March 9, 2016
The freedom to change the world

By Paloma Durán, director of the Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SDG Fund) of UNDP

In 1979, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). It entered into force in 1981, and is now in its 35th year. In 1999, the Protocol to the Convention was also approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which Spain ratified on 6 July 2001, now marking its 15th anniversary.

The process of signing and ratifying the above legal texts opened the debate again on the recognition of rights and the possible risks to their universality. The negotiations of the Convention and the Protocol, which were complicated, raised doubts among some countries on how women’s situation could be improved through the recognition of their rights in a text that is formulated exclusively for women, and thus could relegate them as a specific group of the population when in fact they consist of half of society. Other countries, however, pushed for the recognition of rights as the only way to remedy the historic discrimination suffered by women.

The truth is that the Convention contained for the first time an explicit definition of “discrimination against women” in Article 1, as follows: For the purposes of this Convention, the term "discrimination against women" shall mean “any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field."

In 35 years, there has been much progress since the entry into force of the CEDAW, although there are still many challenges to overcome. Still, however, the question remains whether the recognition of rights is sufficient for effectively improving the situation of women in all societies.

Data published by UN Women in its 2014-2015 Report indicate that around 50 per cent of women worldwide have paid employment, representing a 40 per cent increase over the 1990s. However, women earn between 10 and 30 per cent less than men for doing the same work, and at least one if every three women has been the victim of physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner at some point in her life.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is also estimated that around 500,000 girls under 18 are victims of sex trafficking each year. In addition, female genital mutilation (FGM) affects 130 million girls and women worldwide and places two million are at risk annually.

The approval by the United Nations Security Council of Resolution 1325, while recognizing the different impact of war on women, did not consider an increased participation of women in peace processes. UN Women notes that between 1992 and 2011, only 9 per cent of the people who participated in the peace negotiating table were women. And yet, in 2014 , more than 75 per cent of people requiring humanitarian assistance were women.

The figures speak for themselves in this case. And they probably confirm that even though recognition and the subsequent exercise of rights by women are important, the need to invest in education and culture, and to strengthen equality of all people is equally important. It is telling, as shown in the above-mentioned UN Women Report, how the overall budgets show that there is a funding gap up to 90 per cent in the budget for the development of equality plans.

Changing mind-sets

All of this confirms the need for specific plans aimed at improving the situation of women while strengthening the integration of equality in a cross-cutting manner.

Perhaps what has been achieved to date assures positive changes, but it is obvious that there is a need to change mind-sets and above all, that women’s inequality is not their problem alone, but that of the whole of society. Thus, progress in equality will improve the whole of society.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt said that we are equal in that we are free to change the world . In this sense, the major challenge is necessarily to guarantee this equality between women and men, which would allow the necessary social changes towards a more just future, and more in tune with the human condition.

This article was initially published in Spanish by ABC.es in 8 March 2016.