Ukrainian delegation participates in U.N. session on gender equality (06/18/00)

Ukrainian delegation participates in U.N. session on gender equality

by Irene Jarosewich

UNITED NATIONS - Leading a delegation of 10 women that included representatives from both government and non-government sectors, Ukraine's Minister of Justice Suzanna Stanik delivered the Ukrainian government's summary statement on the current status of women in Ukraine at the opening session of the 23rd United Nations General Assembly special session, "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century."

In her comments, delivered the morning of June 5, Ms. Stanik stated: "We are entering the new century, the century of humanism and rule of law. Military measures for solving human problems have been fully exhausted. There is a rising need for modernization of the world by addressing the global social and political changes on the basis of generally recognized morals and ethics, as well as legal principles: democracy, human rights, equality, justice, freedom and humanism.

"It is not incidental that the first special session of the General Assembly in the new 21st century is devoted to the elaboration of effective strategies for the advancement of women all over the world, the creation of appropriate conditions for their life, the enhancement of their role in political and economic activities. ... it is the woman who personifies civil, moral and human approach to addressing the most complex problems of the modern world." (The full text of Ms. Stanik's statement appears on page 3.)

Portugal's Minister for Equality Maria de Belem Roseira, representing the European Union, also spoke during the opening session on June 5 and stated that "gender equality, sustainable development and peace are fundamental objectives, all of them interlinked, to be achieved in the 21st century ... the objective of building gender equality ... is not just a matter of fairness and justice to women ... but, above all, is a matter of democracy and human rights for all."

The U.N. special session, held June 5-9 and known popularly as "Beijing +5," is a follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women that was held in 1995 in Beijing. The 1995 conference developed an international agenda for the advancement of women, The Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, a plan that was adopted unanimously by representatives from 189 states.

Attending the Beijing +5 special session in New York were close to 10,000 participants, including 2,300 delegates, 2,100 NGO representatives, U.N. staff, media correspondents, experts, panelists and speakers. Of the U.N. member-states, 178 sent representatives to deliver five-year status reports on their countries' activities in implementing the platform for action adopted in Beijing. Also giving presentations were 28 heads of international bodies, U.N. commissions, non-member and observer states. Seventy-seven percent of the speakers delivering presentations during the 10 plenary sessions were women.

The status reports reflected progress made by countries in the 12 critical areas identified in the Beijing final document as obstacles to women's advancement: poverty; lack of access to education and training; inadequate health care; violence; armed conflict; lack of economic power; lack of political power and decision-making authority; inadequate institutional mechanisms to ensure advancement; inadequate safeguarding of human rights; poor access to the media and new information technologies; environmental hazards; abuse of the girl-child.

Violence against women appeared frequently in the reports and it became clear throughout the week that, though poverty is an enormous problem for women, the incidence of violence against women worldwide is overwhelming. Examples of violence that specifically targeted women included: international trafficking of women, most recently women from Eastern Europe, who are held against their will to work as prostitutes; in certain Asian countries girls as young as 9 are sold as slaves; in some African countries genital mutilation of young women is still practiced; in many Muslim countries the killing of a woman to defend a man's sense of honor (so-called "honor killings") is still condoned; wife-beating is not illegal and in fact is socially accepted in a great number of countries; women and girls are victims of rape by invading soldiers in dozens of regional conflicts.

During her presentation on Thursday, June 8, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who headed the U.S. delegation, stated: "when a woman is raped, beaten, or mutilated it is not cultural, it is criminal; and no government ... can deny its responsibility to stop these crimes."

She later added, "[The United States] launched a major diplomatic and law enforcement initiative to halt trafficking in human beings. This rapidly growing criminal enterprise has gone global, distorting economies, degrading societies, endangering neighborhoods and robbing millions, mostly women and children, of their dreams. ... we are forging partnerships on every continent to share information, coordinate legal actions and find and close criminal networks. ... I invite everyone here to join in a multi-year, multi-national effort to win the fight against trafficking."

The final document from the special session, released on June 12, placed special emphasis on actions to be taken by governments and international organizations to reduce violence against women.

The topic of the economic empowerment of women, finding solutions to lift women out of poverty, was addressed in part on June 5 with a three-hour panel, chaired by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on micro-credit programs - the granting of small loans, no more than several thousand dollars, to begin a business.

Micro-credit programs target people who have no collateral and, therefore, usually are denied start-up business loans by traditional banks. The micro-credit program has proved to be internationally successful in helping people achieve financial stability and independence, and about 75 percent of the close to 14 million people that have received micro-credit loans in the past five years worldwide have been women. (Also on June 5, President Bill Clinton, while on a six-hour visit to Kyiv, introduced a new micro-credit initiative, funded by the United States, to begin this year in Ukraine.)

Receiving special emphasis in several panels was the mandate to improve the political empowerment of women. A new initiative was launched by the international organization Women's Environment and Development Organization titled "50-50 by 2005: Get the Balance Right!" Though women are about 50 percent of the world's population, only an average of 13 percent of the legislators worldwide and only 7.5 percent of government ministers are women. In Ukraine less than 8 percent of the parliamentarians are women, placing Ukraine in the middle third of East European countries and the bottom third of 180 countries worldwide according to information from the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Among the delegation members from Ukraine attending the U.N. special session were Dr. Iryna Holubieva, head of the Division of Family and Women's Affairs at the State Committee on Youth Policy, Sports and Tourism, and Halyna Honcharuk, coordinator of the Kyiv Center for Women's Issues.

Dr. Holubieva noted that she learned a great deal from the country reports and, furthermore, was impressed with the determination with which women from many Asian, African and Latin American countries pursue solutions to the problems facing women in their countries. She suggested that their assertiveness and their willingness to admit and confront problems offers a valuable lesson to women in Ukraine. She also noted that Ukraine's women are among the most highly educated in the world (according to a recent UNIFEM report, in 1996, 95 percent of young adult women in Ukraine received a secondary education) and therefore could be, and should be, living better.

She commented that she was impressed with the number of countries -15 in Western Europe alone - that have high-level government commissions or ministries devoted exclusively to issues pertaining to women and children, and for developing programs in keeping with the critical areas identified in the Beijing action plan; she noted that a similar entity should be established in Ukraine.

Ms. Honcharuk attended several panels, including one on women and violence. She commented that she was extremely impressed with the number of men who participated in the panel and spoke out in support of programs and policies to stop violence against women in all forms and the necessity to elevate women in all aspects of society in order to achieve gender equality. She recalled that she particularly enjoyed the presentation by a group of men from Canada on a conference they had organized on gender equality and promised to take the idea back to Ukraine.

She stated that the activities of her center in Kyiv are completely funded by the mayor's office and the City Council, and believes that in Kyiv there is great support and understanding among local officials for the issues confronting women.

| Home Page |