AFRICA
	WESTERN ASIA
	ASIA & PACIFIC
	LATIN AMERICA & CARRIBEAN
	EUROPE & NORTH AMERICA

Headllines continued

KEEPING GIRLS RIGHTS IN THE MIX

Youth Advise the World Bank

By Erin Hosier

June 8, 2000 - New York - Today’s Youth Caucus panel on the World Bank surprised some. "I cannot tell you how many times people have come up to ask me why the Youth Caucus was planning a panel on the World Bank," said Shireen Lee, an organizer. "Youth are focusing on globalization and economy, now. These are the issues that really effect our lives. We haven’t been attending rallies because they’re fashionable - we have been having a dialogue."

The panelists included Monica Fong, representing the World Bank, Nellie Kamau, of the Young Women’s Institute in Kenya, Dr. Pat Morris of InterAction, Ritu Sharma of Women’s EDGE in Washington D.C., and Bremley Lyngdoh of the Consortium of Young Scientists for Sustainable Development in India. The World Bank is an intergovernmental institution that provides loans at low interest rates to poor countries, and loans at market interest rates to wealthier nations.

It is also one of the top funders of education in developing countries, and has spent $3.4 billion on education since Beijing ‘95. Kamau opened the session, asking how the World Bank can be used as a tool to develop the economic well being of young women. Keeping in mind that people under 27 make up over half the world’s population, 80% of which are living in developing countries. "It is a concern that young female voices are not being heard."

One concern for several panelists was the World Bank’s policies on the privatization of education, where families will pay to send their children to better schools. The concern is that if a family has more than one child, the better education will often go to the son. Monica Fong is a member of the Gender Anchor Team of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network in the World Bank. She said that the Bank is looking into ways to perfect the system, perhaps by using a voucher system, where each child is given a voucher to ensure an equal education. Fong insisted that the Bank is working on investments in girls’ education - providing secondary education scholarships, and trying to build schools closer to communities. She highlighted the Poverty Reduction Strategy Program where the Bank will work with individual countries to improve the economy. Dr. Morris called for the Bank to advance gender equality within its ranks, to hire more feminist economists. She suggested organizing regional conferences with young women participants, as well as fostering a young women’s professional program with mentoring. "These young women are not only tomorrow's leaders. They need to be today’s partners."

Early Marriage: Whose Right to Choose?

June 7, 1999, New York--At a panel organized by UNICEF and a network of NGOs, activists discussed the effect of early marriage on girls and women worldwide. Georgina Ashworth, founder of CHANGE (UK) began the panel with background information on the forum and introduced the panel which included Purna Sen of CHANGE, Judith Bruce of the Population Council, Marilyn Thomson of Save the Children (UK), Naana Otoo-Oyortey of FORWARD and International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) and Gladys Acosta of UNICEF's Regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Among the issues discussed were the visibility of girls who, once married, are deemed women though they are children according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In the global South this so-called problem of invisibility is rampant because, according to Bruce, the majority of sexually active adolescents in the devloping world are married. Panelists and audience members also grappled with the issue of consent and child marriage. Sen pointed out that all marriages of children are non-consensual and forced--subtly or explicitly. She provided an overview of the human rights principles violated by the practice, starting with principles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Convention on Consent to Marriage, CEDAW and article 19 of the CRC. One audience member from the Sudan argued that in some countries, young girls willingly marry early in an effort to shield themselves from HIV/AIDS infection. But Bruce and others pointed out that the so-called consent isn't always so easy to discern because of family pressures and the fact that, in fact, most girls contract HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) whilst monogamously married to their husbands. The problem is that the men are rarely monogamous or already infected because they are much older.

The point was made, however, that not all of these child brides are passive victims. In a discussion by Thompson on a program her group is running in Nepal, girls were initiating dialogue with their community on this practice and they were well aware that the practice was eroding their rights. In one video clip, a young girl expressed her desire to stay in school rather than live a life of subservience to a husband she never chose. In response to her friends' complaints that this was the life of all daughters, she said, "I too do not like being a daughter." Thompson's group, Save the Children, was conducting an empowerment program with these girls that involved them in role playing and negotiating with their parents and community elders. So far, the confidence levels of girls in the program in rural, western Nepal has soared and their mothers are accepting the girls' choices to stay in school rather than marry early. In the video clips Thompson was showing, one mother said that she could shield her daughter from being dominated by a man if she gave her daughter the gift of an education and a future outside of marriage. Thompson's presentation ended with another video clip of the girls singing a song with two lines: "Oh, Mother, I am crying. Oh, Mother, am I not your child."

The Save the Children study identified six root causes for chid marriages in Nepal:

>> low value and status of girls

>> heavy workload of girls who see marriage as a comfortable escape

>> girls' isolation from peer groups

>> parental authoritarianism

>> community pressure

>> lack of access to quality education

Issues raised by other panelists include the incidence of vaginal fistula amongst young girls who are forced to marry before their bodies have reach sexual maturity. Fistulas are holes that form between the vagina and rectum that preclude regular bowel functioning. Panelists also noted a link between female genital mutilation (FGM)--a ritual often used to mark a girls' ascent to womanhood--and the occurrence of fistulas.

Panelists also remarked on the social and emotional maturity of children who were able to network with their own peer groups. These unmarried adolescents knew more than their married contemporaries because their social circles provided them with a forum in which to discuss safe sex and HIV/AIDS. Activists also bemoaned the negative influence of the media which pressures girls to marry early and stay in an abusive situation. Acosta, who is a specialist on children's affairs in Latin America and the Caribbean, noted that the issue of child marriage took a back seat to civil unions of young girls. These unions are not legally recognized but just as damaging for young girls' health and well being. Acosta noted that Jamaica was the only country which listed 16 as the legal marriagable age for both boys and girls.

What's to be done? The panelists emphasized the need to establish a link between CRC and CEDAW because early marriage is the violation of a girl's sexual and reproductive rights. Panelists also emphasized the need for an active and engaged family and social life for girls and for an educational policy in early childhood.

Young Women's Realities and Reccommendations Worldwide

By Erin Hosier

June 7, 1999, New York - Today’s panel entitled, "International Dialogue: Young Women’s Realities & Recommendations," organized by CSW's Youth Caucus, brought together 6 young women, several of whom were teenagers, to tell their stories of struggle and triumph. Panelists came from Argentina, Australia, Sierra Leone, Palestine, and Bosnia - Herzegovina.

Moderator Mariana Nasser, 19, of Brazil began by explaining the reason for the panel - to unite young women across the world in the knowledge that they are not alone. "We all have similar problems. We’re all looking for similar things - love, peace, fulfillment of our dreams. But the obstacles we face can seem insurmountable."

Worldwide, one woman in every three has been beaten or sexually abused at some point in her life, according to a January 2000 study by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Indeed, violence against them has played a part in all of the panelist’s young lives, and the lives of the women whose stories they shared. Selma Gasi, a 19 year old member of the "Woman to Woman" organization in Bosnia-Herzegovina told the story of a murdered friend. "During the war six soldiers came to her house to abduct the family to put them in a camp. But first they killed her mother, tortured her brother and father, and then they all raped her. After it was over, they told her if she could crawl to the door, they would let her live. She did live, and became pregnant as a result of the rapes. Six months later in the camp, two soldiers were placing bets over whether the baby inside her was male or female. One of them said he couldn’t wait to find out and took his knife to her stomach. She and the baby boy died." " Woman to Woman" is one of the few organizations that reaches out to women who were tortured during the war, and is also reaching out to women forced into prostitution. She is working on supplying women with shelters in Bosnia, where women’s choices are so limited., and ending trafficking in Central and Eastern Europe.

Amrita Dasvarma, of the Women’s Rights Action Network in Australia, made pleas on the behalf of indigenous women, who are increasingly taken from their families to be put into foster care - separated from their culture and often put into a situation that is extremely destructive. Amrita read a letter by one Aboriginal girl recently put into a foster home who described her existence as a prison sentence, simply for being who she is. Another letter was written by a young rape survivor and drug addict who sought treatment for her dependency and emotional problems at a large health facility: "They never listened to what I was trying to tell them. Their solution to my problem was to medicate me so heavily I could barely speak, and as part of my 'therapy' for getting over my fear of men was assigning a male nurse to my case."

"We are tired of not being listened to," said Adiatu Deigh, 21, of Sierra Leone. She called for an end to forced and arranged marriages. "These traditions are not working for us now. We need to make our own choices." Hanan Boudart, of the Palestinian Working Women’s Organization told of having to go to court for permission to marry a man of a different culture. The judge screamed that she was a bitch for even trying to challenge the rules for women. (Men are allowed to marry outside the culture.) But Hanan kept trying in the courts, and was eventually granted permission to marry. While relating her story, Hanan began to cry. "It’s hard because I am Palestinian. I have been beaten by soldiers for admitting I am Palestinian, and I have fought with my own country for the right to marry the person that I love. I am sorry for crying, but I am a human being."

Stopping the Sale of Innocents

By Sandhya Nankani

NEW YORK, June 6 - In a UNICEF-sponsored panel today, speakers discussed strategies to end trafficking of children, young girls and women, focusing on the realities that exist today in West Africa, Nepal, India, Thailand, Eastern Europe, Costa Rica and the United States. Panelists included Diara Afoussatou Thiero, Minister of Women's Affairs, Children and the Family in Mali, Valdet Sala, Program Director of the Soros Foundation in Albania, Anita Botti, Chair of the Working Group on Trafficking in President Clinton's Interagency Council on Women, Milena Grillo, an activist from PANIAMOR in Costa Rica, and filmmakers Ruchira Gupta and Frode Hojer Pederson, both of whom have made award-winning documentaries on the sexual exploitation of girls.

The picture they painted was at times a bleak one.

Conservative statistics estimate that 1 million persons are trafficked each year. Most of these are women and young girls, who are sold into prostitution. ActionAid, a UK-based NGO which works at the grassroots level throught South Asia defines trafficking as "the international trade of persons," where abduction, coercion, violence and exploitation take place both in sexual and economic ways. Since the Beijing Platform for Action, there has been an increased awareness about violence against women as a matter for governmental and international action. Within this domain, there has been an increased and concerted effort to bring trafficking to the attention of national bodies of power.

"Trafficking is the buying and selling of human beings, of boys and girls, of men and women," said Botti. "It is about human rights, migration, the economy. It is about corruption." The crossborder exchange of boys and girls does not occur in a vaccum. In fact, in many cases, border police are complicit actors in these crimes, accepting payoffs from procurers. What has become clear through the research conducted over the past five years is that trafficking is a global phenomenon and that it is an issue of universal human rights.

In areas of conflict and economic disruption, the rise in trafficking has become a matter of particular concern. Valdet Sala pointed to statistics showing that these conditions have actually led to a rise in trafficking in her country, Albania where in an April 2000 study of 500 women in 20 villages, 47 percent of women interviewed said that they knew someone from their village or neighborhood who was forced into prostitution. "The profile of a victim is the same all over the world," said Sala. "She is unemployed, from remote areas, has little or no information, is seeking a better life, and has never practiced prostitution in her own environment."

It is important to note that trafficking differs from prostitution in that in all cases, the victims are tricked, duped or coerced into their situations. In many instances, further, children who are sold do not have any agency and are silenced in the decision-making process. Recent years have seen the development of programs and legislation intent on tackling this problem. These efforts, rooted in small pockets of NGOs who have organized grassroots initiatives, have been successful at the micro-level and can easily be replicated.

For example, in Thailand, one program has identified high-risk girls and families in areas of trafficking and has provided scholarships, enabling them to receive training in the hospitality field. This initiative, an alliance between the Daughters Education Program, UNICEF, the Thai Government and Pan-Pacific Hotels, approaches the situation from the perspective that providing economic alternatives to girls and families can enable them to avoid falling into the traps set by traffickers. In Nepal and Thailand, girls have become their own advocates. Those who have been repatriated return to their homes and are trained by local NGOs to educate villagers about the dangers of trafficking. In some cases, they act as "border guards" and monitor country crossings.

Another approach has been to sensitize police, mostly men, on the plight of women. In Mali, action is being taken to raise consciousness at the grassroots level by holding meetings in a key border town to educate communities that the trafficking taking place is not a cultural or traditional thing. The town has also put in place two monitoring committees that are providing medical support to families and children in recuperation and executing an 18 month plan of action.

In Costa Rica, where the majority of attention is focused on the sex tourism industry, one of the key approaches has been to form alliances with the tourism industry - hotels, airlines, rent-a-cars - engaging them to make a commitment to ending child prostitution. The role of the media in bringing the issue of trafficking to light was raised several times during the panel discussion. "We have to use the media because they make the phenomenon visible, no matter how commercial they are," said Sala.

Pederson, a Danish filmmaker advised members of the media from the North to join Southern NGOs by sharing their professional skills to create educational tools for local audiences. He has made several documentaries doing just this.

"Modern day sex slaves," is the term Ruchira Gupta uses to refer to the innocents who are sold and bought everyday throughout Asia. Gupta won an Emmy award in 1997 for her documentary, "The Selling of Innocents" which looks at Nepalese sex workers in Bombay. Her research began when she was traveling in Nepal and came upon a village where there were absolutely no girls between the ages of 15 and 45. Gupta's work then zoomed in on the brothels of Bombay where she found that of the 200,000 sex workers, one-half of whom are Nepalese. Since completing her documentary, she has conducted research throughout Asia, interviewing 863 clients and workers. She attributes a "lack of knowledge and a fear of the unknown" to the high demand for child prostitutes and the continued selling of children to procurers. "And, most girls and women don't know the reality of what lies ahead."

While there are more questions than answers that exist in the ongoing dialogue about trafficking, it is clear that certain commonalities exist worldwide. Poverty and other structural inequities have been identified as principle causes of the continued rise in trafficking. "It is an issue of economics," said Mali's Thiero, Minister in a country where each year 15,000 boys are sold into bonded labor to other African countries. "It is the poverty of these countries that is to blame for trafficking. We need to work on poverty reduction strategies."

Other panelists stressed the need for the drafting of legislation, the allocation of resources for repatriation, rehabilitation, and prosecution, protection and prevention. Another repeated demand was the need for countries to coordinate their efforts regionally and to enforce existing legislation. "We need to develop policies, programs and legislation to deal with the issue nationally and internationally," said Botti. "Data is also critical to our efforts."

Last Sunday, speaking on the eve of Beijing + 5, Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, placed special emphasis on governments' role in ending violence against women. "Governments have a special burden to protect women from gender-based violence, a duty that is all too often ignored," she said. Robinson went on to define the rise in trafficking of women and girls as an area that should be of particular and increasing concern to the global community, calling on women activists to address this issue both in their grassroots work and in policy debates. "Globalization, the information revolution, regional conflicts and the economic gap between men and women are just some of the factors that lead to trafficking, which is also a form of violence against women," she said.

One key to addressing global trafficking may be an emphasis on education and prevention. "Another meaning of the word prevention is arriving before," said Milena Grillo. "We need to build things that will occupy the agenda in the lives of children so that there is no room for exploitation."

Ending Female Genital Mutilation: What Can We Measure and How?

By Fatma Khafagy

New York, June 6--At the U.N. Secretariat, activists sponsored a lively panel discussion on ending female genital mutilation (FGM). It was organised by UNICEF, WHO, DfiD and the World Bank. The participation of the first lady of Burkina Faso, Madame Chantal Compare, demonstrated governmental willingness to end the practice.

Dr Nahid Toubia, head of RAINBO, drew attention to the importance of language. She suggested that activists speak about "abandoning" the practice of FGM rather than "eradicating" it because it is not a disease beyond our control. Toubia also highlighted indicators that can help measure change and progress. These include laws banning the practice as well as research and dialogue with circumcisers who have given it up. She advised the audience to be wary of studies that claim the practice has been completely stopped in a particular location because "nothing," she said "is ever 100%." Ultimately, Toubia said, abandoning the practice of FGM is about effecting fundamental social change--a very complex endeavour.

Dr Asha Mohamud, director of PATH, then talked about the priorities for the future which her group has identified based on 88 anti-FGM programmes surveyed by PATH. The assessment focused on approaches to behavioural change. She mentioned changes in decision-making and community declarations by young men who said they didn't want wives who had been genitally mutilated. The PATH study brought attention to the fact that even though the participating organisations had made impact in increasing awareness and knowledge, they remained uncertain that families would abandon the practice. At present, anti-FGM organisations reach approximately 20 million people.

Dr Morissadan Koqyate, from CPTAFE in Guinea, referred to the complex value of religious leaders in abandoning FGM, but emphasised that it is important to identify genuine religious leaders and identify their position on FGM. Koqyate also emphasized the important role of men, the need for political will at the highest level and amongst local government officials. He also emphasised the need for legal instruments and the crucial role of the press. "We have come a long way in the last 25 years," Koqyate concluded. "Not only is it important that some FGM practitioners have lay down their instruments, the very fact that we're talking so openly about the practice is heartening and an important indicator of social change."

Anika Rahman, Director of the International Program of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, focused on the role of legislation. She cautioned that while laws are necessary, they are not sufficient on their own. Social change, she sayed, has to come through education and consciousness-raising.

Rahman said that governments must encourage legal reform and new regulatory measures aimed at specific groups such as heath professionals and insurance providers. Legally, the key requirements should include ratification and implementation of international treaties and withdrawal of reservations especially with CEDAW and CRC. Rahman also suggested constitutional protection, legal reform, and possibly, after careful consideration, criminal laws. These should be very carefully drafted and people should be made aware of the criminal law and its application. She also suggested that criminal sanctions should focus on the protection of girls, and that adult women who decide to undergo the practice after having all relevant information should not be penalized. Rahman also stressed the need for legal reform related to FGM in industrialised countries, where it is increasingly being practiced amongst immigrants.

Comments from the audience included suggestions for such new indicators as breaking the taboo and discussing FGM freely, public debates about FGM and studying positive alternatives to the practice in local communities.

After Dakar: Educating the Next Generation of Girls

By Vigdis Cristofoli

New York, June 6--Just a few months ago, the World Education Forum (WEF) finished up its annual conference in Dakar, Senegal with a key list of results and recommendations. On Tuesday, at the Beijing Plus Five Special Session at the U.N., UNICEF organized panel as a follow-up to Dakar. The session was moderated by Mr. Kul Gautam, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. There were four panelists: Mrs. Nane Annan, wife of Secretary General Kofi Annan; Dr. Penina Mlama, Executive Director of Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE); Dr. Hoda Badran, Chair of the Alliance for Arab Women; and Dr. Sarah Tirmazi, Country Director of ActionAid-Pakistan.

In opening remarks, Gautam noted that education is the most powerful tool in the battle against poverty, inequality and injustice. Annan also highlighted the importance of girls' education and reminded the audience that Secretary General Annan launched the U.N. Girls' Education Initiative in Dakar. She went on to say that the development of girls' skills, ideas and energy would help ensure the full attainment of the goals of equality, development and peace. Extreme poverty, poor quality and domestic work, violations of the Convention of the Right of the Child, are factors preventing girls from education. She also noted that the expansive reach, expertise and energy of NGOs is crucial to educating girls.

Views were presented from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. All speakers underlined the importance and urgency of focusing on quality education which must include a consideration of gender. The Middle East was cited as a region in which there is a prevalence of stereotypes of women and girls in textbooks. In Africa the growing gender gap is alarming. A call for action was expressed as new challenges confront the continent. Intensified poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, armed conflict, cultural attitudes, and globalization are factors which have had a negative impact on African girls' education. In South Asia, access to education continues to be a major problem. In Pakistan and India alone, 40 million children are out of school. Children's work is the major challenge to education, and girls are the most affected.

As a follow-up to the WEF, regional activities are in place and a commitment to global partnership has been strengthened. At national levels new alliances and networks have been created. In South Asia, the newly established South Asian Education Forum and the Civil Society Consultation group will hold its first meeting later this year.

One of the key recommendations by the panel was to involve girls more in education policy and strategy. The need to work at all levels in society was emphasised. Government leaders must feel justified in following up their verbal commitment to girls' education with action and policy. And governments and NGOs must work together. Globally, panelists said, girls' education must maintain a high profile at major U.N. Conferences.

Girls as their own Advocates

By Sara Ann Friedman

In October 1995, the dream of 13- year-old Ugandan schoolgirl Margaret (real name withheld for protection of her safety) to become a doctor was brutally shattered. Abducted by the rebel force, known as the Lords Resistance Army, Margaret, along with 30 other children from her village, was trained as a soldier, survived on weeds and boiled sorghum, forced to drink her own urine, and taken as a "wife" of rebel soldiers. After nearly three years, she escaped and found her way to World Vision International, an NGO that has helped her to return to school and restore her dreams - addressing her impaired health, including STDs, and enormous guilt at her own survival while she watched her friends murdered, starving to death or dying in childbirth.

Margaret was one of several girls and young women, aged 12-18, whose powerful stories dominated the daylong symposium on Sunday June 4, "Girls as Advocates". But the power of their personal stories took a backseat to the power of their role as social activists and change agents in their own lives. Yashoda Panti, through her Child Club and Save the Children Nepal, campaigns against sex trafficking and early marriage, problems she and her friends face on a daily basis in their remote hill village.

Olga Kudzerka works with the Girl Scouts in Belarus, to bring visibility and empowerment to disabled girls; and 12-year-old Iman Sayyed Abudl-Hassan, from Egypt is determined to make sure that her own daughter and other girls will no longer be subjected to the painful and damaging practice of female circumcision. "These girls turn the role model principle on its head," said panel moderator and researcher, Judith Musick. "Demonstrating extraordinary initiative, persistence and positive practical action, they serve as role models for us adults."

Held at UNICEF House as a prelude to the official opening of Beijing + 5, the Symposium was sponsored by nine collaborating organizations: Center for Development and Population Activities, Girls Inc., Girl Scouts USA, Save the Children, U.S., the Working Group on Girls, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, World Vision, International and UNICEF. The packed audience, the majority girls and young women, was highly interactive and drew the pertinent comment by organizer Mary Purcell.

"It's just too bad that government delegates are so busy across the street quibbling over arcane language. This is where they need to be. Over here listening to these girls, who can really teach them something," says Purcell.

In the afternoon session on the role of media in influencing girls' lives - for better and worse - Danish filmmaker, Frode Hojer Pederson, discussed his experiences, showed clips of his films on street children, child prostitution and child labor, praised the support of local NGOs and raised some very provocative questions. How, for example, he asked, "do you promote the cause of girls through compelling personal stories while protecting the safety of those whose lives you are portraying?" In the true spirit of the day, one young girl answered: "Leave it up to the girls. We know how to make our own decisions."

Speaking Across Generations

By Erin Hosier

June 6, 2000, New York - It was standing room only in this afternoon’s panel on mentoring within the NGO community, sponsored by the Intergenerational Youth Caucus. Women (and a few men) representatives from all over the world came together to talk about the concept of cross-generational mentoring and collaboration. Roundtable remarks were opened by Jeanne Smith, a UN Representative on International Activities, who recognized that even though traditional mentoring is changing, women must continue to take responsibility as advocates for their sisters. She encouraged audience members to share their experiences with mentoring.

A representative from Zambia reported that mentoring traditions were being lost in the country's growing women’s movement. The young women resent the older women for what they perceive to be selfishness - only thinking of their traditions, not the political and personal needs of the new generation. Another representative from Uganda added to her statements: "Women’s experiences have not been documented. That’s the way we tell our story, by passing our experience on to the younger generation. We need a herstory. We need the new generation to tell our story, as well as their own stories." Several women added that there is still a problem with elitism within organizations, and young women get lost in the shuffle. MORE

One young woman from Kenya stood up and told of her experience with a feminist mentoring program in her country. The organization had hired interns to train in every aspect of the business, but when the younger interns produced the work, it was not credited. "Young women are disheartened. We respect your experiences, and what you have to share, but our experiences too, are valuable," she said. Youmna Chlala is the 25 year old Program Director for GirlSource, an economic empowerment group that is run by and for young women. The organization invites guest mentors to come to them: "Mentoring is not just about training young women to work. It’s also about training older women to work with younger women," she said. The generation gap is intimidating to both sides for different reasons.

One woman from Ireland said to great rounds of applause that the real gap is between the technologically in-the-know (those on their way up) and the sometimes technologically challenged (those already there), and that the wisdom associated with age is becoming obsolete. "Yes, and what about the SANDWICH WOMEN?" quipped one french representative, desperate for an english translation for those women sandwiched in between--they're not yet identifying themselves as older, but neither are they just starting out. Jeanne Smith began closing comments by encouraging the group,

"When it comes down to it, we are women first. Whether we are old, young, disabled..." Marsha Yolaine Grant of Canada gently interupted her, "We have to be careful when we say, ‘We are women first,’ because as a black woman, I believe I am seen as black first. Perception isn’t always the same." Smith called for a modified definition of collaboration: "It goes beyond mentoring, it’s about solidarity."

Erin Hosier is a writer based in Brooklyn.

Today's Girls, Today's Women

Building Bridges to a New Future

June 6, New York--Today, UNICEF organized a panel to focus on strengthening the convergence of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for activists in the field.

Panelists included Dr. Charlotte Abaka, an expert member of the CEDAW Committee from Ghana, Ms Mariela Sanderberg, an expert member of the CRC Committee from Brazil, Njoki Ndungu, an Advocate in the High Court of Kenya, who represented Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), and Gladys Acosta, UNICEF Gender Adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The panel was moderated by André Roberfroid, Deputy Director of UNICEF and Joan French of UNICEF. "It is possible to take international legal documents, such as these two treaties, and implement them at the national level to the benefit of women and children" said Dr Abaka. She emphasised the importance of disseminating the concluding observations of the CEDAW and CRC Committees, in order to pressure them into implementation. Both Dr Abaka and Ms Sanderberg urged the United Nations to ensure more opportunities for the CRC and CEDAW Committees to meet and explore strategies for working together more closely. The group referred to the meeting UNICEF and others organised in 1998 to bring together members of both Committees around the issue of family violence.

Abaka deplored the fact that States Parties to these Conventions, in their negotiations during Beijing+5, seem to be treating the Beijing Platform for Action as being totally separate from CRC and CEDAW. "States must try to implement the Beijing Platform for Action within a human rights framework", she urged in closing. Both Abaka and Sanderberg said that alternative or "shadow" reports by NGOS are crucial to their work, giving them a more complete picture of the situation in a country before they begin their dialogue.

Ms Sanderberg said that she was happy that the rights of girls were integrated into the Beijing Platform for Action which includes a chapter on the girl child. "If we can change the situation of girls, there will be no more discrimination against women within a few generations", she said. For this reason it was very important to address the whole life of girls and women. "Gender relates to both men and women," says Sanderberg said. "We must include boys and men, if we want to change attitudes. Only with an equal division of time and tasks will we be able to change the future."

Acosta later echoed this point, stating that CEDAW is the "gender convention", which aims to change relations between women and men. Both Sanderberg and Acosta pointed out that we must look at children and women as subjects of rights, and cultivate a culture of rights. "National reporting on CRC and CEDAW must involve all sectors of government," says Sanderberg. "All sectors of society, in particular the Parliament, must be involved in the implementation of these Conventions. If we want to change society, we must raise awareness on the connections between the two Conventions."

Acosta emphasized the importance of ensuring the participation of adolescent girls, for their own sake, and also stressed the need to build real participation by younger children. She emphasised the importance of starting early if we want to break the cycle of discrimination. "We must replace the pattern of parental authoritarianism," Acosta says, "with democratic authority in the family, with a fair distribution of roles and recognition of the distinct interests and rights of each family member."

Ndungu urged women's rights activists and children's rights activists to work together. She highlighted the importance of legal reform, stronger monitoring and research. Ndungu emphasised the importance of education on and dissemination of these Conventions. "We must package information on CRC and CEDAW in a way that the majority of people will understand", she urged. The panelists said that such issues as trafficking, female genital mutilation, health issues, including HIV/AIDS, violence against women and girls and early marriage were particularly pertinent to collaboration between women's rights activists and children's rights activists, as well as between the CRC and CEDAW Committees.

In response to a statement by Ndungu that children's rights were less threatening than women's rights, French and members of the audience responded that children's rights can also be threatening especially on the issue of participation in decision making and girls' rights. French closed the meeting by challenging everyone to focus on how to mobilise and strengthen activism to address deeper issues of complementarity between CRC and CEDAW.