Sitting beside me, while H.E. Ms. Katrín Jakobsdóttir (PM Iceland) glanced at her notes for the panel event, was a Canadian woman named Beth Ulrich. Here I will comment that over and over again, conversations begun for the first time moved quickly beyond borders into the open territory of friendship and sisterhood. Beth and I were there together for shared reasons, how wonderful and uplifting!
Beth is the executive director at the Status of Women Secretariat in Manitoba. You might not realize this, but Manitoba has a beautiful buffalo on it's provincial logo.
I pause when I see the buffalo. Children of my generation drew a detailed sketch of a buffalo in their Social Studies notebooks and labeled the parts and their uses. Everything was used traditionally, including sinew for sewing and dried meat mixed with berries for pemmican. My mind also goes to a photo from my photography teaching days. It is a mountain of bones and a man with a rifle. The buffalo population fell from 50 million to 2,000. Some say the animals were killed to starve indigenous communities. Can we move beyond layers of destruction?
Sorry, back to Beth and the PM of Iceland, a feminist leader extraordinaire. This UN Event had a superb panel including Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Exective Director of UN Women and Ms Penny Mordaunt, the Minister for Women, NZ.
Discussions included the phrase feminization of poverty. Globally,in every sector, women are paid less than men for doing work of equal value. Equal pay can be one of those keys...to poverty reduction, gender equity, empowerment. Canada is on the steering committee of EPIC - the Equal Pay International Coalition and I wonder how involved our labour unions are - remembering how much my OECTA union and CTF ( Canadian Teacher's Federation) meant to me in my career. Another aside, here is the CTF take on the latest Canadian budget, as they deal with the shock of what the premier of Ontario is doing to education.
EPIC has one resource that I cannot locate. The Swiss have a very systematic review of companies that have over 100 employees to combat gender blindness in the economic sector - and there are reviews/analysis of this legal requirement. EPIC does have lots of other resources, including a photo essay.
One more - take a look at the comparison of parental leave. Eye opening....and that was 2016. Iceland has a 3 month paternal leave that is non-transferrable and 90% of fathers take it. This session dealt with parental leave, part time work, sick days, pay equity - unemployment protection, insurances etc. etc. Somehow, I couldn't help wishing they would have taken the money for some of those resources and given it to Gharansay's Afghan young women leadership projects. There are enough resources to support both areas of need on second thought, it just takes will...
I have re-read about the tragedy of this young woman and in this UN session, for me, this was the real conversation. How can we spend money on cracked oil pipelines and not spend those billions on every Indigenous woman and child in our country? This article ends with the statement by Kevin Hart, the Assembly of First Nations regional Chief in Manitoba,"Everybody right now across this country should be ashamed of themselves for the injustice that just occurred here.
The need for safety and protection for women does not end until all are safe. I have included the agreed conclusions from the 63rd session midway, among the conversations. Wishing you all good things in Manitoba, Beth!
Spoiler alert: these are the AGREED CONCLUSIONS:ADOPTED BY MEMBER STATES
Key recommendations from the Agreed Conclusions include the following:
Key recommendations from the Agreed Conclusions include the following:
- Invest in social protection, public services and sustainable infrastructure to support the productivity of women’s work, including in the informal economy;
- Ensure that progress in women’s access to social protection, public services and sustainable infrastructure is not undermined by budget cuts and austerity measures, and levels of protection previously achieved are not reversed;
- Build on multilateral commitments to gender equality, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), to strengthen access to social protection, public services and infrastructure for all women and girls;
- Recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work by ensuring access to social protection for unpaid caregivers of all ages, including coverage for health care and pensions;
- Scale up investment in quality public care services that are affordable and gender-responsive;
- Identify and remove barriers to women’s and girls’ access to public services, such as physical distance, lack of information and decision-making power, stigma and discrimination;
- Guarantee the availability of safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation, including for menstrual hygiene, in homes, schools, refugee camps and other public places;
- Ensure that transport policies and planning are sustainable, accessible, affordable, safe and gender-responsive, taking into account the different needs of women and men, and adapted to be used by persons with disabilities and older persons;
- Promote the full and equal participation and leadership of women and women’s organizations in policy dialogues and decision-making relating to social protection systems, public services and sustainable infrastructure;
- Strongly condemn the impunity and lack of accountability rooted in historical and structural inequality that accompanies pervasive violence against women.
Congratulations to delegations for reaching Agreed Conclusions! Thank you very much for your hard work, dedication, and the priority that you have placed on improving social protection, public services and sustainable infrastructure for women and girls. #CSW63
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