Status of the World’s Women
University Club of Denver, Thursday, 24 February 2005
Dressed entirely in black and wearing a black hijab, Nancy Rubin, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (1997-2000), began her talk on the status of the world’s women with a rather bleak overview of a global landscape which still marginalizes half the world’s population. Standing against a backdrop of oak wood paneling and insignias of ivy league universities, she spoke of the global need for better access to education, health care “and all its aspects”, and decision-making. Without access and control, she asserts, the world’s women will continue to be vulnerable to violence, insecurity, poverty, and social abuse.
In addition to pointing out that women make up 2/3 of the world’s illiterate adults, she recapped this frequently seen example of a world in a village (abbreviated here):
If the earth's population was shrunk into a village of just 100 people with all the human ratios existing in the world still remaining: 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth. 80 would live in substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read. 1 would have a college education. 1 would own a computer.
The majority of her talk featured vignettes from her global experiences punctuated by recommendations to facilitate development and to improve the conditions for women around the world. I have summarized and grouped them here by intended audience:
Decision-makers/Policy-makers
- Strengthen international institutions, such as the United Nations
- Promote labor standards in international trade packages
- Enhance the relationship between gender and development
- Provide more aid for development
- Increase the participation of women in decision-making
NGOS
- Foster broad coalitions of activists
- Support human rights defenders
- Advocate for policy change at all levels
- Educate women about their rights
- Educate law enforcement about women’s rights and issues
- Educate the judicial system about women’s rights and issues
- Promote women’s rights to the media
- Advocate for incentives for good governance
Advocates
- Lobby representatives
- Promote the formation of “councils of democracy”
- Increase education of women
- Improve the health of women
- Decrease violence against women
- Work to eradicate extreme poverty
Media
- Provide “rapid and accurate” reporting on women’s issues
Additional Resources (United Nations):
- UNHCR Women’s Rights
- UN Inter-agency Network on Women Equality
- Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993)
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)
Additional Resources (NGOs):
- Amnesty International – Stop Violence Against Women
- Human Rights Watch – Women’s Rights Division
- International Women’s Rights Action Watch
- Women in Development Europe (English, Spanish)
Additional Resources (Legal):