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Strategic objective A.1.
Review, adopt and maintain macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty
Actions to be taken
58. By Governments:
o. Create social security systems wherever they do not exist, or review them with a view to placing individual women and men on an equal footing, at every stage of their lives;
p. Ensure access to free or low-cost legal services, including legal literacy, especially designed to reach women living in poverty;
q. Take particular measures to promote and strengthen policies and programmes for indigenous women with their full participation and respect for their cultural diversity, so that they have opportunities and the possibility of choice in the development process in order to eradicate the poverty that affects them.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The basis for women’s equality is, in many ways, the basis for values. The basic tenet of most faiths and of the non-religious is the Golden Rule with the expansion of consideration of other beings as the advancement, in practice and not in theory, of the moral sphere to incorporate more and more people, e.g., women, animals, potentially artificial constructs with feelings and will.
Each important; the most salient for these articles has been and continues to the expansion of the moral sphere of the Golden Rule into the arena of rights with more and more rights, and responsibilities, given to women. The actions to be taken by governments to ensure the equality of women with women in rights becomes a pragmatic question or one of implementation as well.
Because the social security systems around the world simply do not exist for the poorest among us, who are disproportionately women. When section (o) speaks to the need for the creation of social security systems, it is speaking to a deep need to provide a basis for women and men to be on an equal footing when, in many instances in a global perspective, men and women simply do not have equal footing.
There is, in section (p), a consideration as to one mechanism to level the playing field for women to some degree. It comes in the form of social security systems. For example, the provision of a socialist system in which legal literacy training is provided for “free or low-cost.” This can provide a decent basis for the improved conditions of women in poverty who not for lack of intelligence but an inability to afford training do not know about the ins-and-outs of various legal contexts.
Section (q) covers other aspects of it. It is the forms of promotion and strengthening of the policies and programs for a few single percent portions of the world population who tend to be the most vulnerable, which is the Indigenous and, in particular, the Indigenous women. It is taking a perspective of respect for the cultural diversity as well as providing opportunities and the sense of choice for those in difficult circumstances.
There are ways in which to work to have these different cultural contexts while working to reduce the level of basic poverty, e.g., food, clean water, shelter, education, and so on. The essence of the equality of rights or the expansion of the moral sphere here would be the basic tenet of taking Indigenous peoples and Indigenous women of those peoples as equals in rights and responsibilities to protect and implement women’s rights.
The work here is important, and broader than simply legal literacy, because the work is to eradicate poverty altogether around the world. The work to implement the basic rights of people so that they can have a decent life is important, where some of the basics of life are important for it. The efforts of section (o) could be a basis for, for instance, social security systems for the health and wellbeing of the women.
Generalized forms of social security programs could, in fact, work to, at a minimum, reduce and move us towards the eventual elimination or “eradication” of poverty. It is an intriguing possibility circa 1995 and now. It seems like one of the easiest problems to work to solve as it is a gradual slide into better health and wellness of a community, but it takes time and consistency in the attempts.
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- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash