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54. In countries with economies in transition and in other countries undergoing fundamental political, economic and social transformations, these transformations have often led to a reduction in women’s income or to women being deprived of income.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Now, paragraph 54 of the Beijing Declaration has an interest to those interested in the economic empowerment of women. The areas where women tend to lack power are in some of the most easily identifiable areas. These tend to be the economic, political, and social arenas. These are well-known with the research into the matter and, more broadly, the documents with stipulations about rights of individuals and groups, responsibilities of states, and the ways in which various systems conspire, whether consciously or not, to the detrimental life outcomes of women.
The changes in the economic situations for countries also lead to problems for the ability of women to not only gain employment but educational opportunities. Consider: what is the stake of a family in the son over the daughter in the context of limited family resources and carrying the family name through the son and not the daughter? This can expand to a number of contexts.
The reduction or deprivation of a woman’s income also impacts the prospects, over the long term, of the potential livelihood of the woman. As described in prior articles, more single parent households are headed by women, so single mothers, and more and more homes are held in the economic power of women – not the majority. This leads to interesting modern contexts, in 1995 and now, regarding the advancement and the empowerment of women.
The deprivation of income for women becomes a reduction in the life possibilities and statistical high quality outcomes of the young coming from those households, not simply the women, because these women invest more in the families but without sufficient funds they will be left bereft – and so for their children and, thus, single parent family unit as a whole.
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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
