Improving the Economic Rights of Women of the Americas

II General Assembly of the Parliamentary Conference of the Americas
Annual Meeting of the Network of Women Parliamentarians of the Americas,
Rio Grande, Puerto Rico

20 July 2000

Presentation by

Dr. Yakin Ertürk, Director, Division for the Advancement of Women,
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations

Distinguished Parliamentarians,

I feel deeply honoured to address such a distinguished audience. I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Meeting of Women Parliamentarians during the 103^rd Meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union on 30 April 2000 in Amman, Jordan. In addition, I was thrilled to be one of the sponsors of the IPU/DAW joint meeting of the tripartite dialogue among parliamentarians, governments and United Nations bodies within the context of the special session of the United Nations General Assembly on "Women 2000: Gender equality, development and peace," in New York in June.

On this occasion, therefore, I am happy to be given once again the privilege of addressing an audience of women parliamentarians. I would like to thank the Network of Women Parliamentarians of the Americas for providing me with this remarkable opportunity. I would also like to reiterate the essential role that parliamentarians can play in facilitating the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcomes of the Beijing Plus Five process, and in achieving the broad goal of gender equality.

The year 2000 constituted a critically important juncture for the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. This exercise was followed by the adoption of a Political Declaration and an outcome document on future actions and initiatives by the consensus of the special session of the General Assembly. The Political Declaration strongly reaffirms the Beijing Platform for Action. The Platform, therefore, remains the reference point for the commitment of all relevant actors to women’s rights in the 12 critical areas of concern. The outcome document not only upheld the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, but also strengthened the Platform in certain areas by clarifying the actions necessary for implementation, and incorporating additional issues of concern that emerged or gained prominence over the last five years. The provisions related to women’s health, human rights, violence and trafficking are a case in point.

There are two basic international documents that promote and protect women’s rights:

1. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted by 189 governments at the Fourth World Conference on Women, is the main policy framework for women’s rights. It addresses 12 critical areas of concern, including "women and the economy."
2. The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), with 165 State parties, is the main legal and human rights framework and bill of rights for women. The recently adopted Optional Protocol currently has 42 signatories and 5 ratifications. It must be underlined that the goal set out by the Beijing Platform for Action for the universal ratification of CEDAW has not yet been realized, and that the Optional Protocol awaits five more ratifications before it can be entered into force.

The Beijing Platform for Action calls for promoting the economic rights and independence of women through the following actions, among others:

• increasing women’s access to productive resources and property;
• bolstering women’s employment in the formal sector;
• ensuring equal pay for work of equal value;
• providing education and skills training to women;
• observing and complying with international labour standards;
• eliminating occupational segregation; and
• harmonizing work and family obligations for both women and men.

In turn, these objectives require:

• strong political will and accountability;
• co-ordination among legislative, judiciary and executive branches at the national and international levels;
• the allocation of sufficient resources;
• gender awareness and sensitivity; and
• universal realization that gender equality is not just a concern of women alone, but of women and men alike.

On the whole, the Beijing Plus Five process had two main objectives:

1. the review and appraisal of progress since 1995; and
2. the development of new strategies to accelerate the implementation of the Platform for Action.

The first phase entailed regional reviews that were carried out by the United Nations regional commissions, including the ECE review meeting, held on 19-21 January 2000 in Geneva, and the ECLAC review meeting, held on 8-10 February 2000 in Lima, both of which are of direct interest to this region.

This was followed by a global review at the forty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (28 February to 2 March 2000), and the third session of the preparatory committee for the special session of the General Assembly (prepcom) (3-17 March 2000) in New York. The Review and Appraisal report presented at this review was based on 135 national reports, constituting 70 per cent of member states. Of these, 26 reports were from countries of the NA/LAC region.

Since 1995, overall analysis of the implementation of the Platform for Action reveals that, despite much progress towards achieving gender equality between women and men, there have been no major breakthroughs with regard to equal sharing of decision-making in political structures and other critical institutions at national and international levels. In fact, in most countries of the world, the representation of women in decision-making institutions has remained low. For example, according to the recent IPU publication "Participation of Women in Political Life," the percentage of women in parliament worldwide grew only slightly from 11.3 per cent in 1995, to 12.9 per cent in 1999 (IPU 1999: 24). According to DAW figures (Review and Appraisal Report, para. 401), women held a mere 7.4 per cent of cabinet minister posts in 1998.

Current challenges associated with factors such as poverty, transforming demographic trends (e.g., increased female migration and ageing population), political instabilities, hardships emanating from economic restructuring, armed conflicts, environmental degradation and natural disasters and epidemics, often overshadowed the progress made with regard to the strategic objectives of the 12 critical areas of concern of the Platform for Action. Furthermore, perceptions regarding male and female identities and roles continue to pose persisting obstacles to the achievement of gender equality in all parts of the world. Innovative approaches are needed to alter these gender-based perceptions and to encourage men to participate actively in transforming patriarchal attitudes and institutional structures that are at the core of gender inequalities.

In terms of progress made in the critical area of "women and the economy," the impact of globalization on the world of work and role of the state cannot be overemphasized. Despite the new economic opportunities brought about by an increasingly globalized economy, the benefits have been distributed unevenly. Especially for the world’s women, employment creation has led to irregular, casual and short-term work where labour is unprotected by standard labour legislation. Although changes in the nature of work itself have attracted unprecedented numbers of women into the labour market, there is no corresponding protection against the increased risks of trafficking, prostitution, and violence against women.

In the ECLAC region, these economic forces have been characterized by a feminization of migration through which women’s economic integration has been accelerated. International migration has increased the percentage of the region’s women employed in the service and entertainment sectors. For example, in 1995, women comprised 86 per cent of emigrants from the Dominican Republic; in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, women comprised 64 per cent of all emigrants. While expanding opportunities for women, migration has occurred in a context characterized by increasing incidents of trafficking and violence. For example, in the ECE region, which is a center of population movements, with many countries of destination and transition, incidents of trafficking and violence against women migrants have increased. The main reasons for enhanced migration to this region include armed conflicts, political transformations and economic crises in migrants’ countries of origin. These issues were central to the discussions at the regional review meetings. Strong language on trafficking was included in the agreed conclusions reached at the ECE review meeting.

For many women of the region, in addition to international migration, rural to urban migration has led to employment in domestic work and other areas in the informal sector. This has been accompanied by the rise of export processing zones, which have resulted from the relocation of many industries from high wage to low wage countries. Similarly to the case of international migration, internal migration has opened up new opportunities for women’s employment, yet this has been accompanied by new vulnerabilities. This is an area that requires urgent attention to ensure that ILO labour standards and observance of women’s rights are established at home and abroad.

Parliamentarians as lawmakers can play a critical role in facilitating the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, in general, and in improving the economic rights of women, in particular. In order to achieve these goals, it is essential to increase the number of women in parliaments, facilitate the dissemination of information on gender equality, and carry out legal reforms to support the Beijing and CEDAW principles. A major policy agenda for the future will be to renew efforts to change stereotypical perceptions of male and female roles, and to conduct additional gender impact analyses of policies and programmes. At the same time, given parliaments’ mandate to amend existing legislation and to adopt new legislation in support of women’s rights, it is imperative that they play an active role in translating the Platform for Action into time-bound targets at the national legislative level, and in revising domestic laws in light of CEDAW. This should be accompanied by initiatives to ensure that national budgetary processes are gender-sensitive and reflect equality between women and men in all spheres of life. In addition, parliaments, with the aid of bilateral and multilateral agreements, can facilitate the adoption and enforcement of social protection measures for women migrants internally and globally.

Thank you.