fyi.
----- Original Message -----
From: Christina Ryan
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 10:55 PM
Subject: [wwda-discuss] More from New York
hello women
Day 5 - Friday 16 July
The UN has an open wireless network available to anyone within its area. This is very useful for all of us to do our email and catch up on news while we are away. Fortunately the network also works outside in the street and over the road in the Churches Centre where we are doing our training.
I do a quick download of the documents my delegation have been finalising overnight before I meet with several of them prior to the start of the IWRAW training at the Churches Centre. Sitting out in the early morning under a tree outside the UN gates is very pleasant, although it is already getting very warm.
The rapid work of the previous day looks pretty good and we seem to have a strong document about our key issues, broken down into paragraphs about each one. It is drafted to be used by the Committee (as they see fit) in their Concluding Comments, so we have to be very mindful of keeping it brief, making it flow, and being realistic in our expectations as this will be what the Committee sends back to Australia as outcomes. Naturally the Committee won't use our entire document, or even some of it, but this has become our chief lobbying tool.
The delegation worked late into the night and finally stopped for dinner at about 10 pm. I pulled out about 7.15 pm so I'm in fierce admiration of their staying power. Rule 1 of working with disability is to know your limits and pace yourself. There is no point in me wiping myself out before we get to the big stuff next week, so I'm feeling back on deck and ready to go first thing after my early night.
Three of us have training today, but the other four go away to spend the morning working on finalising the issues document, to start working on our statement to the Committee for Monday, and to work out how to approach our lunch time briefing session for the Committee, also on Monday. We will all meet again during our lunch break to check on progress, and approve the work.
The training has women from our delegation, Papua New Guinea, Turkey, and Albania. There are also some UNIFEM women, interns from New York University who support IWRAW, and several IWRAW trainers. Most of the women are like me and have been doing human rights work in their own country for some time, but are at their first UN outing. There is some serious expertise and experience in the room.
Today we are looking at the structures of the UN and what we are working within. Naturally most of us have a good basic knowledge, but our trainers know how the various elements of the UN intertwine, where pressure can be placed, the role of NGOs in working this system and how to do that, and when to work within and without. This is vital knowledge that comes from years of experience and we are fortunate to be included.
A major new development has been the establishment of UNWomen (really unfortunate name!) and we are given good inside information on how it will work and the thinking behind it. Charlotte comes to speak to us, she has been part of the GEAR Campaign working to get UNWomen established (www.gearcampaign.org ). She first became involved in international women's rights work at the Nairobi conference and has been pushing the UN to be more structurally supportive of women's rights ever since.
We talk about how the new structure will allow women to be heard right at the top of the UN for the first time, with UNWomen having an Under Secretary General running it. Previously women's policy has been operating at a lower level and the hierarchical nature of the UN has meant that this has resulted in exclusion. So, there are high, but realistic, hopes for what the new body might achieve over time. It will take on the policy work of the former Division for the Advancement of Women, and combine it with the development work of UNIFEM. Charlotte emphasised that it is up to all of us to make it work, change it if it doesn't, and engage with its processes to ensure it maintains a strong feminist outlook.
During our lunch break we catch up with the rest of the Australian delegation to look at the final issues document and agree on the format of the Monday lunch briefing. Its been a really productive morning for this working group and they have produced the goods. Our document looks terrific, and with a little bit of proofing and fine tuning we declare it finished. Our formal statement on Monday will cover some of the big ticket issues, and the other issues will be raised at the lunch time briefing. This will ensure that everything gets mentioned and allow the Committee the maximum opportunity to understand how Australia is travelling in implementing CEDAW and substantive equality for women.
Caroline and Michelle dash off to the YWCA office in Brooklyn to get the necessary number of copies to deliver to the Secretariat for distribution to the Committee. This must happen today otherwise they won't have time to read anything before Monday and that will disadvantage us.
Back at training Deb Liebowitz and Tikula take us through the mechanisms of CEDAW, its structure and intentions. We look at how some of the country reports we have seen during the week (Fiji and Russia) stack up against expectations, and consider how we might present our cases to ensure maximum impact on the outcomes of the Committee.
We discuss the importance of NGOs attending the various country report sessions as observers. We attended the Fiji and Russia reports earlier this week, for example, and were also joined by women from other organisations and countries. This ensures that CEDAW reporting is about accountability and transparency back to the global community, not just to the UN behind closed doors. It is particularly important when you realise that a number of countries have delegations, both government and NGO, who may face persecution, job loss, or arrest for what they say at the UN this week.
Australian delegations, both government and NGO, have a responsibility in this context to ensure that we push the boundaries for the Committee. We will not be persecuted or arrested upon our return home. Several of the issues we will raise with the Committee will assist in pushing those boundaries and ensure that other countries have a capacity to use our lead in the future.
Deb talks about some lobbying tactics after lunch and I send off a quick fire email to the delegation to make a few suggestions for them to think about.
Our last session of the day looks at formal, protectionist, and substantive equality and we do an exercise to identify where some of our various key issues fit and how they can be addressed using CEDAW. I select the funding disparity of disability services for our delegation as it on our issues list and is also a good example. This is "formal" equality in the sense that the laws treat women and men equally on the page. In reality formal equality doesn't work as laws and programs can be designed so that men actually benefit more than women. This may not be intentional (as I'm sure our disability funding situation isn't), but the end result is the key to look at.
CEDAW doesn't just look at the law in place (or lack of it); it also looks at the effectiveness of that law in achieving an equitable outcome. Clearly the disparity in use of services by women and men with disabilities in Australia is a good example of how an equitable outcome isn't being achieved.
Other delegations raised interesting issues like the lack of women in the PNG parliament (there is only 1) and how to use mechanisms within the PNG Constitution to overcome this, the Turkish women talked about how they had campaigned to achieve rape law reform, and the Albanian women outlined their campaign on domestic violence.
By the end of the day we are all very tired again, but have learned a lot from each other and are making connections with international groups. There is a Turkish woman in the group from the Turkish Blind Federation. Fortunately WWDA has sent me some cards in Braille so I'll take them tomorrow and make sure we stay in touch. Fortunately as well she is a Braille reader.
Sitting next to me all day is Tapora. She is at the University of PNG and lectures in human rights. An amazing woman. Right near the end of the day she tells me how wonderful it is to be in such a safe place as New York. I'm a bit amazed to hear this as we Australians are more wary about this city, but in Port Moresby she says women simply can't go out at night and you would never take your purse out in the street. You can do both of these things here. Its all relative I guess.
Today and tomorrow are regular days with a 9 to 5 day and a night off. Excellent! I go in quest of my usual Friday cocktail and find something that will suffice.
cheers
Christina
Christina acknowledges the support of the Bendigo Bank (ACT Branch), International Women's Rights Action Watch (Asia Pacific), Senator Sue Boyce, Advocacy for Inclusion, and the YWCA of Australia.
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