 |
WAND
and the UN |
UN
Report: March 2007
by Sayre Sheldon, WAND representative
on the NGO Working Group for Women, Peace and Security
I attended some of the Commission
on the Status of Women meetings at the U.N. last week,
held yearly to estimate progress in women’s
rights around the world and to add new initiatives
for making that progress faster. The title this year
was “Elimination of all Forms of Violence and
Discrimination Against the Girl Child.”
WAND was represented in the
activities of the Working Group on Women, Peace and
Security we serve on, which brought a delegate from
Burundi to testify before the new Peacebuilding Commission,
did training sessions for Resolution 1325, and held
a roundtable on progress for women in peacekeeping.
I wish I could say that overall much progress was
made: the new U.N. leadership was not outgoing in
its support for women’s initiatives but rather
seemed to be emphasizing the status quo.
Encouraging signs came from
the new determination among NGO’s to really
change U.N. women’s components by uniting them
all into one large agency which would be like UNICEF.
U.N.-speak for this is: “Women’s Gender
Equality Architecture.”
Another hopeful note came from
the meeting I went to on CEDAW (Convention for the
Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against
Women) which the U.S. had a major role in creating
but now is one of a handful of nations who have not
signed on to. With the Democratic Congress this could
be a time to go for adoption and campaigns by Amnesty
and others are beginning.
Senators
Biden and Boxer have already acted to move CEDAW to
the floor. WAND has always joined all efforts to get
it adopted and Jesse Helms is not in the Senate any
longer to block it! Speakers emphasized its usefulness
not just internationally but here at home to strengthen
key efforts for women’s equality.
So
if you are questioning candidates, ask them what their
stand on CEDAW is. As always you can find out much
more about 1325 and related efforts for women and
peace by going to Peacewomen.org.
Sayre
Sheldon, WAND president emerita
|
A founding member of WAND and President Emerita
of the National WAND Board, Sayre has been a
long time political and social activist. She
is a college professor of literature and an
author of several plays and articles about women's
issues and peace issues.
She
edited the anthology Her War Story: 20th
Century Women Write About War, published
in 1999 by Southern Illinois University Press.
She represents WAND as an NGO at the United
Nations. |
