As long as 70% of poor people in the world are women, the issue of gender justice cannot be separated from the fight to end poverty. Current international policies rob women of their livelihoods, healthcare and other economic rights, while feeding a fundamentalist backlash and militarism that deprive women of personal autonomy and choices.
As GCAP has grown since 2005, so too has the group driving its gender agenda, the Feminist Taskforce, and their demands are reaching an increasingly high level audience. In New York last week,
We will be carrying the call forward from Johannesburg this week when we launch
Women's Tribunals
Women's Tribunals against poverty are an innovative way of hearing, recording and acting on the injustices faced by women living in poverty. Hearing women's first hand testimonies, seeing their faces and denouncing the injustices they live with, serves to inform and ultimately exert pressure on governments. The tribunals took place in Peru and
Women in the Arab region struggle for a voice
A third tribunal organised by the
Demands
The first pillar is trade justice for women's social, economic, cultural and political empowerment. Trade expansion - both within and across borders - has been dependent on poor women's labour. Trade justice therefore implies not only more equitable terms of trade and national economic sovereignty, but also guaranteeing women's land rights, labour rights and decent jobs, protecting women's agricultural activities, maintaining food security, livelihoods and traditional knowledge, ensuring essential public services for all, and developing policies so that the benefits of trade will advance development objectives and reach the most marginalised members of society, particularly women living in poverty.
The second is debt cancellation to lift the burden on women and their families. Much of the debt of developing countries is being paid by women. Currently women are providing healthcare, education, child and elder care, and other services which support families, societies and economies as part of their unpaid labour. In order to eradicate poverty and advance human rights therefore, debt must be cancelled, resources shared equitably to meet the needs of the poor, especially women, and sufficient essential services for all must be provided by the state.
In the area of overseas development aid, the volume of development assistance given by rich countries must be increased to the 0.7% of GNP/
And finally, democratic, transparent, participatory and accountable national policy processes are needed to open doors for women and eliminate discriminatory policies: National strategies to eliminate poverty need to empower women through education, health care and HIV/AIDS treatment, reproductive rights, strategies to end violence against women, full political participation, equal citizenship, inheritance and property rights, and access to essential services including affordable housing. Moreover, processes must be developed that facilitate inclusive democracy, which means the participation of all - especially women, youth, migrants and indigenous peoples in policy development, implementation and monitoring, with mechanisms for information sharing, input, and redress.
We often hear the phrase "Poverty has a female face". The fundamental demands presented by GCAP's Feminist Taskforce and GCAP must break through this paradigm. What is needed is an internal transformation in the form of dedicated funding and integration of a gender perspective into all existing policy decisions. The face of poverty is our face; only we can change it.
“Equality between women and men is a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice and is also a necessary and fundamental pre-requisite for equality, development and peace”
“Women’s rights are intrinsic to the concept of human rights as developed through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).”