© UNESCO - Malempré, Georges
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, or the ‘Women’s Convention’) was adopted in 1979 to promote universal gender equality. In a world where women’s inequality is mandated by many ‘cultures’ and demanded by many religions, to achieve its goals, CEDAW must address the systematic, deeply-rooted inability of many cultures and religions to see the inequalities they create as injustices at all.
Culture is still used in many countries to justify women’s lack of power in the public sphere, preventing them from owning property, inheriting land, getting an education or appearing in public unaccompanied by a male relative. In the ‘private’ sphere of family relations, ‘honor’ killings and female circumcision, early and forced marriage continue to be practiced widely.
Yet, the problem of cultural and religious defences against equality for women is not only an issue in non-western or developing countries. Recently in Britain, five Anglican Bishops were welcomed into the Catholic Church despite clear differences in doctrine, because they were offended at the introduction of women bishops. If anything, this example demonstrates the depth and enormity of the challenge for any organisation that takes seriously the desire to promote women’s human rights – which ‘go against the grain’ in most societies.
While religion is defended as a matter of individual conscience, this obscures the fact that the laws of many states are rooted in the dominant Church’s teachings. Religion is a source of power perhaps even greater than law in some countries, making efforts to change laws that discriminate against women, fruitless without addressing it.
While we are hesitant to criticize other cultures or to question the hierarchy of dominant religions, we cannot ignore the fact that it is uniformly women who are the focus of cultural preservation arguments, while men can act with no apparent effect upon the culture they dominate and define. The correlation between this lack of power and the cultural defence against women’s human rights is now too strong for organizations like CEDAW to neglect.
Eileen Fegan (Irish Federation)
As long as the Cultural and Religious values are ‘untouchable’, women won’t be able to claim any rights. In this respect, Muslim Women are paying the price by being forced to cover their head with a head scarf. No where in the Koran it is written to cover women’s head. It says ‘Cover your private parts’.. Many women are forced to cover their heads by their father or brother or husband. Little girls starting from age of primary school are sent to religious schools where they have to wear head scarf.. At this age they don’t have any choice to go to another school.. Mostly families choose these schools because they are free or less expensive.. Many little girls grow up in these institutions.. covering their head becomes a way of life. Later on when asked, they answer that it is their choice … is it really? Clerics preach that if a women show her hair, she will go to hell..every thread of hair will become a snake and bite her.. Also, she should abstain to show her hair because it might arouse male interest.
Now what kind of equality are we talking about.. In countries where the level of education is far from the aspirations of the Millennium Goals, where people are economically distressed and easy to manipulate, where most of the population is still educated by the imam of the neighboring mosque, can we claim any women rights?
Congratulations, Eileen. It is long past time that we recognised human rights as being more important than religion and culture. It is also worth noting that while the organisation and practice of most religions discriminate against women, the roots of those religions do not.
Thank you Eileen for raising some important issues. For the Womens Worlds Forum in Canada in 2011 IFUW members have offered a panel discussion that will be raising awareness of the concerns of widows as their plight often ignored. There is stigma which needs modification of cultural and religious attitudes. Harmful traditional practices and marginalization resulting from these practices increase the inability to provide for oneself and family. We hope to gain more information and raise awareness about these matters.
Dear Eileen. time has arrived when we need to give more cognizance to human rights. It is perhaps more significant than religion and culture.Education , realization and enlightenment can only help to change the situation. There is need to restructure our thinking and attitude. Conventional traditional practices are detrimental to any form of socio – cultural advancement..IFUWA is organizing a programme on human rights to create awareness to her members regarding this vital area.
la necesidad de combatir este tipo de descriminación y especialmente en las mujeres, nos lleva a todos los ambitos culturales, cuando vemos con tristesa que en México, la descriminación de nuestras niñas todavía es una penosa realidad, aunque en otra medida, las profesionistas y en especial, las ingenieras, sufrimos de descriminación laboral y en universidades con profesores retrógradas y mal intensionados, el acoso a las profesores en las escuelas y sobre todo en su desempeño profesional, al no darseles oportunidad a las mujeres de obtener titulos de posgrado.
Estoy a sus ordenes para la participación en este rubro.
It is a reality in the world there is discrimination against women in all areas, but what is really unprecedented is that was said of the great advances of the rights to us, we live in and equitable societies continue to subsist between the date social abuse and harassment a daily basis, the domain of gender, so despite the fact that there have been some steps, I think have a ways to go huge, I admire the efforts of the organization of conventions like this and I hope to contribute my grain of sand, so that when my daughter grows up has a much more equitable world and social development opportunities, professional and labor are based on the ability of individuals and not according to their gender.
There are some important human rights issues related to women’s health and reproductive rights, like abortion, that still need concerted action. In Rwanda abortion attracts a penalty of 5-10 years prison. I understand that the majority of women in prison here have committed this criminal offence. Criminalisation of abortion is also a recent major issue in Australia. The criminalisation of homosexuality is a major rights issue affecting both men and women in some African nations – and in the US the ‘Don’t ask don’t tell’ ruling still applies. In some places it is not possible for civil society organisations to lobby on these issues. But IFUW and NFAs can work with UN bodies, parliamentarians and policy makers to bring pressure for reform. The CEDAW Committee already speaks strongly on them when country reports are presented and analysed.
Cultural barriers – what does this mean? For 18 years I have supported, written, researched and defended the human rights of women, and women who were once girls, who report surviving acts of domestic-based violence that satisfy the defining elements of constituting acts of torture. They identify the perpetrators as a partner/spouse, a parent, family members and other like-minded. These perpetrators are considered non-state actors. The women who contact me and my colleague are from industrialized countries: Canada, the UK, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the US. The right not to be subjected to torture is a non-derogable human right – it is a woman’s human right. Based on my experience however, torture in the domestic or private sphere has yet to be clearly named and visibilized – socio-cultural conditioning has made it okay to minimize and misname acts of non-state torture (NST) in the domestic sphere as a lesser crime such as an assault. This disregards that torture has been identified as a distinct and specific human rights violation internationally – Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and General Recommendation 19 7(b) of the Convention to Elimination All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) all specifically state that “no one shall be subjected to torture …”. Because the specific population of women so victimized remains invisibilized, every day is a struggle to gain for them a place of human rights – for them to know they are entitled to a womanhood of dignity and equality. To achieve this, the socio-cultural barrier of invisibility must be removed and the culture of what it means ‘to be’ and ‘to live’ in relational torture exposed. The cultural barrier must be removed for all women – for the women/girls so tortured – to be free to stand with womanhood dignity, equality and the fundamental freedom of human rights.
Jeanne Sarson (Canadian Federation)
The International Relations Committee of the Canadian Federation is very grateful for the expertise and background experience that you have in this field, and for your work in drafting their proposed resolution on this topic for the up-coming CFUW Annual General Meeting.