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10. Build on consensus and progress made at previous United Nations conferences and summits – on women in Nairobi in 1985, on children in New York in 1990, on environment and development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, on human rights in Vienna in 1993, on population and development in Cairo in 1994 and on social development in Copenhagen in 1995 with the objective of achieving equality, development and peace;
11. Achieve the full and effective implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women;
12. The empowerment and advancement of women, including the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, thus contributing to the moral, ethical, spiritual and intellectual needs of women and men, individually or in community with others and thereby guaranteeing them the possibility of realizing their full potential in society and shaping their lives in accordance with their own aspirations.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Insofar as history is with us, as it always is, our current structures and selves reflect them. With the Beijing Declaration, we can see the Annex I(10)-(12) statements about the need for more equality of women and the integration of the past with the present for the empowerment and advancement of women.
If we start with the first statement of Annex I(10), we can tell the inclusion of the past into, or consideration of the history for, the present remains an important aspect of building the movements of the future. The steps found in a variety of meetings, summits, and documents provide a basis for the betterment of all.
As has been covered in prior articles, the advancement of women in the society amounts to the development of the future for all. The first part of today’s subsections covers some of the arenas in which history only a few or a couple decades ago have influenced the present, and how this was only a few years, sometimes, at the time of the writing of the Beijing Declaration.
Then we can see the aims of and values with equality and peace, and so on.
Annex I(11) speaks more succinctly and to the need for an achievement. That is, the development of an implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women. You can notice this in much of the other commentary and in the work of many international rights documents, where these harken back to some statements in order to recount what should be done.
The emphasis then being on the implementation of the rights regimes stipulated, formalized, and signed by a variety of States Parties, so the Member States of the United Nations become bound to it.
Annex I(12) is a tad lengthier than the others but deals with some of the more fundamental rights stipulations with the empowerment of women – which is a broad phrase for many of these things – and also the advancement of women. The rights for women come in the fundamental stipulations given to not only the men of the world but also to the women; however, as we know in the history of Canadian society and a number of other countries at present, the work to make full equality a reality has been long and difficult.
The rights are to thought, conscience, religion – to the consternation of atheists who I disagree with, because people have these fundamental rights, and also the freedom of belief. People can believe and do as they please regarding religion as fundamental human rights; if you disagree, then you disagree with the basic framework of rights or no rights. All get rights or all do not: pick one. These folks cannot be, in all respect, selective about rights.
Often, the violation of women’s bodies by men amount to the denial of the humanity and righthood of women. The implementation of these rights, according to this part of Annex I, will help with the contribution to the ethical, intellectual, moral and spiritual needs of not only men but also women; but, of course, women have been the main recipients of deprivation in this regard.
This makes not only the individual or the collective at fault but both. The purpose of the further implementation of these rights for the fulfillment of these very human needs is to be able to contribute through the full realization of their potentials – where some, of course, have more than others dependent on areas and many times in surprising ways, as everyone harbours aspirations and retain the right to pursue them.
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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 Allef Vinicius on Unsplash