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MAKING CONTACT Transcript: #30-00 Women's Rights, Human Rights Lisa Rudman: This week on Making Contact... Alda Facio: The notion that women's rights are human rights was because women wanted to be treated as fully human. Sunila Abeysekera: The critical thing has to be, to link our understanding of feminism to our understanding of sexuality's. Lisa Rudman: The United Nations has facilitated governments' discussions of the advancement of women. On this program we take a look at how women view the progress governments have made since the Beijing World Conference on women in 1995. I'm Lisa Rudman, your host this week for a special Women's Desk edition of Making Contact -- an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas, and important information. In 1995 40,000 women gathered for the United Nation's fourth world conference on women, in Beijing, China. What resulted was the most comprehensive set of commitments toward women's equality ever made by governments. Five years later in June of 2000, the U.N. held a special review session known as Beijing+5. This week of meetings was to chart how well the Beijing commitments have been implemented and to assess the progress made by the world's women. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke at a rally of women outside of the U.N. and stressed the importance of the review process. Kofi Annan: The Beijing+5 negotiations is among the most important that we shall undertake in this millennium year. It's outcome will not only be crucial for the rights and lives of women everywhere, it will also be crucial for the achievement of the goals I have asked the world's leaders to support at the millennium summit on behalf of all the peoples of the world. Lisa Rudman: Across the street where women's groups rallied, Mary Robinson the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned against erosion of the commitments made in 1995. Mary Robinson: There must be no going back on the commitments, far from it. They must be affirmed and the whole platform of action of Beijing must not only be maintained but must be reinvigorated and given practical impetus around the world. Lisa Rudman: This demand was heard repeatedly as over 5000 women's advocates and members of non-governmental organizations, known as NGO's held meetings and lobbied the U.N. The 1995 Beijing platform for action document is an international agreement and outlines a comprehensive 12 point Platform for Action on violence, economics, education, health, girls, political participation and more. Charlotte Bunch is the Executive Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership. She sees the Beijing Platform for Action in the context of the U.N. system. Charlotte Bunch: I think that the Beijing Platform for Action is an imperfect document. I mean, of course, its a document that governments agreed to. We have 188 patriarchal governments so of course they're not going to write the ultimate feminist manifesto. I think what we look to is this is probably the most progressive document on women that's ever been written and agreed to by governments and it stands as a kind of moment when we can advance from there forward but of course there are all kinds of other issues that we're advancing as we talk about here, sexual rights issues that are only hinted at in the document. There's loads of other issues to be taken much further. The document doesn't go as far as it should on economic rights; it doesn't go nearly as far as it should but it's certainly a good beginning point. Lisa Rudman: Inside the U.N., member state delegates presented positive self-assessments, similar in any language: Interpreter From Chile: During these five years, Chile has advanced considerably in the commitment it has undertaken... Woman from Gambia: Mr. President, the Gambian government, like of course all other governments the world over, has answered the clarion call of the United Nations. Woman from Pakistan: Based on Islamic precepts, our constitution guarantees the status and dignity of woman and forbids discrimination. Lisa Rudman: The Beijing+5 session reviewed the progress governments have made in implementing the Platform for Action. Over 100 NGO's presented the U.N. with their own reports written in sharp contrast to their governments assessment. (VOX POP:) Woman 1: We have the official version that is all rosy and pleasant but the experience on the ground is totally different Woman 2: The report that has been submitted by the government, especially by the government of Iran, is not the true picture of the situation of woman in Iran. Woman 3: We feel that there is a lot of talk and a lot of, you know, lip service being given by governments and also by U.N. agencies. Woman 4 : When you look at the levels of poverty in Africa, we are really suffering. Women have paid a heavy price in terms of health and education. Woman 5: Woman are still excluded and left out on the process of all our decision making. Woman 6 : Enormous progress has been made in Uganda, in Mozambique, in Namibia, all of whom are doing much better than say, the United States. It shows you don't have to be a rich country, you have to have the political will. Lisa Rudman: Many women expressed a blend of frustration with the U.N. process and feelings of celebration of their efforts outside of government channels. (VOX POP:) Woman 7: There is a lot of talk, a lot of talk, a lot of talk. Everybody is talking, but we want to see concrete results. Woman 8: In terms of governments, what we would like to see is basically the engendering of budgets, the reprioritization of resources so that women's issues, concerns could be put on the agenda. We need to follow the money. Woman 9 : U.N. has its own role. The ratification of laws and regulations has its own role, but I think a major factor is the presence of women in the society and how aggressively they are struggling for their freedom. Lisa Rudman: Global women's issues are as varied as their voices, but expressed collectively they make up an international women's movement. A movement which has grown in scope and effectiveness since the Beijing conference in 1995, according to Charlotte Bunch. Charlotte Bunch: There is an international women's movement. It's very real. It consists of women organizing activities all over the world who are connected with each other, have all kinds of networks and interrelationships. So the women's movement is very international. It is present in all kinds of ways and places but I don't think that necessarily means it would become a household word. And, yet you will see all kinds of women in this country who have been impacted by what that movement has been doing even though they don't realize that's where it came from. So even issues like female genital mutilation, which many women in the United States now know about, I mean they know about that because of an international women's movement. Lisa Rudman: At the U.N. and at home, feminists are raising numerous issues. One central theme and organizing concept is the idea that women's rights are human rights. Alda Facio is a human rights lawyer based in Costa Rica. Alda Facio: Human rights are misunderstood to begin with you know? Human rights are not just civil and political rights that people think of when the violations occur such as torture or in war. Human rights are very, very incredible notion of the idea that because you are born, just because of the fact that you are born you have the right to live a dignified life. So that means the right to housing, the right to health, the right to protection from violence, the right to happiness, the right to live a long, healthy life and that is what human rights means. Lisa Rudman: Facio adds that women's experience of human rights abuses are often different than men's. Alda Facio: Women suffer all the violations of human rights that men suffer, you know? But, also on top of that they suffer other kinds of violations for being women and for being women that are everywhere, in every culture in every country, in democracies, in not democracies women are discriminated against . Lisa Rudman: Achieving human rights for women is a slow process according to Facio. Alda Facio: In my area of the world, in Latin America, there has been an advance in that at least now violence against women is recognized as a crime and women are somewhat protected against rape and domestic violence and women are starting to feel that they have the right to live a life of freedom, you know, freedom from violence. So that is progress. Women are more in government now so they are making better decisions for women but we still have a very, very long way to go because as we advance in three parts, in these kind of rights we are also going back in economic, social and cultural rights. In some areas women have benefited, in some they have stayed the same and in others they are going back as countries become poorer. Lisa Rudman: The broader concept of human rights was central to the World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995. Women from Namibia returned home from that gathering with renewed enthusiasm, and they worked to achieve women's human rights in their country. Now there are laws allowing women to own property without a man's permission; and there's a law against rape of women by their husbands. But as far as human rights for lesbians, the Namibian government has been far less progressive according to Elizabeth Khaxas, director of the Sister Namibia women's group. Elizabeth Khaxas: Our organization Sister Namibia took up the issue of human rights of gay and lesbian people. And, more and more we heard from our leaders in the government that homosexual people are sick or ill or that we are worst than dogs and pigs and that homosexual ladies are like cancer or AIDS and it's spread must be stopped in Namibia. Even the president of our country said that homosexual people are exploiting the democracy of Namibians. So, we realized that we have to start to organize ourselves. And, our organization was the first one to challenge this hate speech against gay and lesbian people. We challenged-- we asked the president to apologize when he makes statements like that. And it was a big thing for a small woman's organization, you know to ask this man, "You are actually very wrong. You have to apologize to the gay and lesbian people in Namibia that we all have human rights." In Namibia we cannot just concentrate on the issue of the human rights of gay and lesbian issue. Our issues are multiple. It's is a broad based human rights movement, yeah? So when we are talking about women's poverty it's on same level for us when we are talking about the human rights of gay and lesbian women. Lisa Rudman: Sunila Abeyesekera is with the human rights organization INFORM in Sri Lanka. She agrees that these issues need to be linked. Sunila Abeyesekera: You begin to understand the continuum in which rape within marriage is not recognized to be rape because a husband has a right to have sexual intercourse with his wife, whether she likes it or not, to where honor killing, you know, are allowed because if your brother wants to kill you because you have been raped, it's fine, it's allowed, to the situation that if you are a lesbian and you want to live with another women that you choose as your life partner you can be penalized in many ways, including being killed. Speaking for example, from Sri Lanka, from the experience in Sri Lanka, the frame-working within which a woman is supposed to be married, you are supposed to have children. You are not normal if you are not married. You are not normal if you don't have children, well of course you are not normal if you choose to have a relationship with another woman. It is a continuum of discrimination. Stephanie Welch: You're listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. If you would like to get in touch with us we'll be giving out our toll free number at the end of this broadcast. Lisa Rudman: In Sri Lanka, Namibia and around the world, there are growing struggles over the control of women's bodies. These tensions are colored by the broader social, political and religious forces within each country. Conservative organizations often point to support of reproductive rights or lesbian rights in an attempt to discredit a group's entire agenda. Charlotte Bunch. Charlotte Bunch: No matter what you're organizing about, if your organizing to empower women they will use issues of women's sexuality against you even if that is not what you started out organizing about. Lisa Rudman: Women who are organizers in Namibia experienced this pressure first hand. In 1999 the Sister Namibia group led a broad coalition to produce a "Women's Manifesto," which dealt with issues such as education, the environment, media and democracy. The document had two brief mentions of lesbians in the Human Rights section. Elizabeth Khaxas describes what happened after all of the organizations had approved the document and the text was at the printers. Elizabeth Khaxas: Terrible things started to happen. The Department of Women's Affairs called us and said, "We demand that you take out our organization's name from your document." A few minutes thereafter the Swaba Woman's Council, the ruling parties women's council, called us and made the same demand. The gender unit of the University of Namibia called and said, "Please take out our name." The director general of the Department of Woman's Affairs attended a meeting of the elected women, and she told them that the woman's manifesto is actually promoting homosexuality in that the call for comprehensive sexual education in the manifesto is actually a call to instruct our children how to become gays and lesbians. Lisa Rudman: And in some ways the conservative campaign against the manifesto backfired. Elizabeth Khaxas: They created such a huge publicity. And the whole of Namibia wanted to know, "What is this woman's manifesto about, can we get a copy?" We did not quite know should we be happy about this publicity or what should we be doing. At that stage I was quite afraid and I was thinking, "no, this is not according to the plan." The plan was not that the issue of sexual orientation become the main issue. It was only one issue among many other issues that are important for us. And suddenly the sexual orientation was their issue and everybody was talking about that. Despite the withdrawal of support by the ruling party and the department of Women's Affairs, we went ahead and mobilized women to participate in our activities. Many women also defied the orders of their party, and they have used the manifesto to mobilize women on the issues of women's human rights. Lisa Rudman: While women shared stories of anti-feminist backlash, the U.N. General Assembly meeting dragged on into the night. Just as they had in Beijing in 1995, conservative governments and the Vatican attempted to block the document due to the sections which called for reproductive and sexual rights. Charlotte Bunch says that in spite of this, conservative forces were unable to rollback the gains women had made in the Beijing Platform for Action. Charlotte Bunch: In terms of the battle with the right wing, we certainly saw no advance of their agenda. The paragraphs on families remained with the Beijing language, the paragraphs on sexuality remained with the Beijing language. The Beijing language doesn't go as far as we want but it didn't go backward. Many of the Latin American governments who were heavily influenced by the Vatican stood up against the Vatican in this conference. They stood for sexual and reproductive rights. And the Vatican didn't have the power base of Latin America. We had nine or ten major governments trying to obstruct the process this year, and we had probably twenty in Beijing. Lisa Rudman: Bunch added that worldwide, governments positions on sexual orientation are improving. Charlotte Bunch: There was a great sense of disappointment at this conference that we didn't get the term sexual orientation into the document. But if you look at the progress over the last ten years and particularly in the last five years since Beijing, in Beijing we had for the first time a really open discussion about sexual orientation. It didn't get into the document but quite a number of governments from South Africa, to some of the Caribbean countries, to European and North American countries actually backed the inclusion of the recognition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. There's really a continuous acceptance, a growing acceptance, I think as a new generations coming in. Lisa Rudman: This new generation is also active in the local level. In Jamaica for instance, a young woman named Suzette works with the only gay and lesbian group on the island. In its one year existence members of the organization have endured death threats and media smear campaigns. Suzette used only her first name for safety reasons. Despite the repression, Suzette is still hopeful. Suzette: You know, its not unusual for people to get killed for even being suspected to be gay. It has become so evident to me just how much work we have to do, but you only fail if you quit. So, I'm just going to be at this, I just won't stop because I am longing for the day when I can hold my girlfriends hand and walk down the road or I can hug her up in the movies and people don't think that I'm strange. Lisa Rudman: And women like Suzette hope to see that day a little sooner by working within a feminist human rights movement on a global level. Women have also been seeking change through of the enforcement of global human rights treaties. The convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women was adopted by the U.N. in 1979. Only a handful of countries, including Iran, Sudan and the United States, still have not ratified it. Charlotte Bunch: Charlotte Bunch: You see a lot of energy now in the U.S. is starting to be put out about the Woman's Convention and the fact that the U.S. has not signed this convention when 165 countries have. But without an international woman's movement to sort of shame the U.S. I don't think that anybody would have paid any attention here. Lisa Rudman: Some of the world's most marginalized women have been steadily organizing since the 1995 Beijing conference. They are making use of international treaties, the Beijing platform for action and local laws. As Monica Lopez reports, some women are saying domestic workers rights are human rights. Monica Lopez: They have many names worldwide: domestic worker, household worker, live-ins and sleep-in domestic workers. These women leave there own homes and families to care for other's homes and families. Sometimes they travel great distances, crossing oceans and borders, other times its just across town. According to a 1998 study from Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica, one fifth of all households in Central America and the Caribbean employ domestic workers. Many of these women struggle against human rights abuses, violations that range from sexual harassment and rape to threats of deportation. As they face twenty hour work days and less than minimum wage pay their issues are also part of a worker's rights agenda. Ida LeBlanc is the General Secretary of the National Union of Domestic Workers in Trinidad and Tobago. Ida LeBlanc: A typical domestic worker starts her work from morning and ends in the evening. And once you're sleeping in it never ends. You can be on-call anytime, you know, because a domestic worker they don't have no stipulated type of work for them. You're cooking; you're cleaning; you're washing; you're taking care of the kids. All of this work, you know, compile the domestic work. Monica Lopez: In Trinidad and Tobago the Domestic Workers Union recently won the right to be recognized as workers and therefore to receive the legal minimum wage. But, according to Ida LeBlanc, creating a law and getting employers to comply with the law are two separate struggles for the union. Ida LeBlanc: The middle income workers will more try to pay the domestic workers the right wages but the rich people they don't intend to pay them because, you see, they don't recognize the type of work, the value, they don't have no value for the work that domestic workers are doing because it's linked to the traditional work that women do in the home. So they feel it's only natural for a woman to do that. Monica Lopez: Although the job is hard, many women are working for a better quality of life for themselves and their families back home. Ida LeBlanc: Most domestic workers come from the smaller islands around in the Caribbean to work in Trinidad and Tobago. But the domestic workers in Trinidad leave and go to the bigger countries to seek employment. Most of them come to the United States of America, because when you work for one dollar here it can be six dollars at home when you send it back home to your families because most domestic workers come here and work in order to take care of the families back home. Monica Lopez: When workers migrate from another country, the physical and financial risks of the job are not always apparent before they arrive. Alda Facio is a human rights lawyer from Costa Rica. Alda Facio: There are women that are migrating to the United States to find work because there is no work in our part of the world as the countries become poorer and poorer. And they come here thinking that, well the pay is so much better, and the laws protect them better-- they think. Some of them come to become virtual slaves. Monica Lopez: At the Beijing+5 Conference in June 2000, Activists denounced the human rights abuses of domestic workers. They charged that in addition to low pay and few protections, sexual harassment and rape in the work home is a pervasive problem. According to Facio, there are times when popular culture serves to uphold and even romanticize sexual power relationships between male family members and their maids. Alda Facio: There's research that shows that in Latin America, the first experience for a man, the first sexual experience is with his maid. If 90% of men say their first experience was with their maid, means that that lots of maids are being raped. And it's not even... they don't denounce it because what can they do? When there's so much power difference and when the job of the person depends on not denouncing it and acquiescing to demands by the people that are employing that person, it would be very hard to say that it is consensual. There's all these you know, soap operas where the maid is in love with the young man and at the end they get married, and it turns out she was the daughter of this rich man but that's not the way it works, and young men do not fall in love with maids, they don't marry them. Monica Lopez: Whether in Costa Rica, Trinidad or the United States, domestic workers are organizing. Women are working through their local governments while using international agreements like the Beijing Platform for Action, to bolster legal protection from human rights and workers' rights abuses. The United States is no exception. A strong dollar pulls domestic workers from around the world to US homes where they deal with many of the same issues. Libertad Rivera is the rank and file coordinator of the domestic workers project at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles. She says that domestic workers in Los Angeles are organizing themselves for a stronger voice in the California legal system. Libertad Rivera: But we've also learned and observed that the laws of California don't protect the domestic workers. The only thing we can do is go claim the wage that's owed to us. But for example, if we suffer from sexual harassment, or if we're fired after 30 days of work, we have no protection. We don't have the right to get sick. Once we get sick we're fired. So we've formed a legislative team and we've gone to Sacramento, and we've achieved that Mr. Sedillo, who is an assembly member, introduce a proposal to declare March 30th the day of the domestic worker, with the objective that at least we get this day, one day a year as a holiday and that we get paid for it. Monica Lopez: Ida LeBlanc is calling on the women's movement and women who hold the power to hire and fire to recognize domestic worker's rights. Ida LeBlanc: We women talk about equality, eh? And, what I see happening within the women's movement is that in Trinidad and Tobago all they talk about is women in decision making positions, right? And, if we have to get equality for women, we must start at the bottom. And not until domestic workers are recognized as workers and are treated equally, well then there will be no equality for women and we, what happened to domestic workers, is the same women that hired them. So, what we want to do is to call on the women's movement now to see that domestic workers are recognized because we as grassroots women speaking out we have no voice, you know? We have to fight and struggle for everything. Look, I'm telling you about the minimum wages order that we took 20 years to get, you know? And, we, how long we live again until we reach another 20 years to get something again? So, we need the women in power to really do something for women down below. Monica Lopez: LeBlanc, Rivera and domestic worker activists around the world are not waiting. They are fighting for a voice in legislation, forming regional organizations and educating women at local and global forums. Domestic workers are unionizing and building collective power to gain there human rights as women and workers. For the Women's Desk of the National Radio Project, I'm Monica Lopez. Lisa Rudman: That's it for this Women's Desk edition of Making Contact, a look at women's rights as human rights. And, special thanks this week to Dalya Masachi, Helene Rosenbluth, Monica Lopez, Lisa Horan, Joan Levinson, Liz Fisher, Arienne Adamcikova and Victoria Fernandez for production work. Laura Livoti is our managing director. Peggy Law, executive director. Associate producer, Stephanie Welch. Senior advisor, Norman Solomon. National producer, David Barsamian. Women's desk coordinator, Lisa Rudman. Prison desk coordinator, Eli Rosenblatt. Production assistant, Shereen Meraji. Archivist, Din Abdullah. And I'm your host, Lisa Rudman. If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes an transcripts. That's 800-529-5736. Making Contact is an independent production. We're committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. If you have suggestions for future programs, we'd like to here from you. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. 'Bye for now. |