{"id":213337,"date":"1999-03-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T20:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?p=213337"},"modified":"2019-03-12T20:35:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T20:35:55","slug":"auto-insert-213337","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/auto-insert-213337\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian women – Commission on the Status of Women – Press release (excerpts)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Commission on Status of Women<\/p><\/div>\n

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Forty-third Session<\/p><\/div>\n

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14th Meeting (AM)<\/p><\/div>\n

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WOMEN'S COMMISSION URGES GOVERNMENTS TO TAKE MEASURES TO STRENGTHEN WOMEN'S<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE TO BETTER PROTECT THEM FROM HIV INFECTION<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Text on Rights of Palestinian Women Approved by Vote of 33-1-4<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The Commission on the Status of Women this morning urged governments to take all necessary measures to  strengthen women's economic independence and to protect  and promote their human rights and fundamental freedoms in order to allow  them to  better protect themselves  from HIV infection.  It took that action by one of five draft texts approved this morning.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>By a vote of 33 in favour to 1 against (United States), with 4 abstentions, (Bolivia,  Côte d'Ivoire, Norway and  Uganda), the  Commission approved a resolution on Palestinian women, to be submitted to the Economic and Social  Council for  adoption.   (See Annex  for details  of the  vote.)  Statements in explanation of vote were made by the representatives of Cuba, Israel, Philippines, United States, Lebanon,  Syria, Iran, Norway,  Russian Federation, and Yemen.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>By that terms of that text, the Council would stress its support for the Middle East peace process and the need for speedy and full implementation of the agreements already reached between the parties.  It would also demand that Israel comply fully  with the provisions and  principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments in  order to  protect the  rights of the Palestinian  women and their families.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The Commission then took up the draft resolution on Palestinian women (document E\/CN.6\/1999\/L.9), which it would recommend to the Economic and Social Council for adoption.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>Under its provisions, the Council would stress its support for the Middle East peace process and the need for speedy and full implementation of the agreements  already reached  between the  parties.  It would demand that Israel, the occupying Power, comply fully with the provisions and principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the regulations annexed to The Hague Convention of 1907 and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949, in order to protect  the rights of the Palestinian women and their families.  It would call upon Israel to  facilitate the  return of all refugees and displaced Palestinian women and children to  their homes and properties in the occupied Palestinian  territory, in compliance with  relevant United Nations resolutions.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>Also by the text, Member States, financial organizations of the United Nations   system, non-governmental organizations and other relevant institutions would be urged to intensify  their efforts to provide financial and technical assistance to Palestinian women  for the creation of  projects responding to their needs, especially during the transitional  period.  It would also request the Commission to  continue to  monitor and take action with regard to the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement  of Women, in particular paragraph 260 concerning Palestinian women and children, and the Beijing Platform for Action. <\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The draft text is sponsored  by Bolivia, Côte d'Ivoire, Guyana (on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China), Norway and Uganda.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>PATRICIA FLOR (Germany), the Commission Chairperson, said a recorded vote had been requested on the draft resolution.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>Speaking before the vote, the representative of Israel said today's proposed resolution was entirely one-sided and politicized to the point that it damaged the credibility of the Commission as an instrument for promoting women's rights.  Most notably, the draft unjustly singled out his country and sought to drag the Commission into the  trenches of an irrelevant political attack.  Moreover, the text was an  attack that had already been  launched in other forums, with no effort made to adapt or tailor the contents in any way.  Preambular paragraph 5 in its entirety, was lifted  from  preambular  paragraph 12 of a separate  General Assembly resolution  (A\/RES\/ES-190-6).  Operative  paragraph 2 was also lifted entirely from operative paragraph 5 of the same Assembly resolution. <\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>By politically co-opting the Commission, he went on  to say, the present resolution  abandoned the stance of the  Beijing Platform for Action which had wisely refrained  from  mentioning regional  conflicts and  had instead focused on the gender-related issues with which the Commission was meant to be concerned.  Moreover, the political position that  the resolution  forced on the Commission was one-sided and  misleading.  That, unfortunately called for setting the record straight. <\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>First, he continued, Israel did not suspend the Wye River Agreement.  On the contrary, in the first phase of  the Agreement, after the  Palestinians fulfilled certain obligations, Israel did its part, redeploying from 491.4 square  kilometres of West Bank territory.  Now it was once again, the Palestinians' turn  to fulfil certain key  obligations of the second phase, including a  long overdue  work plan  against terrorism,  before Israel was obligated to even begin its own implementation.  The Oslo accords had  also forbidden the use of outside forums to get involved in the peace process.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>He said today's initiative served no purpose but to hamper the cooperation that could  lead to real peace and co-existence on the ground.  That was why Israel urged the Commission and its members  to vote against the resolution.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The representative of Cuba wanted to know why the text was going to a vote since it was a consensus resolution.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The  CHAIRPERSON said  a recorded  vote had  been requested by  the United States.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The draft text was approved by a vote of 33 in favour to 1 against (United  States),  with  4 abstentions  (Bolivia, Côte d'Ivoire, Norway, Uganda).  (For details of the vote, see Annex.)<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>Speaking after the vote, the representative of the United States said her country's  support for the rights of women certainly  extended  to the occupied territories.   Unfortunately, parts of  the text — including some provisions which did not even directly relate to  the issue of the status of women — were unacceptable because they addressed the status of issues that the Israelis and Palestinians themselves had agreed would be the subject of direct negotiations in the Middle East peace process.  The language of the<\/p><\/div>\n

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text was one-sided and would not advance the status or well-being of Palestinian women, the intended beneficiaries of the resolution. <\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The  representative of  Lebanon said he wished to affirm his country's strong support for the struggle of Palestinian women in the face of Israeli occupation.  Palestinian rights and the rights of Palestinian women would not be fully implemented unless Israeli  occupation came to an end.  He also wished to reject the claims made by Israel in its statement  on the current resolution. <\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The representative of Syria said his  delegation repeated its full support of the Palestinian people and the struggle of Palestinian women to exercise all their rights.    Adoption of the resolution  was proof of the international  community's support  of Palestinian  women.   His  delegation would have liked the draft resolution to mention the peace process in its entirety  as well as  relevant resolutions  of the Security  Council and the General Assembly.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The representative of Iran said her delegation voted in favour of the draft,  however, that affirmative vote should not be construed as a recognition of Israel by her country.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>Representative of Norway said her county was concerned about the situation  of the Palestinian people and Palestinian women.  That concern was the basis for the continued support Norway has given to the Palestinian people.  Her country also paid special attention to involve Palestinian women  in the development  process.   It continued to be  concerned with the lack of progress, but difficulties in the peace process should be solved  by the parties themselves.  The Commission was not the right forum for dealing with issues in the peace process.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The  representative of the Russian Federation said the status of Palestinian women  went along with  the advancement of the Palestinian-Israeli peace  process, and  the observance by parties of earlier reached agreements and implementation of all assumed obligations.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The representative  of Yemen said her  delegation supported  the rights of Palestinian women to self-determination and it supported their struggle.<\/p><\/div>\n

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ANNEX<\/p><\/div>\n

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Vote on Palestinian Women<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>The draft resolution  on Palestinian Women (document E\/CN.6\/1999\/L.9) was approved  by a recorded vote of 34 in favour to 1 against with 4 abstentions, as follows:<\/p><\/div>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tIn favour:   Belgium,  Chile, China,  Cuba, Egypt,  France, Germany,  Ghana, India,  Iran, Italy,  Japan, Lebanon,  Lesotho, Lithuania,  Malaysia,  Mali, Mexico,  Mongolia,  Morocco, Paraguay,  Peru,  Poland,  Republic  of  Korea, Russian   Federation,  Senegal,  Slovakia,  Sri   Lanka,  Sudan,  Swaziland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom.\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>Against:  United States.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t<\/span>Abstain:  Bolivia, Côte d'Ivoire, Norway, Uganda.<\/p><\/div>\n

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* *** *<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commission on Status of Women Forty-third Session 14th Meeting (AM) WOMEN'S COMMISSION URGES GOVERNMENTS TO TAKE MEASURES TO STRENGTHEN WOMEN'S ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE TO BETTER PROTECT THEM FROM HIV INFECTION Text on Rights of Palestinian Women Approved by Vote of 33-1-4 The Commission on the Status of Women this morning urged governments to take all necessary […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[1809],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1841],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-213337","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-commission-on-the-status-of-women-csw","document-subject-women","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/213337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/213337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=213337"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=213337"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=213337"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=213337"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=213337"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=213337"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=213337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}