GENERATION EQUALITY : Mexico announces the Generation Equality Forum confirmed dates

Mexico, October 15, 2020

Mexico announces the Generation Equality Forum confirmed dates

The Forum will take place in Mexico City in March 2021

The activities will continue in Paris, France, in June 2021

Given current COVID-19 restrictions, travel bans and costs to fly – how should we mobilise in the Asia and Pacific region?  What are your thoughts…

PRESS RELEASE HERE

 

GENERATION EQUALITY COMPACT ON WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN ACTION

The women, peace and security (WPS) agenda is anchored in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) with strategic objectives and actions outlined under “Women and armed conflict”, and with specific reference to women in crisis situations and young women. Following the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on WPS, nine additional Security Council resolutions on WPS have been adopted, as well as CEDAW General Recommendation 30 (2013) on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post conflict situations.

In the context of the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and Generation Equality Forum, as well as the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325, a WPS-HA Compact will harness the existing extensive normative framework on WPS and HA and accompanying institutional and coordinating mechanisms, to action and realise commitments on WPS and humanitarian action. The Compact will put in place a voluntary multi-stakeholder monitoring and accountability process engaging key global, regional and national players to help narrow the gap between aspirations and concrete actions on WPS and humanitarian action, while ensuring that existing global and regional processes are harnessed for national and local engagement and action.

More information and Concept Note click here

 

APWWmeet Series 2020 – Beijing+25 in the time of COVID19 Webinar

As part of the Asia Pacific Women’s Watch (APWW) APWWmeet Series 2020 this forum focussed on the ongoing gender impact of COVID-19 in the Asia and Pacific.

Across the Pacific and Asia, women and girls in all their diversity are disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Existing gender inequalities are exacerbated during a crisis, with the result that women and girls are not only undertaking more unpaid domestic work, are less able to access essential health services, are more vulnerable to economic hardships, are experiencing ever-rising rates of violence, sexual abuse and control from their husbands, partners and families/kinship groups, and they are not at the table in designing the national pandemic strategies. Women in all their diversity are losing ground to previous gains and are experiencing shrinking democratic spaces. The impacts of COVID-19 restrictions are creating a disproportionate impact on members of our society due to our delay in creating equitable societies.

The Video of the event  and more information can be found here 

GENERATION EQUALITY – Global Committee Members

 

The Civil Society Advisory Group for Generation Equality (CSAG) was chosen through a civil society-led process that was completely independent of the UN. It was open to all organisations working on gender equality and women’s human rights. The final decision made on the composition of the CSAG was produced by the selection committee on the basis of careful consideration and considerable debate.

The 5-person Selection Committee was made up of individuals who volunteered for this task in response to a repeated call, made in a series of emails and conference calls managed by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York (NGO-CSW/NY) about the Beijing Plus 25 process, in June 2019.

From 136 applicants the following applicants were chosen:

Global: 

  • Hakima Abbas  – Association of Women in Development (AWID)
  • Shannon Kowalski     –  International Women’s Health Coalition

Regional (Asia Pacific)

  • Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls   – Shifting the Power Coalition & Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict
  • Sivananthi Thanenthiran  – ARROW (Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women)

Regional (Africa)

  • Memory Kachambwa   – FEMNET – African Women’s Development and Communication Network
  • Kuwonu Afiwa Kafui    – Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF)

Regional (Europe)

  • Sophie Beria    – YouAct – European Youth Network on Sexual and Reproductive Rights
  • Xenia Kellner   – Young Feminist Europe

Regional (Middle East and North Africa)

  • Fatma Khafagy    –  Egyptian Feminist Union
  • Gharsanay Ibnul Ameen  –  Youth Empowerment and Leadership Organization

Regional (Latin America)

  • Mabel Bianco –  Foundation for Studies and Research on Women (Fundacion para Estudio e Investigacion de la Mujer, FEIM)
  • Gia Gaspard Taylor   – Network of Rural Women Producers – Trinidad and Tobago

Constituency/thematic

  • Bertha Cecilia Garcia Cienfuegos   –  Asociación Regional Mujeres Ingenieras
  • Zoneziwoh Mbondgulo-Wondieh     –  Women for a Change
  • Jessica Stern    –  OutRight Action International
  • Chidi King   – International Trade Union Confederation
  • Phelister Abdalla   –  Kenya Sex Workers Alliance (KESWA)
  • Sascha Gabizon    – Women Engage for a Common Future
  • Jeanne Hefez    – Ipas
  • Naiara Leite Costa  – Articulação de Organizações de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras
  • Houry Geudelekian     –  NGO-CSW NY

For Advisory Group Bios click here

#GenerationEquality

 

Vale – Lee Hyo-jae – Peace activist and researcher into the Korean “comfort women” from WWII

Vale Lee Hyo Jae
photo credit NY Times

Professor Lee, who died on 4th Oct. 2020 at the age of 95 years, At her death she was a professor emeritus of sociology at the prestigious Ewha Womans University in Seoul, where she inspired generations of young women. She founded the sociology department at Ewha in 1956. She began teaching the school’s first course in women’s studies in 1977, which led to the development of South Korea’s first graduate level women’s studies program.

Ms Lee was a remarkable woman and an inspirational ground breaker who pushed against social convention to fight for justice and equality her whole life.   In the 1940’s, when she was a young woman, her parents brought her to Seoul for an arranged marriage, but Ms. Lee ran away, believing marriage would interfere with her ambitions. She never married.  In 1945 she travelled with her sister, Hyo-suk

to the USA for a college education.  Despite not speaking English they sought assistance to attend the University of Alabama and Ms Lee went onto earn a bachelors degree from Alabama and a Masters degree in Sociology from Colombia University before returning to South Korea in 1957.

She founded the sociology department at Ewha the following year. She began teaching the school’s first course in women’s studies in 1977, which led to the development of South Korea’s first graduate level women’s studies program. Professor Lee was a prominent activist and a founder of women’s studies programs. Many of her students became leading feminists and rose to key positions in liberal governments.

Professor Lee turned down a number of offers to enter politics, preferring her roles as a teacher and an activist. In her later years, she helped found the Miracle Library, a national network of libraries aimed at children and teens in rural areas.

Professor Lee was lauded her bravery for taking up the cause of human rights and democratisation in a dictatorial era.  She was especially passionate about the cause of the “comfort women.” who were taken for use as sex slaves during World War II. As many as 200,000 women from Korea and other Asian countries were conscripted as sex slaves for Japanese troops beginning in the 1930s.  After decades of denial, the Japanese government in 1992 acknowledged its involvement, and South Korea and Japan reached a settlement in 2015 that involved an apology from the Japanese government and $8.3 million to provide care for the surviving women, who numbered around 45 at the time.

Restorative justice for ‘Comfort women’ was only one of many causes taken up by Professor Lee, one of South Korea’s foremost activists on behalf of women’s rights and democracy.  She helped abolish South Korea’s patriarchal naming system, a reform that allowed people to use two surnames to reflect their heritage from both parents, not just the father’s. She helped establish a requirement that half of a party’s candidates running for the National Assembly be women. She pushed for equal pay for equal work.

In 1995 Professor Lee was among a group of 30 female activists, including Gloria Steinem and the Nobel Peace laureates Leymah Gbowee and Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, who received international attention for making a rare trip  across the Demilitarized Zone separating the North and South to promote disarmament and peace between the two countries, which are technically still at war.

After her death, President Moon Jae-in said in a statement, “In the dark times when the stars were brighter, she was one of the most brilliant.” He posthumously awarded her a national medal, an honour she declined in 1996 because the same medal was being given to someone whom she believed to be a government agent planted in the women’s movement.

We thank and honour you for your work, your leadership and for who you were in this world Lee Hyo-jae and hold you in the spirit of the feminist sisterhood.

Our condolences to your family, friends, colleagues and community.

Vale Lee Hyo-jae

ARROW Statement – The time is now to accelerate the realisation of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls!

 

APWW Endorsed Statement by ARROW

Twenty-five years ago this month, at the occasion of the Fourth World Conference on Women, representatives of governments and activists from across the globe came together to produce the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Through this instrumental outcome document, the platform gave us commitments in twelve critical areas of concern, envisioning gender equality in all dimensions, and a world where each woman and girl can exercise their freedoms and choices and realise all their rights.

Twenty-five years on, no country has fully realised this agenda, and many are far from reaching the goal of achieving gender equality. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed new challenges, it has exposed the existing multidimensional inequalities, reinforced long standing gender inequality with an increased severity and disproportionately impacting women and girls.  In Asia and the Pacific alone there has been an increase in unpaid care and domestic work, job and income loss, the effects of the lockdown have been seen on gender-based violence related risk, forced marriage and interrupted access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services.[i]

Women today in all their diversities remain marginalised and denied their human rights. Even before COVID-19, patriarchal, militaristic, and authoritarian governments were rising across the region leading to increased attacks on feminists and women and environmental human rights defenders. Women and girls continue to be made systemically invisible in decision making spaces including decisions regarding their own bodies which has made it impossible to uphold sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for all.

Gender equality does not just require addressing discrimination against women and girls, but also dismantling existing structures, social norms and institutions that replicate and promote the binary of femininity and masculinity, and centering people’s freedom, safety and dignity. The principles and actions of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action are more relevant and important today than ever if we want to build back better.

At this pivotal juncture, we urge member states to recommit to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action to ensure acceleration of actions to achieve gender equality in a measurable and meaningful way for all women and girls

Full Statement click here 

Beijing on my mind – Dr Patricia Licuanan

Beijing on My Mind – the Long, Winding and Bumpy Road to  and  from the UN 4th World Conference on Women

  IIn this video, Dr Patricia Licuanan a former Chair of Asia Pacific Women’s Watch revisits the long road to the UN 4th World Conference on Women and the hard fought  groundbreaking outcomes document the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPFA)  that came out of that conference.  Dr Licuanan discusses the importance of the BPFA.   As we celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the BPFA and also celebrate the 10th Anniversary of UN Women, Dr Licuanan discusses how the platform and the actions contained therein are as relevant NOW as they were 25 years ago.  In rebuilding a more gender equal society in the wake of COVID-19 a lot can be drawn from these strategies and actions promised 25 years ago.

Enjoy the viewing   click here.

 

Call for applications: Expanding the Beijing+25 Youth Task Force

The Beijing+25 Youth Task Force is announcing a call for applications to expand the composition of the Youth Task Force that will work in the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) process closely with UN Women, civil society organizations and other stakeholders from September 2020 to September 2021, to ensure the meaningful involvement of young people in the global processes of the 25th review and appraisal of the BPfA.

The year 2020 is a confluence of anniversaries including the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Conference and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), the five-year review of the Sustainable Development Goals, the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Security Council Resolution 1325, the 75th anniversary of the UN and the 10th anniversary of the creation of UN Women. As we take stock of progress made in advancing women’s rights and gender equality, all the actors involved in Generation Equality are committed to ensuring that young people are at the center of this process.

Following a call for applications in June 2019, UN Women announced the “Beijing+25 Youth Task Force”, comprising 30 young leaders from different youth-led and youth-serving organizations, with diverse areas of expertise and across all regions of the world. They represent young people in all their diversity and across intersectional complexities. The existing youth leaders have a track record of driving change in their communities and mobilizing young people for the empowerment of young women and girls all over the world. The Youth Task Force serves on the governance structure of the Generation Equality Forum with a seat on the Core Group. The Core Group is the decision making body of the Generation Equality Forum. The forums centerstage young people and believes in their power and ability to accelerate the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The Youth Task Force has been supporting and guiding the global processes in consulting and engaging young people across the globe.

It is within this context that the Youth Task Force, convened by UN Women, is announcing a call for applications to expand the composition of the Youth Task Force that will work in the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) process closely with UN Women, civil society organizations and other stakeholders from September 2020 to September 2021, to ensure the meaningful involvement of young people in the global processes of the 25th review and appraisal of the BPfA.

To apply, please familiarize yourself with the Call for ApplicationsTerms of ReferenceCriteria for Nomination and submit the Application Form by August 21st 2020 at 12:00 p.m. midday EST. Please note that the recommendation letter should be by your nominated organization.

The Beijing +25 Youth Task Force will organize 2 webinars during 7th to 18th August 2020, with the objective to reach more young people and motivate them to apply to be a part of the Youth Task Force while clarifying any questions/doubts regarding the application process and requirements. Please watch out for more information related to the webinars in the Beijing+25 Youth Task Force’s social media spaces: FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

DAWN speaks out on COVID-19 – Global South perspective

Just in from DAWN ..

You are invited to join DAWN  third #DAWNtalks with Kumi Samuel and Vivien Taylor

The dramatic erosion of Human Rights during the COVID-19 pandemic calls for a multidimensional discussion.

Kumi Samuel (Sri Lanka) and Vivien Taylor (South Africa) are two remarkable activists from the Global South who will share their sharp feminist perspective on this theme.

 

To join the conversation click here

Honouring Feminist Strength in Times of Crisis – Virtual Film Premiere

 

This arrived from the IWHC …


Honoring Feminist Strength in Times of Crisis
Join Us Online To See Noelene’s Story

Watch the trailer now and join us for the premiere on 4/22!

On the day we would have gathered for IWHC’s Annual Dinner, join us online for a special film premiere celebrating our 2020 Joan B. Dunlop Honoree: Noelene Nabulivou. Be the first to see Noelene’s story and learn about her work advancing the health and rights of women, girls, LGBTQI people, and those most marginalized during times of crisis. While we can’t gather in person this year, we hope you’ll join our community online and celebrate the power and importance of women’s movements at this critical time.

Virtual Film Premiere
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
12 pm ET | 9 am PT (USA)

Watch the Trailer

Set a Reminder for the Online Premiere

The film will be streamed through the RSVP link and will remain live after the event time.

IWHC Joan B. Dunlop Award 2020
Noelene Nabulivou, Fiji

Co-Founder, Diverse Voices for Action and Equality (DIVA)

Noelene Nabulivou is a feminist grassroots organizer, policy analyst, activist, advocate, and movement-builder from Fiji. For over 35 years, Noelene has worked to affirm and protect universal human rights, and advance transformative approaches to gender, social, economic, ecological, and climate justice. She is the co-founder and outgoing political adviser of Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality, a Fijian feminist collective led by lesbian, bisexual, transmasculine, and gender-nonconforming people that concentrates work in urban poor communities, rural, and remote constituencies of Fiji, and works with/for all women and people in the Pacific and globally.

I am so excited to share this film with you and can’t wait to see our community come together online. See you tomorrow!

Françoise Girard
President, IWHC

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