UN Commission on the Status of Women: The Vatican, Iran, Russia and Egypt oppose findings.

[pampango]

Russia, which imprisoned the feminist group Pussy Riot (above) last year for "disrespecting religion",
opposed language in the UN's agreement on women's rights.

The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women brought hundreds of international leaders to New York to discuss strategies for ending violence against women. After two weeks of debate, it concluded with a communiqué stating the principles agreed upon at the gathering – something it failed to do last year. The principles ... simply asserted that governments have an obligation to make sure women in their countries are protected, that women in every corner of the world have a right to bodily integrity, and that religion, custom or tradition are not excuses for governments to skirt their obligations to protect all their citizens.

Nonetheless, many of the usual suspects (and some new ones) were unwilling to adopt the "women are people, not punching bags" framework. The Vatican, Iran and Russia tried to strip out the language that would block governments from using the "it's our custom/religion/tradition" excuse. They also hedged at language suggesting that a husband doesn't have the right to rape his wife.

While the Holy See, the Iranians and the Russians assert the God-given rights of husbands to rape their wives, more women between the ages of 15 and 44 are killed by violence every year than by malaria, HIV, cancer, accidents and war combined. Luckily, after international pressure and outrage from women around the world, the final document signed on 15 March included basic language protecting women's rights. But it shouldn't have to take worldwide indignation to push countries to agree to take steps to end violence.

It's not just Russia, Iran and the Vatican that are alarmed at the prospect of gender equality and women living lives free of violence. They found an ally in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which issued one of the most odious – and telling – responses to the CSW, claiming:

"This declaration, if ratified, would lead to the complete disintegration of society."

American pro-life groups also agree that conservative ideology should trump anti-violence work: they've suggested that the CSW agreement should be torpedoed because it has the audacity to say that women have a right to their own bodies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/un-commission-status-women-enemies-equality

Not surprising that US 'pro-life' groups would side with the Vatican, Russia and Iran in opposing a UN declaration on the rights of women. I'm sure that the 'national sovereignty' folks in all those countries will rail against a UN agency daring to tell their government what they have to do with respect to the treatment of women.

[RainDog]

1. Time to stop giving money to the Catholic Church

The U.S. govt. needs to stop funding that organization with American taxpayer's money. The law of this land does not make it permissible for husbands to legally rape just because someone is his wife. I know Republicans object to this, too.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/03/1190442/-What-You-Don-t-Know-About-Catholic-Charity-and-Social-Justice#

The problem for Americans is that 65% (close to $3 billion) of the funding for the U.S. bishops’ national office for domestic Catholic Charities and 72% of the bishops' foreign Catholic Relief Services is provided by the government, as well as a third of the income for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. At the local level, states also contribute substantial funding for regional Catholic Charities.

That’s right. U.S. taxpayers are paying to build and maintain the Church’s infrastructure and proselytizing (here, here and here) while also funding the Church’s misogynist (here and here) and homophobic (here, here and here) agenda in addition to helping the poor and the sick.

The bishops, however, contribute only 2.7% of their own money to charity.

The majority of federal government grants come from the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the Obama administration’s version of Bush’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative. Pres. George W. Bush, leader of the party which claims to be against government spending especially for social programs, after consultation with a group of Catholic prelates, created the agency nine days after taking office to repay the debt he owed to Catholic bishops and other rightwing clergy for putting him in office.1 Unfortunately, Pres. Obama has continued this greatest assault against the separation of church and state under the renamed agency.

President Obama needs to go back through Bush's religious appts (in areas in which they have no expertise, like science and medicine) and replace them with people who are not misogynists as part of their doctrine (this is not simply Catholic - this includes Protestants too.) It's funny how the claim to religion makes it okay to have hateful beliefs about women but it's okay because that religion has many adherents.

[DemocratsForProgress]

2. Thanks for the link. This is appalling

though sadly not surprising.

[RainDog]

3. too bad this wasn't about holding doors instead of religiously sanctioned rape

more people might care about the topic then.

[DemocratsForProgress]

5. Well said.

[RainDog]

7. My DU looks different than others who come to the forum

because I have trashed all the threads that relate to the door-holding thing, except for that last one.

[DemocratsForProgress]

8. That's a very good idea.

[liberal_at_heart]

39. My DU looks different too

I trash any thread that is hostile and hateful no matter the subject matter.

[RainDog]

41. as is your right to do

enjoy!

[redqueen]

6. Or at least it wouldn't be drowned out by so many threads mocking feminist discourse.

I'm sure people care. The signal to noise ratio here simply isn't that great.

Maybe if lounge threads were kept in the lounge...

[LadyHawkAZ]

4. "This declaration, if ratified, would lead to the complete disintegration of society."

In a sense, they're right- if the genders stopped fighting with each other, they'd start fighting the system, and it would be the end of many societies as we know them. And good riddance to them, when it finally happens.

[HiPointDem]

9. Maybe they voted against it tp prevent the hypocritical US gov't from having yet another

stick to beat them with & force them to comply to its will.

and i don't mean about women's rights.

[RainDog]

10. can you explain what you do mean, then? n/t

[pampango]

11. Perhaps, but I imagine it had more to do with the nature of those governments and our own

'pro-life' groups.

Voting against women's rights may be motivated by a desire to avoid giving your opponent a 'stick' to beat you with. If these were genuinely liberal governments and groups that just did not want others judging them, it would be easier to make the case that they just did not want to provide ammunition to others who like to 'play the game' of 'gotcha politics'. Not too many liberals would look at any of these governments and groups as 'liberal' in terms of their approach to gender issues and women's rights.

Women's rights are a global issue and a worthwhile focus of attention by a UN organization.

A 'pro-life' group in the US or a government anywhere that can't support a simple declaration that:

governments have an obligation to make sure women in their countries are protected, that women in every corner of the world have a right to bodily integrity, and that religion, custom or tradition are not excuses for governments to skirt their obligations to protect all their citizens.

says a lot about the true nature of that group or government.

I can understand fundamentalist wing of the republican party opposing such a declaration on what they view as religious principle and its libertarian wing opposing it because they view the UN as a usurper of American national sovereignty. A liberal rationalizing why such groups or governments would choose to not endorse such a declaration is a little harder to understand.

[geek tragedy]

17. No, they're just male supremacist assholes seeking to protect backwards cultural

attitudes towards women.

[HiPointDem]

18. yes, i'm sure 'male supremacism' is the answer. because power over women is wayyyy more

important than power over the entire world, or power v. another world power, or power over other men.

yeah, everything is about men having power over women.

except it's not.

[geek tragedy]

19. This is a commission on women's rights. Maybe you missed that part in your

haste to find an angle to make the US the villain in the story.

Or maybe you think the commission on women's rights is really a global conspiracy hatched by the Great Satan in Washington. Your sneering dismissal of the importance of women's rights seems to point in that direction.

In any event, you're incoherent on this point. Note that the Christian Taliban in the US are in agreement with Egypt, Iran, Russia, and the RCC on this. So, unless they're anti-imperialists, fail.

[HiPointDem]

21. the UN is about global power politics. not human rights. it's rather telling that, for example,

saudi arabia is not in dissent, but russia is.

in which country do you think women are more repressed?

[RainDog]

22. Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood are in dissent

I still don't get your point.

So, a conference about international human rights for women isn't about human rights for women because Saudi Arabia didn't align with Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Russia and the Vatican?

[HiPointDem]

24. Is the muslim brotherhood a party at the UN? I don't think so. The mention of the muslim

brotherhood I think is entirely gratuitous, as is the mention of US fundies.

As well as the claim that these entities looked askance at language that would keep men from beating their wives.

All of a piece in this propagandistic article.

[RainDog]

25. did you read the other links here?

From people who have reported from the UN about this issue for decades?

I don't think this is a propaganda piece. It's telling the truth about fundamentalist religious regimes and that includes the Catholic one.

[RainDog]

27. how about this report about the Muslim Brotherhood's statement?

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood warns that a U.N. declaration on women's rights could destroy society by allowing a woman to travel, work and use contraception without her husband's approval and letting her control family spending.

The Islamist movement that backs President Mohamed Mursi gave 10 reasons why Muslim countries should "reject and condemn" the declaration, which the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women is racing to negotiate a consensus deal on by Friday.

The Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party propelled Mursi to power in June, posted the statement on its website, www.ikhwanweb.com, and the website of the party on Thursday.

Egypt has joined Iran and Russia - dubbed an "unholy alliance" by some diplomats - in threatening to derail the women's rights declaration by objecting to language on sexual, reproductive and gay rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood said the declaration would give "wives full rights to file legal complaints against husbands accusing them of rape or sexual harassment, obliging competent authorities to deal husbands punishments similar to those prescribed for raping or sexually harassing a stranger."

http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-islamists-warn-giving-women-rights-could-destroy-061331905.html

[geek tragedy]

29. The report only MENTIONS those four countries. There were others

who joined them.

[RainDog]

30. well, since only four were mentioned

obviously this isn't about an attempt to deny women human rights!

[RainDog]

52. I assume this was for the person claiming otherwise? n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. Oops, yes, that should have been a reply to HiPointDem in #21

Sorry.

[geek tragedy]

23. Oh, so the UN Commission on the Status of Women is a global conspiracy

designed to promote imperialism?

That is crazy talk that would make Ron Paul proud.

[HiPointDem]

26. yes, & charitable foundations are all about helping the downtrodden.

[geek tragedy]

28. You are shitting on the global women's rights movement

in order to support your looney-tunes obsession with proving that the eeevil US/West is the source of all evil.

[HiPointDem]

31. The UN is not a neutral body of do-gooders. It's a body of power politicians.

The UN may not be a mere tool of U.S. imperialism, but it has only had significance in international conflict when used in this manner. (Hence George W. Bush's menacing statement that it will render itself “irrelevant” if it fails to play that role (during the Iraq/afghanistan war).)

The history also suggests that real power resides not in international institutions but in the most powerful nation-states, which dictate what countries are subject to international law and what countries are not.

To date, both multilateralism and unilateralism have been means to secure a world of fundamental global inequalities and to reinforce U.S. imperial power. No discussion on reforming the UN can be complete unless we ask ourselves why and how Washington is able to call the shots in the first place.

http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/648


Your equation of the UN commission on women with 'the global women's rights movement' is just counter-factual. The same politicians crying about women in the UN are the ones busily droning them, stealing their land, and impoverishing them through various means in real meat space.

[RainDog]

32. The global women's rights movement disagrees with you

As the various links here FROM WOMEN IN THE GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT demonstrate.

Thank you for shitting on the idea that women's rights don't matter because someone at the UN is talking about them.

[geek tragedy]

34. That one is pretty much in favor of whoever is disagreeing with the US.

Several GLBTQ people here put him on ignore after he snidely dismissed the murder of gays and lesbians in Iran, because, you know, concern about gay rights is an imperialist US plot.

[RainDog]

35. I notice this poster didn't walk back on his LIE

that the Muslim Brotherhood was not involved in the push to treat women with equal human rights, either.

[geek tragedy]

37. Of course not.

Probably went for a stroll on a patrol before they lost control.

[RainDog]

42. LOL

thanks for that one.

[geek tragedy]

33. You are literally and completely ignorant about what goes on at the CSW and women's rights

advocacy at the UN.

Stunningly ignorant.

Under the fucking Bush administration, the US tried to torpedo its work.

http://www.salon.com/2005/03/01/status_of_women/

You see, under the Bush administration, the US was aligned with Iran and the Vatican.

Under Obama, the US is aligned with the rest of the planet except for Iran and Russia and Egypt (a US ally, btw). Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba are all on the same page as the US, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, France, etc.

It's only the worst of the worst in terms of women's rights that are holding out.

Plus their apologists on the anti-American left.

[HiPointDem]

38. lol. nothing has changed. just a slightly different faction of power politicians pulling the

strings.

[geek tragedy]

40. Another ignorant statement from you. Funny that you know so much more

about international advocacy for womens' rights than the women who actually care about it enough to engage in it.

Oh wait, you don't. You just reflexively force everything into your crudely simplistic "us vs them" narrative in which the United States (including President Obama) is always the enemy.

Some people choose to be allies on issues of oppression. Others are just idealogues who care nothing but stroking their own fantasies and narratives.

[HiPointDem]

43. lol. 'crudely simplistic'

[RainDog]

44. you remind me of the stories of 60s "radicals"

women, at that time, were expected to do the drudge work while men were out there pontificating on imperalism... which began in their own abodes.

[HiPointDem]

45. lol. another half-truth. were you there?

[RainDog]

46. no. but I've read what women who were had to say. have you? n/t

[HiPointDem]

47. you've read what *some* women who were there had to say. yes, i've read plenty and i was

also there. no single characterization of male-female relationships in 'the movement' encompasses the totality.

A lot of leadership positions in the movement were filled by the same types who fill leadership positions in student government -- upper-class kids who think they deserve to lead. And that dynamic, imo, was way more obvious than any sexist dynamic of expecting women to go wash dishes.

that dynamic includes a pattern of ignoring/suppressing *all* alternative/oppositional/critical views, etc, not just the views of women.

That kind of treatment may have rankled more with the upper-class women in the movement who also had been bred to lead, but you can look at the leadership and see that women were represented there in proportions higher than, say, the proportion of women in congress at the time.

[RainDog]

48. I didn't see that I made that claim

The women's rights movement came directly out of the 60s political movement and was fostered by the female's treatment of males within it, in the general sense of male entitlement that still exists.

That's what women claim.

the international women's rights movement seeks to make women safe where they live, able to attain educations, able to earn a living so that they are not bondage slaves to their families or other families.

It's true that blue collar families tend to be more egalitarian in some ways because women are needed to supply an income in order to survive.

It's also true that when women get married or couple with a man, the societal pressures are huge to assume traditional gender roles and salary differentials contribute to this.

It's also true that the feminism in that era was centered around those who had the leisure and educational opportunities to engage in study and consciousness raising... but all of that, ultimately, has nothing to say about the current value of the international women's human rights groups who are composed of women from nations around the world who speak for women in various cultures and not just the west.

[HiPointDem]

49. what claim?

"but all of that, ultimately, has nothing to say about the current value of the international women's human rights groups"

you are the one who brought the 60s movement into the discussion.


"the international women's rights movement seeks to make women safe where they live, able to attain educations, able to earn a living so that they are not bondage slaves to their families or other families."

that is what they *say*. what they *do* & whose interests they ultimately serve is another matter. things are not so black & white as you think. maybe you are young.

[muriel_volestrangler]

55. No, the Saudis objected too

Conservative governments, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, and Honduras, as well as the Holy See, had pressed for a provision that would have made the agreed conclusions subject to religious, cultural, or traditional practices, reversing large parts of the policy recommendations.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201303182685.html

Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, Nigeria and Sudan, along with Honduras and the Vatican, expressed reservations about the declaration of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, but did not block adoption of the 18-page text.

While the declaration of the commission, created in 1946 for the advancement of women, is non-binding, diplomats and rights activists say it carries enough global weight to pressure countries to improve the lives of women and girls.

"People worldwide expected action, and we didn't fail them. Yes, we did it," Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile and head of UN Women, which supports the commission, told delegates on Friday after two weeks on negotiations on the text.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-qatar-voice-doubts-on-un-women-s-rights-policy-493294.html#.UUfBW8Ul0_g

Can we take it that you oppose what Michelle Bachelet is doing, then?

[patrice]

12. I would like to sort my own position on this out. I wonder if you could give me sourcing for this

"While the Holy See, the Iranians and the Russians assert the God-given rights of husbands to rape their wives, ..." please.

And primary sourcing would be helpful. I would like to know what it is that the RC church has said, officially, that makes this statement a fact.

This is an honest question motivated by my own puzzlement and need to understand what is going on.

[pampango]

13. All I can say is that it was the article's author's statement which I thought was relevant.

The author also wrote: "The Vatican, Iran and Russia tried to strip out the language that would block governments from using the "it's our custom/religion/tradition" excuse. They also hedged at language suggesting that a husband doesn't have the right to rape his wife."

I do not know how she arrived at the conclusion that the Vatican and the others "hedged at language suggesting that a husband doesn't have the right to rape his wife". There is nothing in this article giving that detail, much less any primary source information.

Perhaps there will be more articles written about this that will provide information either supporting or undermining this author's contention.

[patrice]

36. Thank you for understanding how necessary it is to have the original words. I will work on this

myself too. I don't like being unaware of a serious problem like this in precise detail.

[RainDog]

14. here's a Reuter's report on the same

Russia, the Vatican, Iran and other conservative Muslim states including Egypt, object to references to access to emergency contraception, abortion and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, women's rights activists said.

Last year, disagreements over similar issues prevented the commission from agreeing on a declaration of a theme of empowering rural women. Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile and head of U.N. Women, which supports the commission, described last year's impasse as "deeply regrettable" and disappointing.

Diplomats say key sticking points in this year's draft text again revolve around sexual and reproductive rights, the inclusion of gay rights and an amendment proposed by Egypt that would allow countries to avoid implementing recommendations if they clashed with national laws, religious or cultural values.

"It's still a big fight," said one U.N. diplomat involved in negotiations and speaking on the condition of anonymity, adding that language on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights of women was unlikely to be included in a final document.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-women-un-rights-idUSBRE92C1EN20130313

[RainDog]

16. Here's the right wing version of this same thing

http://www.examiner.com/article/vatican-under-attack-at-united-nations-for-pro-life-stance

[RainDog]

20. here's Barbara Crosette

who covered the UN for the Nation magazine and was the Times Bureau Chief at the UN.

(audio)

http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/mp3/bbriefing_2013_03_12a_barbara%20crossette.mp3

She claims the Cardinals in the church have more in common with Mullahs than they do with women who are in the Catholic church.

here's her article at The Nation called "At the UN, Twenty Years of Backlash to 'Women's Rights are Human Rights.'"

http://www.thenation.com/article/173203/un-twenty-years-backlash-womens-rights-are-human-rights#

Socially conservative American Catholics and like-minded evangelical Protestants who have led a decades-long campaign against the rights of women in the United States are now gearing up for a season of battles on the bigger global stage. This week, the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN begins a two-year series of international meetings that pave the way to the twentieth anniversary of the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, which fundamentally redefined the role of women in family and society. In agreements made at that conference, a woman’s right to control her own body became international policy at the UN. Before that conference, a majority of the world’s women lived in nations where women’s rights were certainly not a given, not the right to make their own reproductive choices nor to expect to be protected in numerous other ways. The Cairo conference, pledging to put women’s rights in the center of development, steamrolled with surprising ease over the Vatican’s delegations that stalked the halls with their grisly photos of aborted fetuses. Among feminists from every corner of the world, euphoria reigned.

...Austin Ruse, the president of the conservative Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, is one of those leading the charge against the “rapacious radicals” who use the UN as a forum to advance women’s rights. “It is at these meetings where global plans are hatched to spread abortion around the world, to redefine the family, to mandate homosexual marriage,” he wrote in a February fundraising letter. “Please know that friendly UN delegates, and there are many of them, are outnumbered and outspent by powerful states like the United States, the European Union, and powerful NGOs like International Planned Parenthood Federation.”

In a 2000 report, “Right-Wing Anti-Feminist Groups,” Anick Druelle noted that between the Cairo conference and the turn of this century, Ruse was active in helping to mobilize scores of organizations opposed to a range of sexual and gender rights; he is widely known among conservative Catholics in Europe and elsewhere. “Most of the people who responded to the anti-feminist call from the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute were from the Judaeo-Christian world, more specifically Catholics, Evangelicals, Baptists or Mormons from Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, certain Latin-American countries and Kenya,” Druelle wrote—pointing out that the most of the movement’s leaders, like Ruse, were men.

...Piotr Kalbarczyk, a sociologist and former head of the Polish Family Planning Association and its international programs, wrote that Poland’s 1993 legal limits to abortion were “a kind of gift for Pope John Paul II in thanks for his spiritual support during the struggle against Communism.” Kalbarczyk wrote: “Out of a total of over 120,000 NGOs operating in Poland, only two openly fight for abortion rights…. But are they strong enough to overturn the overwhelming power of the Catholic hierarchy? The answer is no: the two sides of the abortion debate are not evenly matched.” In Russia, the Orthodox Church was behind the introduction in 2011 of restrictions on abortion for Russian women, according to Marina Davidashvili of the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development.

[geek tragedy]

15. Yet the Catholic Church whines that it's being oppressed by same sex marriage

and health insurance coverage of contraception.

The Catholic Church is a male supremacist institution, from the pope to the parishioner.

[Comrade Grumpy]

53. So, what do you say to 1.2 billion Catholics? You seem to be painting them as all complicit.

Seriously. What message would you suggest for bringing Catholics to a more progressive position?

[RainDog]

50. Women Declare Victory in UN Agreement on Rights of Women

http://www.womensagenda.com.au/talking-about/world-of-women/un-agreement-on-womens-right-a-victory-for-women/201303181825

After two weeks of intense negotiations, the UN has finally reached an agreement on the rights of women.

According to UN figures, 603 million women live in countries where gender violence is not considered a crime.
The new declaration condemns the invasive nature of violence against women and children, and sets priorities for establishing multi-sectoral services including health and psychology support for survivors of violence.

It also emphasises the need to end traditional practises such as child marriage, and called on services to focus on marginalised groups.

UN Women said it welcomed the increased focus on prevention, particularly through education, while activists described the document as a "victory" for women, and an "important step" in ending gender-based violencee