Joint UN SR Statement on Sustainability for Women’s Advances

Press Release

The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes
and consequences,Yakin Ertürk, and the Special Rapporteur on adequate
housing, Miloon Kothari, issued the following statement on the occasion of
International Women’s Day, 8 March:

Today, important decisions that shape and determine the lives
of individual women and men are made in many places: in families and
communities, in businesses and civil society organisations, and in
political structures at the international, national and local level.
While, on a global scale, this process is still dominated by men, women
are continuing their struggle for equal access to the channels of formal
and informal decision-making worldwide.

Women are seizing opportunities to educate and empower
themselves laying the basis to challenge patriarchal decision-making
structures that constrain their active participation in decision making in
all spheres of life. At the grass roots level, they have always made major
contributions, maintaining family networks and knitting communities
together. They are also recognised as capable professionals in the world
of business and science. In addition, women are prominent players in civil
society. Women, as activists, continue to have a decisive role in shaping
the global human rights agenda. It is now firmly and widely recognized
that women’s rights are human rights. As such, women’s rights are not a
matter of charity or even justice but an entitlement.

Women are also increasingly emerging in the political arena. In
Rwanda, for example, women now make up 48.8 per cent of the members of the
Chamber of Deputies (compared to 16.4 per cent of parliamentarians
worldwide). Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was just elected President of Liberia –
the first woman elected head of state in Africa. This week, Michelle
Bachelet will assume the Presidency in Chile, and for the first time ever,
a woman, Angela Merkel, heads a German government. Moreover, there are
encouraging reports of women across the world winning elections at local
and municipal levels. A full integration of women into political
decision-making is not only the mark of a truly democratic society, but a
complementary step to the realization of other essential human rights
enshrining gender equality as a central value, including the right to be
free from violence and the right to adequate housing, land, property and
inheritance.

While there is every reason to
celebrate the progress made, we should ensure that women’s advances in
decision-making are sustained and irreversible. This is particularly
relevant in the context of the emergency response efforts following
natural disasters such as the tsunami or the recent earthquake in South
Asia. When disaster strikes, the existence and struggle for gender
equality is often among the first casualties. Women find themselves not
only disproportionately affected but often excluded from meaningful
participation in emergency decision-making structures. As a result, the
indiscriminate forces of nature typically have a disproportionate negative
effect on women’s human rights.

Emergency
relief and reconstruction assistance are often still channelled through
established patriarchal institutions. Consequentially, fundamental rights
and basic needs of women are often neglected and emergency supplies,
including shelter, sometimes fail to reach women. Food aid is distributed
on a “head-of family” basis and women – including young girls left in
charge of orphaned siblings – are not recognized as such. Temporary
shelters are built that fail to ensure privacy and physical safety thereby
exposing women to sexual and other forms of violence – a fact that
illustrates once again the close nexus between violence against women and
the lack of adequate housing. It has also become common practice that
women are not given equal rights to homes in resettlement areas with the
preference for titles going to men. In addition, women are often not
provided information on plans for rehabilitation nor are they adequately
represented in the decision-making bodies identifying reconstruction
priorities. Thereby, they find themselves excluded from decisions that
will shape their communities for decades to come.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2006, we wish to
underline that emergency response efforts have to take into account the
particular and specialized needs and rights of women and must be based on
international human rights standards. We firmly believe that this can only
be achieved by striving for the equal representation of women and men at
all levels of decision-making. Regardless of the circumstances, the
inclusion of women in decision-making must always be a priority and never
a mere afterthought.