CAIRO,
February 27, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The UN
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will kick off Monday, February
28, a controversial session to review implementations of the 1995
Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2000 Beijing +5 Declaration.
The
49th session, which will run until March 11, will be attended by
ministers and other high-level representatives from over 100 countries
and thousands of non-government organizations (NGOs), according to the
UN Web site.
The
Beijing Platform for Action, and Beijing +5 Declaration are
controversial because they promote what conservatives see as a radical
feminist agenda, including abortion on demand as a woman’s right.
The
documents have never been fully accepted by many governments,
according to the Catholic News Service.
CSW
declarations are not binding, but they do shape policies and budgets
Progress
Review
The
work program of the CSW’s session will focus on national-level
implementation of the two documents through interactive dialogue and
exchange of good practices, according to the UN Web site.
The
meeting will examine a report based on surveys by 135 countries of the
progress they have made in promoting gender equality and the
challenges they still face in carrying out the commitments made in the
Beijing documents.
The
report covers twelve critical areas, including women and poverty,
education, health, violence against women, armed conflict, economic
opportunity, decision-making, human rights, media, environment, the
girl child and the mechanisms established by governments to promote
gender equality.
Other
issues covered by the report include trafficking in women and girls,
HIV/AIDS, indigenous women, information and communications technology,
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the role of men and boys.
Conservative
Objections
Most
troubling to conservatives was an attempt by the commission to produce
a non-negotiable outcome document before the conference even started.
The
proposed outcome would tie the Beijing documents to the UN Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), said the Catholic News Service.
It
added that the MDGs are seen as “an aspirational and largely
non-controversial list of ways in which countries resolved to improve
the world in the new century.”
However,
sources at United Families International, a conservative NGO, told
IslamOnline.net Sunday, February 27, that the US insisted on a
proposal that forced the outcome document to be negotiated.
Conservative
Muslim and Christian NGOs say that the Beijing documents and the
related Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW) weaken the family by taking women out of the
context of their roles within families.
Such
NGOs also maintain that the feminization of poverty would be reduced
if marriages were strengthened and extramarital affairs discouraged.
CEDAW
and the CEDAW Committee that sees to its enforcement also promote laws
and policies that contradict Islamic Shari`ah.
