 July 1985. UN Photo/Milton Grant |
In
1985, considering a fast increase in poverty worldwide, the third UN Women’s
International Conference, held in Nairobi, wanted to shed light to the
disparity between men and women. And so the Gender and Development (GAD) model
emerged in early 1990s that recognized that women should not be treated in
isolation from men. This model emphasized the social, economic and political
relationship between men and women to raise awareness and consequently improve
women’s equal access to development activities. It also, and rightly so,
recognized the role of men and state in contributing to equity and social
justices, recognizing that the state carried the responsibility to provide
social service. Nonetheless, the most important aspect of this concept was that
it viewed women as active agents of change rather than passive beneficiaries of
development approaches.
A
great change came in 1993, when the slogan “women’s rights are human rights”
took hold from the hard work of NGO’s and women’s organizations, in preparation
for the UN world conference on human rights in Vienna. Immediately, violence
against women became a key issue worldwide with an annual 16 days of activism
and petition in 123 countries. This huge growth in the movement was probably
also due to strengthening of the ‘poor and disempowered’ women’s movement in
rural areas and in the informal economy of cities and towns, especially in
India. For example, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a movement of
self-employed women in rural and urban India, grew to more than 600,000 members
who believed that India’s “second freedom” was the economic empowerment of
informal and unprotected working women.
Women’s human rights provided a new conceptual theme and called
for new strategies; peacemaking and peacekeeping became a new arena for
activists and grassroots organizations, and allowed peasant voices to be heard.
The fourth world conference on women was held Beijing in 1995 with
representatives from 189 countries. The agenda included a Platform for Action
and a roadmap to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women
everywhere. As a result of the Beijing Summit Platform for Action, UNIFEM
established a trust fund in 1996 to finance action to eliminate all forms of
violence against women. The UN conference in Vienna became a vehicle to
highlight the new visions of human rights thinking and practice being developed
by women.
However, as we come closer to our years in this journey through history,
we see there is still much progress to be made towards equality. Although the
UN and its agencies are celebrating 105 years of world women’s movement in New
York this year and despite the various efforts for the advancement of women and
girls in global south and north, there are still problems in gender equality in
terms of labor markets, pay gap, socio-economic and political status.
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| Photo: MARK RALSTON/AFP |
As
we come nearer to the new Development goals, a huge stir has been created in
terms of women’s rights and gender equality. One new thing that is being spoken
about, is the role men should actually play in the fight for gender equality. A
solidarity movement similar to the ‘HeForShe’ is
required in order to include men in addressing gender inequality and the gap of
women in socioeconomic and political decision-making.
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