This year 2015 marks a significant opportunity to advance women’s rights. There are 7 critical processes that have aligned this year where women need to assert and participate to ensure that commitments to women’s rights are kept and governments remain accountable to their promises. These are:
1) Finalising the Post 2015 development agenda; 2) reviewing the progress of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing plus 20); 3) Climate Summit in Paris (COP 21); 4) formation of ASEAN Economic Community; 5) promulgation of a binding treaty on transnational corporations; 6) negotiation on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement; 7) Review of implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. These events are significant turning points for global policy and are rallying points for women’s rights activists who will be demanding change at many levels.
At these multiple fronts, women have had to defend rights that have been set, upheld and codified, and call to account for commitments that have been made. Accountability is the key demand that at the Beijing plus 20 process, as governments have failed in many aspects to advance women’s rights and have been cautiously backtracking on their commitments.
There are still many reasons to celebrate. In the past year alone, we have had women in coastal villages Vietnam gaining access to decision making in their commune; indigenous women in mountainous village in Nepal beginning to lead efforts to address climate change; and the judgement meted on abusive employer in Hong Kong, giving justice to an Indonesian domestic worker.
The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) will be joining women’s organizations based in Chiang Mai, Thailand to celebrate International Women’s Day on Sunday 8 March. The activity will begin with a parade from the Three Kings Monument plaza in the middle of the old city, and will wind through the streets of Chiang Mai, culminating in a programme at Suan Buak Had Park. Performances by Chiang-Mai youth and musical group Paradon will be highlights of the programme, while women’s organizations will set up booths and exhibitions around the park.
APWLD will screen a short video, “The Road to Development Justice” that shows the multiple crises of deepening inequality caused by uncontrolled economic growth, as well as climate change that threatens the existence of everyone on this planet. These two crises have hit women, specially the poor, rural and indigenous women, the hardest. Economic growth is built upon cheap labour, mainly of women who work in jobs that pay less than minimum wage. Climate change has also forced women to adapt to stresses such as rising sea levels, changing planting seasons, and loss of water sources to maintain their families’ survival.
To counter these multiple crises, APWLD together with women across the region are calling for Development Justice. This is a development model that prioritises people over profit. This model requires five transformative shifts: redistributive justice, economic justice, social and gender justice, environmental justice and accountability to peoples. We carry this framework as we campaign for women’s rights at multiple levels.
Women are also meeting at the United Nations in New York, at the meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women from 9 to 20 March 2015. APWLD and many other organizations will be there to call for accountability from governments.
Wherever women find themselves on March 8, in the streets marching for rights, or in the policy-making halls calling for a better world, we will make these moments count.
