Unfinished business: women and girls front and centre beyond 2015

This post, by Emily Esplen, Policy Analyst on Gender Equality and Women’s Rights at the OECD, is based on a speech prepared for the Secretary General of the OECD for a joint workshop of the DAC Network on Gender Equality and the UN Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality on the MDGs and post-2015. This blog is a part of the Wikiprogress series on Post-2015.

There is no chance of making poverty history without significant and rapid improvements to the lives of women and girls. Millennium Development Goal 3 (MDG 3) recognised that gender equality is important both as a goal in its own right and as a prerequisite to the success of all other development goals. That gender equality and women’s empowerment is one of only eight global goals has proven to be a powerful stimulus for action.

Yet despite hard won gains, we are a long way from achieving gender equality. All over the world, women and girls continue to face discrimination, exclusion, poverty and violence on the basis of their sex. The figures are stark. Gender parity in primary education has not been achieved in 68 countries. Women still face gender pay gaps, occupational segregation and glass ceilings. They hold less secure jobs than men, with fewer social benefits. 800 women die every day from preventable pregnancy and childbirth related causes. One in three women experience violence in their lifetime.

We must do everything we can to achieve the MDGs by the end of 2015. This means meeting existing aid commitments and investing in the right strategies to accelerate progress for women and girls in the time that remains. Finishing the job we started with the MDGs will also require an ambitious and inspiring post-2015 framework that builds on and expands the priority given to advancing gender equality in the MDGs.

Agreeing an ambitious agenda 

 

This was the focus of much lively debate at a workshop in early November in Paris, which drew together gender equality advocates from the United Nations, governments and civil society. Participants echoed the strong consensus emerging from across the globe that addressing the "unfinished business" of gender equality and women’s empowerment means putting women and girls front and centre in the post-2015 framework. This will require a strong stand-alone gender equality goal and the comprehensive integration of gender-specific targets and indicators across the new framework.

Now is time to go beyond business as usual and step up our efforts to empower girls and women. Participants were unequivocal that a new framework will need to address the structural factors that underpin the widespread persistence of gender inequality. This calls for a transformational agenda that is anchored in and aligned with existing international human rights standards. Priority must be given to addressing the disadvantage experienced by the most marginalised women and girls.

Fighting for the targets and indicators that will really make a difference 

 

When the time is right, we need to be ready with the targets and indicators that will really make a difference to the lives of women and girls. Already clear areas of consensus are emerging about what is needed. We know that quality secondary education has huge pay-offs for women’s empowerment. We know that putting an end to early marriage would transform girls’ lives – enabling them to stay in school, fulfil their potential and make choices about their futures. We know that expanding women’s economic opportunities is a key driver of development with multiplier effects for societies, economies and women themselves. We know that women’s capacity to influence the decisions that shape their lives is a basic human right and a prerequisite for responsible and equitable governance. We know that ending violence against women is essential for women’s full participation in economic, social and political life. Each of these must be priorities in the post-2015 framework.

Backing up political rhetoric with action

 

Building a framework with teeth will require adequate and sustained financing, and strong accountability mechanisms. Political promises must be backed up with the resources required to do the job. We need to gather and use high quality data to monitor our progress and build evidence about what works. We also need to track governments’ expenditure and the proportion of aid focused on achieving gender equality, and hold ourselves to account for the promises we make.

Towards a universal agenda

 

At the OECD, we know that there is no country in the world where gender equality has been achieved. That’s why we need to keep a strong focus on gender equality beyond 2015. It is also a potent reminder that gender equality is a universal concern that applies to all countries, including OECD countries.

The OECD aspires to play the role of “best supporting actor” in support of these global processes – recognising that real progress is only possible if countries themselves own the agenda and are in the lead. Bringing gender equality and women’s rights to the centre of government attention is a challenge for the months ahead.

Arriving at global consensus will not be easy. With gender equality and women’s rights we can never afford to be complacent – it is not a done deal. And the post-2015 agenda is a high-stakes game. But success is within our grasp if we build a broad base of support and work together with our allies in the global south to position gender equality as a “must have”.

- Emily Esplen

What can the Social Institutions and Gender Index tell us about violence against women?

As part of the Wikiprogresson Gender Equality series, this progblog is brought to you by Somali Cerise.

Violence against women has been at the top of the media agenda in recent months following the shooting of a schoolgirl in Pakistan, an attack of a 22 year old woman in Delhi and a gang-rape and murder of a young woman in South Africa. The widespread protests that have followed these incidents show that governments must step up their efforts to stop violence against women and girls. The question is how?

A major challenge for developing effective policies to reduce violence against women is the lack of data and evidence about the nature of the problem and it implications. The OECD Development Centre latest Issues Paper, Transforming social institutions to prevent violence against women and girls, uses data from the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) to shed light on several dimensions of violence against women.

What do we know?  

First, laws are getting better, but we still have some way to go. The SIGI data for 2009 and 2012 shows that all regions have improved laws, however no country or region has a perfect score, indicating that some gaps in protection remain and the implementation of laws remains a challenge. In 2012, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region had the worst level of legal protection against violence against women, also showing the least improvement from 2009. Sub-Saharan Africa was in a similar position to MENA in 2009 but has shown greater improvement, although the region remained the second lowest ranked in 2012 after MENA. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) regions had the best scores for 2012, with EAP showing a marked improvement from 2009 to 2012.

Second, while better laws are an important step, laws alone will not reduce violence against women. Attitudes that normalize violence are deeply entrenched. On average, 60% of women in the MENA region believe that domestic violence is justified in certain circumstances. Moreover, the SIGI data shows that discriminatory attitudes are significantly related to the prevalence of domestic violence. There is a prevalence of domestic violence in countries where there is a high acceptance of domestic violence .

The relationship remains strong and significant even when taking into account the existence and quality of domestic violence laws and country income level. While laws are a necessary first step and foundation for combating violence against women, a greater focus on attitudes is needed to achieve a change in the level of violence.

Third, violence against women matters for development outcomes. The SIGI data shows that adolescent girls are twice as likely to be infected with HIV in countries where there is no domestic violence law (Figure 5) compared to similar rates in countries where there is a specific law. Further, we can see a positive and significant relationship between women’s physical integrity and child mortality. Countries with high levels of restrictions on women’s physical integrity also have high levels of infant mortality, even when controlling for factors including the fertility rate and country income level. This indicates that addressing violence against women is important for development.

So what can be done?

Governments should introduce a combination of measures including the implementation and enforcement of strong laws, public awareness, community mobilisation programmes, economic support for women and incentives. Check out the issues paper for some interesting examples. There is also a need for greater investment in evaluations to learn what works to prevent violence and in better data so that we have a better grasp of the problem.

*Don’t miss the Wikiprogress February 2013 eBrief, with a special focus on gender equality,  profiling articles, publications, blogs and much more on the subject. 

Highlights of the week

As part of the Wikiprogress on Gender Equality series, this progblog brings you the ‘highlights of the week’. 

This week's highlights are focused on gender and include: Lebanese women taking on judges; the challenges facing Italian women; and a British political party attempts to increase female representation in parliament. Women also continued to make headline news this week as campaigns on gender such as One Billion Rising and Half the sky gain momentum. Finally, Wikigender recently organised an online discussion on Violence Against Women. Perhaps the subject of gender equality is starting to be taken seriously by the media?

Gender and Justice  

                                        

Lebanese women take on Muslim judges who call rape a 'marital right'

Lebanese women took to the streets to demand that their government introduce laws to protect them from domestic violence. Criminalizing marital rape "could lead to the imprisonment of the man," Sheik Ahmad Al-Kurdi, a judge in the Sunni religious court, told CNN, "where in reality he is exercising the least of his marital rights."

Accessing Justice: Models, Strategies and Best Practices on Women's Empowerment

This report by the International Development Law Organisation “highlights the critical role legal empowerment strategies can play in changing and challenging oppressive gender relations that are justified under the name of culture, by showcasing an impressive range of legal empowerment approaches in diverse geographical and cultural settings”. The study profiles a great selection of case studies and also discusses the role of discriminatory social institutions. 

"As we seek to build the world we want, let us intensify our efforts to achieve a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable development path built on dialogue, transparency and social justice." 

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon -  Message for the World Day of Social Justice (20 February 2013)

Gender and Politics

Lib Dems draw up job-share plans to boost number of women MPs

As British political parties struggle to find ways to increase female representation in parliament, plans for Members of Parliament (MPs) to job share in parliament are being developed by the Liberal Democrats (currently part of UK coalition government) to up the number of women elected and break up the 'male culture' that still dominates politics.

The six things wrong with Italy – and how to solve them

This Guardian articles outlines the 6 primary challenges that face Italy today, including: a stagnating economy, corruption, organised crime, political apathy, youth unemployment and the “treatment of women”, which came in second! Italy's female employment rate is, according to the OECD, at 46.5% (among the OECD members this is only better than Greece, Mexico and Turkey).

This weeks videos

Women of the (Arab Spring)Revolution - This is a great selection of videos on how women reflect on the changes that have occured in their countries, how they were a part of it, and whether attitudes have changed.

It’s nice to see children’s voices being given a serious platform. This talk is by 13 year-old Logan LaPlante, who wants to be happy and healthy ‘when he grows up’. He discusses how hacking his education is helping him achieve this goal. 

I leave you with a few words in Bangla (my mother tongue) paying tribute to International Mother Language Day which was held on 21 February.

আগামী সপ্তাহে আমি আপনাকে দেখতে হবে

Salema Gulbahar

(Wikiprogress Coordinator)

The voices of young women. Do you hear them?

As a part of the Wikiprogress on Gender Equality series, this progblog on empowering girls and young women is brought to you by Robbie Lawrence, Wikichild Coordinator. 

City Dump in Siem Reap - Courtesy of 10x10 

If you read our Spotlight! Gender Equality and Well-being posted last Friday you would have watched the trailer for ‘Girl Rising’, the feature film made by social action campaigners 10x10 which tells the story of nine girls from nine different walks of life, all seeking self empowerment through education.  The 10x10 team has set out to create a new form of social-issue moviemaking by combining production and advocacy right from the outset of the project’s fruition. The campaign, which brings together the intimacy and emotional thrust of its film with photos, videos, blogs and tweets is an exemplar of the dynamic methods in which organisations today seek to engage their audience. It also represents a ripple in a rapidly growing wave of protests around the world against the social, economic and political inequalities suffered by girls and young women. A wave that is likely to crash down on the impending Post 2015 agenda.

It was, perhaps, the attempt of a heavily male dominated institution to silence the voice of a young Pakistani girl that brought the issue of girl’s rights to the forefront of the Post 2015 discussion. When Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen as she returned home from school she immediately became an icon for voiceless and oppressed girls globally. By expressing her right to an education, Malala almost lost her life, but her attacker’s brutal actions only served to amplify her demands for equity in a transcendently male controlled world.  

Following the attempt on her life, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched a UN petition in Malala’s name demanding that children from every continent be in school by 2016 and last week hundreds of thousands of people mobilized to strike and dance for the One Billion Rising campaign in a bid to make her dream become a reality. When the Commission on the Status of Women convenes in New York next month, the weight of the ‘I am Malala’ campaign will undoubtedly weight heavily on the shoulders of the committee.

As the months leading up to the 2015 slip away, activists in favor of empowering girls and young women will hope that the fires ignited by the likes of ‘Girl Rising’ and ‘Malala’s Dream’ will not have cooled. In her recent article, ‘Young People and Inequalities: Recommendations for the post-2015 Development Agenda’, Sara Gold emphasizes the importance of forums like the UN’s ‘Global Online Conversation’, as it provides a platform for people to share their vision of a gender equal world.

We at Wikigender and Wikichild also plan on adding our voice to the global conversation on empowering young women, or should we say, your voice. In line with past online discussions, including this month’s ‘Transforming social norms to prevent violence against women and girls’, Wikigender and Wikichild will collaborate to host a forum on adolescent girls and social norms, which will include featured topics such as early marriage, missing women and female genital mutilation. By implementing a recognized location where information can be freely exchanged on topics like gender equality, it is our hope that over time, policy makers will use the reports formed from these discussions as points of reference. As Estelle pointed out in yesterday’s blog Rising against sexual violence! Wikigender will present the findings from their latest discussion at the 57^th CSW on the 4^th of March. 

Join us for our next online discussion in May on adolescent girls and the social norms getting in the way of their progress. We value your views and will keep you posted.

Robbie Lawrence 

Wikichild Coordinator

@Wiki_child, @Wikiprogress, @Wikigender

Spotlight! Gender Equality and Well-being

This Week in Review focuses on our theme of the month, which is Gender Equality and Well-being. Highlights of this review include; the American army’s decision to allow women to fight on the frontline, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, Wikigender's most recent online discussion, 1 Billion Rising and 10x10, an innovative new feature film about the power of education to change a girl – and the world.

This month, violence against women is at the top of global agendas, and with this in mind, Wikigender ran an online discussion on ‘Transforming social norms to prevent violence against women and girls’. The forum posed the question of what type of social behaviors catalyze violence against women and also looked to find examples of policies and initiatives that have most successfully dealt with the problem. Raymond Brandes, one of many contributors to the discussion, made a particularly relevant point to the notion of gender equality, stipulating that ‘Realizing the economic and social rights of all members of society and reducing inequalities are important elements of addressing violence against women.’ The full results of the forum will be synthesized and published in a report by the Wikigender team in the near future. To access past Wikigender online discussions, click here.

The International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed on the 6^th of February each year to raise awareness about this physically and psychologically damaging practice. Female Genital Mutilation is recognized internationally as an extreme violation of human rights and despite efforts from organizations and governments to push for its eradication, FMG still affects around 140 million girls and women every year. In the early stages of 2013, focus groups have made a concerted effort to tackle the concerning trend of health-care providers performing FGM, which has contributed to its legitimization in Africa, Indonesia and the Middle East (areas where the practice is concentrated most heavily). To find out up to date information on FGM, visit Wikigender's page on the subject.  

Yesterday, on V-Day’s 15^th Anniversary, One Billion Rising mobilized thousands of people to call for an end to violence against women. The organization invited one billion women to strike and dance against the reality that one in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. The movement is hoping to influence the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is being held in New York next month.

Interestingly, while much of this blog post has centered around global movements to counter violence against women, U.S Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently declared that the military would be eradicating its long-standing ban on women partaking in frontline combat roles. This significant change in policy not only opens as many as 237,000 new jobs for female soldiers but also allows women to achieve higher leadership positions within the army.  While critics have argued that the decision will alter group dynamics and unit cohesion, it marks a significant step for the women who have been seeking equity in one of America’s most male dominated institutions. The Wikigender team is currently running a quick fire poll to gauge the public’s opinion on the ruling, so be sure to make your voice heard.

Finally, there has been a steadily growing social media buzz over Girl Rising’s feature length film 10x10; which augments the pervasive power of education to change the lives of millions of girls across the world. The movement is attempting to break down the barriers that hinder girls from receiving education while highlighting the significant benefits it will bring to them and the global community. If you haven’t seen the trailer already, look no further!

Look forward to more Gender Equality and Well-being blogs in the coming weeks!

Robbie Lawrence

Wikichild Coordinator

@Wiki_child, @Wikiprogress, @Wikigender