NEW YORK — Franciscans International Position Paper for the Commission on the Status of Women 50th Session, 27 February – 10 March 2006
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: February 5, 2006
24 January 2006 |
NEW YORK —
Franciscans International Position Paper for
the
Commission on the Status of Women 50th Session, 27 February – 10 March
2006
The 50th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women presents an
opportunity for member States to reaffirm and strengthen their commitment to
promoting the participation of women in development and in decision-making
processes.
In representing the concerns of Franciscan men and women at the United
Nations, and in encouraging member States to fulfill commitments made through
the Beijing Platform of Action and the Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women, Franciscans International urges recommendations in
the following areas:
Future Programme of Work and Working
Methods
Based on the outcome of the 10-year review and appraisal of the
implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Franciscans
International urges the Commission on the Status of Women to:
- • Include the protection and empowerment of migrant women in achieving
gender equality in the future multi-year programme of work or as an emerging
issue to effectively follow-up on the General Assembly 2006 high level
dialogue on international migration and development;
• Include Violence
Against Women as a thematic topic in the future programme of work in order to
assess and utilize the research and recommendations of the forthcoming
Secretary General’s Study on Violence Against Women;
• Support the
Secretary General’s proposal to adopt a cycle of policy development and review
after two years for topics in the CSW multi-year programme of work;
•
Reform working methods to facilitate the greater inclusion and participation
of relevant special mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights (or future
Human Rights Council) such as the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against
Women, Special Rapporteur on Trafficking, and Special Rapporteur on the human
rights of Migrants.
Women and Migration
Migrant women play an increasingly important role in development, yet they
are also at greater risk to experience discrimination, violence, and a denial of
their human rights.
Franciscans International draws the attention of the
CSW to the following points and urges governments to:
- • Ratify and implement the International Convention on the Protection of
the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and ILO
Conventions 97 and 143 on migrant workers;
• Implement development policies
and strategies which are gender-sensitive, paying specific attention to the
participation and challenges of migrant women. Migrant women’s groups should
be effectively involved in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of
development and integration policies;
• Incorporate a gender perspective in
migration policies and programmes which must also have greater national and
international coherence, capacity and cooperation;
• Inform migrant women
of their rights under international and national laws and develop educational
and communications programmes that take into consideration their cultural and
linguistic backgrounds;
• Review and amend relevant national laws regarding
migration to include a gender perspective, incorporating the particular
challenges migrant women face especially when claiming status based on their
relationship to men.
Women, the girl child and HIV and AIDS
As a member of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, Franciscans International
works together with other faith-based NGOs to strategize comprehensive policies
and actions to tackle the stigma of HIV and AIDS, and specifically unique
impacts on women. Our findings have shown that the HIV and AIDS pandemic is not
only one of the gravest challenges to health, but also to the prospects of
social and economic development as well as global security. In follow-up to CSW
Resolution 49/1,
Franciscans International calls upon governments
to:
- • Stress the role of prevention and education in addition to healthcare
services for both women and men in formal and informal education
programmes;
• Intensify efforts to eliminate discrimination and
stigmatization of women and girls in relation to HIV and AIDS;
• Promote
the participation and significant contributions of people living with HIV and
AIDS, young people, and civil society actors, in addition to the elderly and
grandparents who often carry additional burdens as caregivers to AIDS orphans;
• Achieve universal access to anti-retrovirals and other life-saving
medication for all children living with HIV and AIDS, regardless of gender;
• Reduce trade-barriers and improve coordination of resources in order to
increase access to affordable life-prolonging therapies for both women and
men, including anti-retrovirals and treatments for opportunistic infections.
Trafficking of women and girls
Trafficking in persons is a widespread, global phenomenon
undertaken both for sexual and economic exploitation purposes. Women and girls
comprise a majority of the victims of trafficking. Franciscans International
advocates to ensure that: a) trafficked persons, regardless of their capacity or
willingness to cooperate in legal proceedings, are protected from further
exploitation and harm and have access to adequate physical and psychological
care; b) the protection of trafficked persons is built into anti-trafficking
policy, including protection from return where there are reasonable grounds to
conclude that such deportation or return would represent a significant security
risk to the trafficked person and/or her/his family.
During the 50th
Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, Franciscans International will
urge governments to:
- • Ratify the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime (2000) and to ensure that its measures are
effectively implemented at the national level;
• Incorporate the Office of
the High Commissioner for Human Rights Recommended Principles and Guidelines
on Human Rights and Human Trafficking into domestic legislation and implement
them in full;
• Cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur on trafficking
in persons, especially women and children and present detailed information
concerning the measures that they have taken to prevent and combat trafficking
to the appropriate United Nations human rights mechanisms;
• Address the
nexus between trafficking and migration, specifically the social and economic
conditions of poverty and gender inequality which cause women to migrate and
become victims of trafficking.
Background
The primary purpose of
Franciscans International is to assist, together with our grassroots brothers
and sisters, the poor and oppressed by voicing their concerns at the United
Nations. Our advocacy efforts during the 2006 session of the UN Commission on
the Status of Women will focus on thematic topics that members of the Franciscan
family have brought to our attention and asked us to address.
We will
also use the session as an important opportunity to form and train Franciscans
and other interested groups by acquainting them with UN work on women’s issues.
Franciscans from the field will have opportunities to promote change nationally
by networking with other women’s groups and by giving witness of their work at
the CSW.
As an international, independent faith-based NGO, Franciscans
International will also promote the social teachings of the Church as embodied
in the Franciscan tradition, its values, and spirituality.
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