Download UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women)

UNIFEM
(United Nations Development
Fund for Women)
Topic A: A New Marital Afghan Law - Violation of Women’s Rights
Topic B: Impact of the Economic Crisis on Women Migrant Workers
1
Dear delegates of UNIFEM,
In OLINMUN 2010 we will be dealing with two major world issues, the
“New Marital Afghan Law: Violation of Women’s Rights”, and “Impact of the
Economic Crisis on Women’s Rights”.
To reach a feasible resolution on the topics, the UNIFEM Committee
needs your creativity, diplomacy and power of analysis, among other abilities.
We encourage you to use them in the debates, confident that your high
standards and maturity in discussing these topics will enhance the outcome of
our committee.
Welcome to the UNIFEM Committee of the Seventh Olinca Model United
Nations 2010.
Yours sincerely,
Annelise García
Chair
Jimena Rubio
Cristina Valencia
Head of Committee
Moderator
Luisa López
Deputy Chair
2
History of UNIFEM
UNIFEM is the Women's Fund at the United Nations, dedicated to advancing
women’s rights and achieving gender equality. It provides financial and
technical assistance to innovative programs and strategies that foster women's
empowerment. UNIFEM works on the premise that it is the fundamental right of
every woman to live a life free from discrimination and violence, and that gender
equality is essential to achieving development and to building just societies.
Established in 1976, UNIFEM has touched the lives of women and girls around
the world. UNIFEM maintains strong ties to both women’s organizations and
governments, linking them with the UN system to join national and international
political action, and to create momentum for change.
UNIFEM focuses its activities on one overarching goal: to support the
implementation at the national level of existing international commitments to
advance gender equality. In support of this goal, UNIFEM works in the following
thematic areas:
•
Enhancing women’s economic security and rights,
•
Ending violence against women,
•
Reducing the prevalence of HIV and AIDS among women and girls, and
•
Advancing gender justice in democratic governance in stable and fragile
states.
Active in all regions and at different levels, UNIFEM works with countries to
formulate and implement laws and policies to eliminate discrimination and
promote gender equality in such areas as land and inheritance rights, decent,
secure work for women, and the ending of violence against women. UNIFEM
also aims to transform institutions to make them more accountable to gender
equality and women’s rights, to strengthen the capacity and voice of women’s
rights advocates, and to change harmful and discriminatory practices in society.
Topic A: New Marital Afghan Law - Violation of Women’s Rights:
3
An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sexual
relations with him has been published in the official gazette and become law.
This new law, allows a man to rape his wife if she does not want to have sexual
relations, and lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex. “As long as the
husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every
fourth night”, Article 132 of the law says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness
that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the
sexual desires of her husband”. The law has been criticized by Western leaders who
have troops fighting in Afghanistan, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who has
called it “abhorrent”. Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus
of condemnation when the British newspaper, “The Guardian” revealed that the earlier
version of the law ‘legalized rape within marriage’, according to the UN.
Historical background:
Numerous human rights groups and a few Afghan politicians do not agree with this new
law. Most say that President Hamid Karzai, who signed this “insane piece of
legislation”, is taking steps back to the “dark days of the Taliban” simply to get reelected later this year. By signing it, he is being accused of courting the more
conservative Shiite vote. Since the fall of their government, much in Afghanistan for
women has improved. Millions of girls now attend school and many women own
businesses. Of the 351 Afghani parliamentarians, 89 are women. But Afghanistan is
still a very conservative country and this law simply undermines all those gains. It also
directly contradicts the freedoms guaranteed in the Afghan constitution, and the
international conventions signed to guarantee the rights of women in that country.
Present Problem:
The original law obliged Shia women to have sexual intercourse with their husbands
every four days at a minimum, and it effectively condoned rape by removing the need
for consent to sex within marriage. Western leaders and Afghan women's groups were
united in condemning an apparent reversal of key freedoms won by women, after the
fall of the Taliban.
4
Now, an amended version of the same bill has passed quietly into law with the
apparent approval of President Karzai.
Women's groups say its new wording still violates the principle of equality that is
enshrined in their constitution. It allows a man to withhold food from his wife if she
refuses his sexual demands; a woman must get her husband's permission to work; and
fathers and grandfathers are given exclusive custody of children.
There have been lots of protestors that defend their point. "We think those who oppose
this law in fact oppose the Koran. This law does not approve rape; it is rather about
loyalty of wife to husband and husband to wife. Rape is what you can see in the West,
where men don't feel responsibility for their wives and leave them to go with several
men." said Nesa Naseri, counter protestor and a female student of Sharia Studies.
"Whenever a man wants sex, we cannot refuse. It means a woman is a kind of
property, to be used by the man in any way that he wants," said Fatima Husseini, 26, a
female protestor.
But there are people who agree with this new law. "We must trust Allah, instead of
listening to the Western countries and the European countries who come here to
meddle and interfere." said Sayed Sajat of the counter protestors. "We Afghans don't
want a bunch of NATO commanders and foreign ministers telling us what to do," said
Mohammed Hussein Jafaari, a cleric. Mariam Sajadi said "We don't want foreigners
interfering in our lives. They are the enemy of Afghanistan." Its clauses about sex are
aimed only to ensure men's sexual needs which were met within marriage, because
Islam prohibits them “from seeking satisfaction with other women outside their
marriage”..
American block:
American countries are against this new law considering that it is totally abhorrent. The
USA president tried to talk it over with the Afghanistan president, but he answered “We
Afghans don’t want a bunch of NATO commanders and foreign ministers telling
us what to do.” America is doing its best to make the Afghan society be more
equal and they are doing very well so far, but they still need to work on it.
5
USA: "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate,
the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband”. The
law has been criticized by Western leaders with troops fighting in Afghanistan,
including U.S. President Barack Obama, who called it “abhorrent”.
CANADA: "This is a very clear attack on women -- it even allows rape; 116 of our
soldiers have died to change things in Afghanistan. How can the government say our
soldiers died to protect the rights of women when Hamid Karzai had this law adopted?"
he said (Prime Minister Stephen Harper)..
European block:
Europe has been considered the continent with the most countries legalizing equality
between men and women; almost all of the nations accept women in every activity.
Their laws are the same for everybody in Europe and this fact makes it the most
civilized continent in the world.
UNITED KINGDOM: "I made it absolutely clear to the president that we could not
tolerate that situation. You cannot have British troops fighting, and in some cases
dying, to save a democracy where that democracy is infringing human rights”, said
Gordon Brown (Prime Minister).
Arabic block:
Afghanistan needs to improve on lots of things to reach an equal society. As we all
know, nations like this do not accept the fact that women can be and are also as
intelligent as men. In general, countries like these are not developed in this aspect.
China kills new-born girls because they consider that boys will do better in the future.
Sadly, the entirety of these countries needs to work a lot with the premise of equality in
their societies.
AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny
their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual
demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which
President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. He also said this: “We Afghans don’t
want a bunch of NATO commanders and foreign ministers telling us what to do.”
Although Karzai appeared to back down, activists say the revised version of the
6
law still contains repressive measures and contradicts the Afghan constitution
and international treaties signed by the country, but its president doesn’t care
and pays no attention to this.
SOURCES:
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1170175/New-Afghan-lawdoes-allow-marital-rape--lets-men-refuse-feed-wives-deny-sex-sayscleric.html#ixzz0cd61QHyu
• http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30371&Cr=Afghan&Cr1
• http://www.al-islam.org/laws/
• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30014515/
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8204207.stm
• http://www.islamicaweb.com/forums/news-media/12062-afghan-law-legalizingrape-marriage-prompts-outcry.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/14/afghanistan-womens-rights-rape
• http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/02/new-afghan-law-might-legalize-rape/
• http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=3613
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/31/hamid-karzai-afghanistan-law
• http://www.hrw.org/es/news/2009/08/13/afghanistan-law-curbing-women-s-rightstakes-effect
Topic B: Impact of the Economic Crisis on Women Migrant Workers
Historical Background:
When the Wall Street stock market crashed in October 1929, the world
economy was plunged into the Great Depression. By the winter of 1932,
America was in the depths of the greatest economic depression in its history.
The number of unemployed people reached upwards of 13 million. Many people
lived in primitive conditions close to famine.
7
That happened 81 years ago, but the recent economic and financial crisis has
engulfed the world once more. Banks have collapsed, stock prices have
slumped and there has been an unprecedented decline in economic activity.
The crisis began in 2007, in the wake of financial and real estate speculation in
the United States, but it came after a long period of international financial
instability, trade imbalances and several local or regional crises. By late 2008,
the crisis had spread to many countries. Governments responded with massive
emergency measures, but the crisis continued to spread and large numbers of
workers have been laid off all over the world. Many see the crisis as an
opportunity for renewed regulation and democratic re-structuring of the global
economy. But solutions are complicated by the depth of the crisis, by the lack of
strong global institutions, and by overlapping crises in the environment, natural
resources and global trade.
Since the 1929 crash, there have been not only economic problems but also a
generalized cultural and social disruption, both of which have been affecting
women and their development all around the world.
Present situation
Women bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty. Statistics indicate
that women are more likely than men to be poor and at risk of starving because
of the systematic discrimination they face in education, health care, employment
and control of assets. Poverty implications are widespread for women, leaving
many without even basic rights such as access to clean drinking water,
sanitation, medical care and decent employment. Being poor can also mean
they have little protection from violence and have no role in decision making.
According to some estimates, women represent 70 percent of the world’s poor.
They are often paid less than men for their work, with the average wage gap in
8
2008 being 17 percent. Women face persistent discrimination when they apply
for credit for business or self-employment, and are often concentrated in
insecure, unsafe and low-wage work. Eight out of ten women workers are
considered to be in vulnerable employment in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia, with global economic changes taking a huge toll on their livelihoods.
The current financial crisis is likely to affect women particularly severely. In
many developing countries where women work in export-led factories, or in
countries where migrant women workers are the backbone of service industries,
women’s jobs have taken the greatest hit. The International Labor Organization
estimates that the economic downturn could lead to 22 million more
unemployed women in 2010, jeopardizing the gains made in the last few
decades in women’s empowerment.
In many countries, however, the impact goes far beyond the loss of formal jobs,
since the majority of women tend to work in the informal sector, for example as
domestics in cities, and do not show up in official unemployment numbers.
Economic policies and institutions still mostly fail to take gender disparities into
account, from tax and budget systems to trade regimes. And with too few seats
at the tables where economic decisions are made, women themselves have
limited opportunities to influence policy.
Block Countries
Asian Block
China
China's economy is huge and is expanding rapidly. In the last 30 years the rate
of Chinese economic growth has been almost miraculous, averaging 8% growth
in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per annum. The economy has grown more
than 10 times during that period, with Chinese GDP reaching 3.42 trillion US
dollars by 2007. In Purchasing Power Parity GDP, China already has the
biggest economy after the United States. Most analysts project China to
become the largest economy in the world this century using all measures of
GDP.
9
Japan
Thanks to low tax rates, plenty of economic freedom, and a system dominated
by the private sector, Japan's economy is the second largest economy in the
world and the largest in Asia, based on real GDP, market exchange rates, and
nominal
GDP.
Japan uses planned development of science and technology, and has a strong
work culture, which benefits the country as a whole. It also emphasizes good
relationships between the industrial sector and the national government.
Underlying the beliefs of many cultures is an assumption that, beyond biology,
women and men possess essentially different capacities and functions.
Understanding this assumption helps make sense of the perpetuation and even
institutionalization
of
male/female
differences
with
regard
to
behavior
expectations, position within the family, legal rights, public status, education,
and types of work. While this most often results in the subordination of women’s
position in society vis-à-vis men, it sometimes can be a source of women’s
special strength.
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, serious challenges to
accepted beliefs about gender were mounted in both Japan and China.
Although concerns about women’s position had been expressed earlier, the
concept of women’s liberation became a major motivating force within the era’s
nationalist, reform, and revolution movements. Male nationalists initiated the
discussion by arguing that an improvement in the status of women was
essential to their country’s acceptance by other technologically advanced
nations. A core of educated women in both Japan and China joined the call by
speaking and writing in public for the first time. Conservative nationalists and
traditionalists in Japan and China at different times reacted by mounting long
campaigns against any change in gender roles. Ultimately female activists were
labeled unseemly, unfeminine, and too western.
India
10
The economy of India is as diverse as it is large, with a number of major sectors
including manufacturing industries, agriculture, textiles and handicrafts, and
services. Agriculture is a major component of the Indian economy, as over 66%
of
the
Indian
population
earns
its
livelihood
from
this
area.
However, the service sector is greatly expanding and has started to assume an
increasingly important role. The fact that the Indian speaking population in India
is growing day by day means that India has become a hub of outsourcing
activities for some of the major economies of the world including the United
Kingdom and the United States. Outsourcing to India has been primarily in the
areas
of
technical
support
and
customer
services.
In general, the Indian economy is controlled by the government, and there
remains a great disparity between the rich and the poor. Ranked by the
exchange rate of the United States Dollar, the Indian economy is the twelfth
largest in the world.
Since times immemorial, worth of the work done or services rendered by
women has not been recognized. India is a multifaceted society where no
generalization could apply to the entire nation's various regional, religious,
social, and economic groups. Nevertheless, certain broad circumstances in
which Indian women live affect the ways they participate in the economy. Indian
society is extremely hierarchical with virtually everyone ranked relative to others
according to their caste (or caste-like group), class, wealth, and power. This
ranking even exists in areas where it is not openly acknowledged, such as
certain business settings. Though specific customs vary from region to region
within the country, there are different standards of behavior for men and women
that carry over into the work environment. Women are expected to be chaste
and especially modest in all actions that may constrain their ability to perform in
the workplace on an equal basis with men.
European block
United Kingdom
11
The economy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain includes the economies of
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Isle of Man and the
Channel Isles are part of the British Isles and have offshore banking status.
The Bank of England had cut interest rates to 1.0 per cent by the end of 2008,
and that is expected to drop to 0.5 per cent for most of 2009 and 2010.
England
The economy of England is one of the world's most important economies, and
is the largest in the United Kingdom. England is highly-industrialized and
developed, with manufacturing, finance, IT, and pharmaceuticals playing major
roles.
England was the world's first industrialized nation. As England acquired
colonies around the world, it became wealthy from the goods and products
brought in from Canada, America, and Australia.
Germany
Germany is moderately populated with 231 persons living per sq km in 2004.
The population consists of numbers of refugees from East European Union as
well as immigrants from countries like Italy, Spain and Greece. Germany is
ranked 19th in 177 countries of the world in terms of human development index.
France
France is ranked 20th in the world in terms of population with 60.424 million
people residing there in mid 2004. According to data obtained from World Bank
Indicators, national growth rate in France during 1997-2003 was 0.4% slightly
less than that of high-income countries' groups as a whole.
Italy
Italy in 2007 had a population of 58 million and GDP (PPP) of $1.8 trillion. It is
the tenth largest economy by purchasing power parity, and the seventh largest
by
nominal
GDP.
12
Italy’s history stretches back several thousand years BC to its links with Greece,
and the subsequent development of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire.
For centuries, Rome was the effective center of the world, and its military and
economy dominated Europe and Asia.
The worldwide economic slowdown is likely to hit Italy hard, since it will be
compounded by the country’s own internal problems including the national debt
level, high taxation, rigid labor laws and the economic cost of an expensive
pension system that will be magnified by a graying population.
Spain
The Spanish empire vied with the British for domination of the seas but failed to
keep pace with the mercantile and industrial revolutions. It has come back from
the Franco years to be a vibrant part of the European zone economy - yet dark
clouds are gathering.
This block is the one that has yielded more rights to women.
American and Latin American Block
United States
The largest and still the most important market in the world, the United States of
America’s economy is driven by consumers but is troubled by high debt levels.
The United States of America (U.S. or U.S.A.) has the world’s largest economy.
According to the CIA World Factbook, 2007 GDP is believed to be $13.84
trillion. This is three times the size of the next largest economy, Japan, which
has a GDP of $4.4 trillion. US dominance has been eroded however by the
creation of the European Union common market, which has an equivalent GDP
of over $13 trillion, and by the rapid growth of the BRIC economies, in particular
China, which is forecast to overtake the U.S. in size within 30 years.
Canada
13
Canada's economy is both mature and diverse, benefiting from an advanced
services sector, an abundance of natural resources, sound management and
free trade agreements.
Despite their increased presence in the work force, most women still have
primary responsibility for housework and family care. In the late 1970s men with
an employed wife spent only about 1.4 hours a week more on household tasks
than those whose wife was a full-time homemaker.
Mexico
While Mexico's economy is mature and generally fairly stable, there is a growing
income gap between the rich and the poor. Political and social unrest will grow if
this disparity is not addressed.
Mexico has one of the largest economies in the world, holding the twelfth
position in the global list as measured by nominal gross domestic product.
In Latin America, Mexico has the highest per-capita income level. In the
international arena, the exchange rates of the Mexican Peso are high as well,
and Mexico has the highest purchasing power parity of any country in Latin
America.
Mexico also happens to be the only Latin American member of the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development. In a recent study, Goldman Sachs
predicted that Mexico will be a leader in the world economy by 2050, along with
China, Japan, U.S., Brazil and India.
Brazil
Brazil Economy is the world's 70th freest economy. The total population was
178.7 millions according to the World Bank report in the year 2004 in contrast to
the 541 millions in the Latin American and Caribbean nations. The density of
population per square Kilometer was 21 in the year 2003.
14
Undoubtedly the 1980s was not the best decade for Brazil. The economy
underwent a deep recession with high levels of inflation and serious
consequences for wages, employment and the daily life of the population. The
country retained one of the largest external debts of any Third-World country,
with deeply harmful social costs for all the population (increased poverty,
dangerous health conditions, swelling shanty towns, and the growth of
prostitution, illiteracy and urban and rural violence). In consequence, the
conditions for the reproduction of the workforce have deteriorated and
undergone major changes. Falls in wage levels have reduced the quality of life
for the population requiring them to seek out new survival strategies. If it is clear
that the Brazilian external debt, with its associated consequences of internal
indebtedness, penalizes men and women, it is equally clear that it is women
who are most affected by the lack of adequate public services and by the
general crisis of reproduction. This being the case, this essay seeks to
describe some of the changes which have occurred in the work and living
conditions of women, particularly in the urban sector, and to outline some of the
strategies invented by women to confront the current social situation
Sources of information and research
• http://www.unifem.org/about/
• http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=901
• http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/women_poverty_economics/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/usa/walldepressi
onrev1.shtml
• http://www.globalpolicy.org/world-economic-crisis.html
• http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/
• http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/essay-04.html
•
http://www.azadindia.org/social-issues/Women-Employment.html
15