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55. Particularly in developing countries, the productive capacity of women should be increased through access to capital, resources, credit, land, technology, information, technical assistance and training so as to raise their income and improve nutrition, education, health care and status within the household. The release of women’s productive potential is pivotal to breaking the cycle of poverty so that women can share fully in the benefits of development and in the products of their own labour.
56. Sustainable development and economic growth that is both sustained and sustainable are possible only through improving the economic, social, political, legal and cultural status of women. Equitable social development that recognizes empowering the poor, particularly women, to utilize environmental resources sustainably is a necessary foundation for sustainable development.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration’s 55th and 56th paragraphs speak to the ability of women to take part in and contribute to, and therefore benefit from, the layers of society’s systems. This becomes especially so in the developing nation context. The nature of productive capacity for women is an important part of the advancement and empowerment of women.
Within this framework, we can see the wide variety of stated areas in which women can become more productive in the systems of societies work with one another to create a way for women to flourish more than would be expected in normal historical circumstances. Indeed, some of the most important – though all are – comes in the form of healthcare and education.
Healthcare in the form of reproductive health rights. Education in the form of postsecondary access for the possibility to train and eventually work in the higher income areas of society. These can help women be able to create a plan for their lives in addition to the possibility for a longer term vision of economic well-being and, in the process, greater productivity within the standard societal frameworks.
The ability to do so impacts the lives of not only the woman but, if a mother then, also the livelihood of the family and, by implication, the chances for a positive outcome for the child. It is in this sensibility of the interconnectedness of various systems within a society where we can not the development of the productive capacities of women as integral to the growth of society.
As described in paragraph 56, this connects not only a ‘sugar high’ form of economic growth and social development, which can crash in short order; but, rather, the development of the “sustainable” form of social and economic growth. This model is the way in which to lift tremendous numbers of people out of poverty over the long term.
It does not happen all at once. It requires stepwise implementation, but it is the means by which to both advancement and empowerment of women and improve the overall economic viability of the state. No growth is eternal or a law of nature; these come about through human choices, often of the powerful, set about in politics, through policies and programs of action.
In turn, these form some of the foundations for the “economic, social, political, legal and cultural” improvements in the lives of women. The notion of socialist or capitalist seem too narrow in this wider related systems perspective, in which the development the individual woman and the collective of society interrelate and work in unison; which, in an essential manner, means the move from feminist, in particular, discourse to rights, in general, discourse, the rights and implied responsibilities of the human person, of a person of a religious faith to freely practice and of non-faith to not practice but also of a conscientious objector to not take part in abortion and of a person in need of healthcare to acquire one.
It is about the core message of the Gospels, of a humanist ethic, and of many others – however faulty the narrative representations and interpretations of asserted or purported holy scriptures at times – for the help of the poor and destitute and, fundamentally, in need of help in some way. The use of the commons, as per ancient Anglo and various Indigenous laws and traditions, for the good of all, which comes back to the rights of women to this too.
The rights of women to be able to use the environmental resources as well, for sustainable development and benefits for all. Any sustainable development should be taking into account the need to advance and empower the women of the world as persons, but also as individuals because of the benefit to the individual and the collective – at its various scales.
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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 Dennis Acevedo on Unsplash