Austerity Measures May Violate Rights – Crises Continue – Gender
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: October 22, 2012
WUNRN
CONTINUING CRISES + AUSTERITY –
CONSIDER ISSUES FOR WOMEN & GIRLS
________________________________________________________________
Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights
AUSTERITY MEASURES MAY VIOLATE HUMAN
RIGHTS
2 November 2012 – Half a decade has passed since the sub-prime mortgage
crisis in the United States developed into a global financial crisis. In
response, many countries undertook large-scale “bailouts” of virtually bankrupt
banks. With the bailouts and other knock-on effects of the financial crisis,
public deficits have risen sharply in many countries.
Governments, notably in Europe, have responded to mounting deficits with
“austerity” measures – making drastic reductions to public expenditure.
Austerity has entailed rapid decreases in standards of living as cuts have been
made to public services and social protection, while unemployment levels have
risen dramatically.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 October
2012, the Chairperson of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
Ariranga Govindasamy Pillay, noted that although States face tough decisions
when dealing with rising public deficits, austerity measures are potentially
violations of the legal obligations of States Parties to the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
“All States Parties should avoid at all times taking decisions which lead to
the denial or infringement of economic, social and cultural rights,” Pillay
said, citing an open letter to States Parties from the Committee earlier this
year. The letter elaborated the Committee’s position on austerity measures.
By ratifying the Covenant, States Parties have a legally binding obligation
to progressively improve, without retrogression, universal access to goods and
services such as healthcare, education, housing and social security and to
ensure just and favourable conditions of work, without discrimination, in
accordance with established international standards.
These rights must be achieved by using the maximum of available resources.
However, Pillay pointed out that austerity measures are also a disincentive to
economic growth and thereby hamper progressive realization of economic and
social rights.
The Committee had pointed out that social insecurity and political
instability, as seen in parts of Europe today, were also potential effects of
the denial or infringement of economic, social and cultural rights. The poor,
women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons, people with
HIV/AIDS, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees were
particularly at risk, the Committee had noted.
In a recent
statement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi
Pillay, expressed concern over rising social tensions inflamed by the effects
of the economic crises in Greece and Spain and the broader adverse impacts of
austerity measures on the most vulnerable.
Several United Nations human rights experts have recently highlighted how
austerity measures are incongruent with economic, social and cultural human
rights and called for banking sector reforms and human rights-based approaches
out of financial and economic crises.
__________________________________________________________________
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Original Message —–
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Subject: Eurozone Economic Crisis – Gendered Dimensions – Update
WUNRN
The Gendered Dimensions Of The Eurozone Economic
Crisis – Update
2012-07-19
social spending in
AWID looks at what the Eurozone crisis
looks like now, and some of the gendered dynamics occurring as a result.
By Rochelle Jones
05/10/2012 – In the
past four years, the Eurozone seems to have been constantly unravelled and
re-knitted – like an old woollen scarf you can’t bear to part with, but that
doesn’t stay together without substantial work. The bottom line is that
billions of euros in loans have been agreed to between the ‘troika’ of the European
Commission (EC)/European Central Bank (ECB)/International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and struggling Eurozone countries such as
spending cuts at home – typically stripping down budgets perceived as ‘soft’
such as welfare and social spending, health and education. The result is that
those already disenfranchised by gender, race and class, the elderly, the young,
and single and migrant women are bearing the brunt.
How much money and to who?
It was in 2009 that the Eurozone’s
financial problems increased in visibility and began migrating from one country
to another, starting with
double the Eurozone limit of 60%, this was the highest debt
recorded in Greece’s modern history. In May 2010, the European Union (EU)
and IMF provided €110 billion of bailout loans to
and a second, €130 billion bailout was agreed early in 2012.The well-documented
street protests in
February this year, when the Greek government finally passed the unpopular
austerity bill in parliament, there were renewed protests
on the streets by Greek citizens.
In 2010, concern also started to mount
over the other heavily indebted countries of
with a €65 billion package of spending cuts announced mid-2012 aimed at easing the Spanish debt burden.
Whether
still uncertain, but some financial analysts believe an announcement will soon
be made regarding a bail-out package.
So what has this meant for women?
Governments who are granted loans from the
‘troika’ are required to meet certain conditions imposed on their public
expenditure. For example in Portugal, some of the austerity
measuresthat have been put in place include privatization of some
industries, public sector wage cuts, a reduction in public sector jobs and an
increase in the national sales tax on some food products. In concert with
these measures, unemployment levels have risen. The Portuguese seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 15% in
February 2012 from 12.3% registered in the same period one year ago. At the
same time, youth unemployment was registered at 35.4%.
to welfare, increased taxes on low incomes, reduced public service salaries
and reduced pension entitlements. The
UN High Commissioner on Extreme Poverty on her visit to Ireland noted that:
“By adopting these measures,
and ignoring the needs of the most vulnerable. In particular, due to multiple
forms of entrenched discrimination, women are especially vulnerable to the
detrimental effects of reductions in social services and benefits.”
In 2009 and 2010, AWIDcommissioned research into
the impact of the global financial crisis on women’s rights. In AWID’s
2010 report on Western Europe, it was argued that government responses to
the Eurozone crisis were not taking gendered impacts seriously enough.
Specifically, the report said that “European Recovery Plans were ‘gender
neutral’ with no plans to invest in care, community-based services, education
or health. This gender blindness continues to be a feature of the economic
crisis with little mainstream public recognition of what is happening to
women’s economic activities including pay cuts, loss of work or the increase in
unpaid care work and domestic work at home
Two years on, the same story looks to be
the case. transform!
– A European network for alternative thinking and dialogue – argued in their latest journal that, “women are doubly affected as the
principal employees in the public sector and the principal users of social
services… The cuts in social security and health services especially affect
women to the extent that they have to assume the role of the main heads of the
family. Women find themselves obliged to cover those services from which the
state is withdrawing, which increases their difficulty in carrying out their
family and professional lives. The increased unpaid work load in their private
lives occurs at the expense of their jobs, which reinforces the gender
inequalities on the labour market and in women’s schedules”.
While both women and men may lose their
jobs in a crisis and have to deal with increasing prices, less public services
and more tax – it is women more so than men who care for the ill, children and
the elderly, do the cooking and the cleaning. It is women who take up the loose
ends when public services are cut and increase their unpaid, domestic workload.
As one commentator has noted: “Women’s labour not only replaces
household income, but also subsidises the state”.
Adding to the direct impacts of the crisis
are the indirect effects such as a failure to comprehensively and accurately
capture women’s experiences. Underestimation of the crisis’ impact on women is
exemplified in the labour market, where gender disaggregated data is not always
available, and is usually collected in terms of who is ‘employed’ and who is
‘unemployed’. The ‘underemployed’, or the working poor who are working
part-time and have had their hours reduced as an impact of the crisis –
typically women – are off the radar and hence their experiences are not
captured and considered.
Can there be recourse to action?
The European Commission’s Gender Equality
Strategy has taken on board some of these issues, and according to the EC’s latest annual report on gender
equality, “improving equality between women and men is essential to the EU’s
response to the current economic crisis”. Discussion, however, about how this
translates into practice seems to focus mainly on achieving a greater
percentage of women into the labour force and particularly into senior, economic
decision-making positions – and that this could be achieved by providing
adequate childcare and more access to flexible working conditions.
At the 2012 AWID Forum in
April of this year, Women
in Development Europe (WIDE Plus) hosted a session on how the European
crisis is impacting women’s lives. Women from
stressed “a shared need for cooperation and for developing a critical European
feminist voice in face of the ongoing debates in
Their report of statements from the AWID Forum panel is introduced
by WIDE Plus as “a first contribution by WIDE plus toward a feminist
against the crisis”.
At the macro level, increasingly it looks
like the economic crisis in the Eurozone is a crisis of existence – meaning
that the very nature of the contract has come into question and the rules have
to change in order for the euro to survive and thrive. In her statement at the
AWID Forum for example, Christa Wichterich (Germany) argued how the crisis
highlights “the internal contradictions of the EU and of European integration:
common monetary policies but no common wage, fiscal and industrial policies; a
growing gap between the real economy and the financial sector, a lack of employment
equivalent to the huge amounts of financial capital; and high inequalities
between countries.”
If this rings true, a strong feminist
response to the impacts of the crisis, as well as feminist contributions to a
potential restructure of the Eurozone is critical. Getting more women to the
top ranks of decision-making as proposed by the EC in their report on Gender
Equality in the EU is not going to ensure that women at the grassroots have
their voices heard. Effective consultative mechanisms in combination with a
louder feminist voice have a better chance.
The European Commission and the European
Parliament are a place to start. According to their website, the Commission
“has the right of initiative to propose laws for adoption by the European
Parliament and the Council of the EU (national ministers)… Before making
proposals, the Commission consults widely so that stakeholders’ views can be
taken into account. In general, an assessment of the potential
economic, social and environmental impact of a given piece of legislation act
is published along with the proposal itself.” Consultation with civil society
is required as per the Treaty of Lisbon (Article 11 TEU), and this is an avenue
for women’s rights organisations and individuals to advocate for change[1].
[1] For information regarding NGO-EU consultation see:
1. http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/index_en.htm – a portal for
individuals and organizations wishing to take part in public consultations
and/or comment on legislative proposals;
2. http://www.ngoeuconnect.ie/content.php?area=13
– an Irish-based website with useful information about how NGOs can connect
with EU institutions.
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