Asia-Pacific agrees on a ‘distinct’ gender equality goal

The UN Asia-Pacific regional countries acknowledging their failure to fulfil 20-year old Beijing commitment of achieving gender equality and women empowerment have called for a “stand-alone” goal in the post-2015 agenda to make a fresh effort.

Nurul Islam Hasibfrom Bangkokbdnews24.com
Published : 20 Nov 2014, 03:10 PM
Updated : 20 Nov 2014, 04:47 PM

They made the call in a collective declaration adopted at the end of the UNESCAP ministerial meeting on Thursday at the UN regional headquarters in Bangkok.

The declaration, which has been viewed as “forward looking” by UN officials and “compromised” by the rights activists, will be placed in the global review of the landmark Beijing commitments in March next year in New York.

The final report after reviewing all region’s progress in March will be placed in September UN General Assembly when the world will embrace a new set of development goals.

Regional Director of the UN Women, co-host of the conference, Roberta Clarke was particularly happy as member states recommitted to plug gaps in achieving gender equality.

Briefing journalists, after the adoption of the declaration by the ministers of the Asia-Pacific countries, she said countries had assessed their achievements, identified gaps and recommitted.

“Of course in every fields there are gaps, but programmes are evolving (to fill the gap),” she said.

Compromised or forward looking?

Ministers, mostly women affairs, adopted the declaration drafted by their senior officials without any change.

But the senior officials came to the consensus after long debate on some issues related to the use of words of sexual identity and rights.

“We better call it (the declaration) compromised,” Cai Yiping, one of the members of the 400 strong civil society representatives who monitored the whole process, told bdnews24.com.

She, however, appreciated that emerging challenges like the migration, and climate change found a place in the final adoption, and there had been a ‘kind of recognition’ of women in diverse sexual identity.

For example, she said, the words “sexual orientation and gender identity” were replaced by the phrase, “men and women in their diversity”.

“We see it as a compromise though they recognised the ‘diversity’. But the word diversity can be interpreted in many ways,” she said.

Recognising ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ commonly known as SOGI means all people must be able to enjoy all the human rights irrespective of their sexual orientation and gender identify.

Sexual orientation covers sexual desires, feelings, practices and identification and it can be towards people of the same or different sexes.

The term gender identity refers to a person’s innate, deeply felt psychological identification as a man, woman or some other gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth.

There had been strong pressure from the civil society group to keep the word “SOGI” in the document. But finally it has to be eliminated due to strong opposition by the Russia and Iran, who were backed by some other countries.

The word ‘caste’ has been removed from the final document due to India’s opposition.

The final adoption acknowledged the need of sexual and reproductive health information and services, though it mentioned about ‘reproductive rights’ only.

Countries could not come to a consensus on sexual rights.

The activist Cai Yiping said the whole gender equality issue must be seen holistically.

Otherwise, she said, it would be like “you are providing treatment to a woman facing domestic violence without addressing the root cause. And every time she is beaten up at home and come to the hospital for treatment, she gets treated”.

She called the document an “unfinished agenda”.

“There are many things could have included in the declaration”.

However, Regional Technical Adviser of the UNFPA Kiran Bhatia termed it a “good” document, “if not the best”.

Apart from recognising diversity of women, she said, the declaration recognised men and women’s equal responsibility of parenting.

“It also mentioned age-appropriate, comprehensive evidence-based education for sexuality which is more forward looking than the earlier declaration,” she said.

“But the concern is sexual rights did not get a place here,” she said in her reaction.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to two-thirds of world’s population, including nearly two-thirds of the world’s poor.

Violence against women is widespread here with up to 70 percent women experience violence in any form in their lifetimes, according to the UN data.

The Beijing conference in 1995 identified 12 areas for achieving the gender equity and women empowerment.

Bangladesh particularly mentioned elimination of violence against women, ending child marriage and trafficking of women and girls were the critical challenges it was facing in achieving gender equality.

It, however, demanded a ‘stand-alone’ gender equality goal in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda.