Difference between revisions of "Women's NGOs"
(→1975: Women’s Year) |
(→CEDAW) |
||
| Line 66: | Line 66: | ||
==CEDAW== | ==CEDAW== | ||
As part of the its World Plan of Action, the Mexico City Conference encouraged drafting work on the text of the Treaty for the Rights of Women, formally named the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the most comprehensive international agreement on basic rights of women. Often described as an international "Bill of Rights" for women, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. The treaty has been ratified by 182 nations and has become an important tool for partnerships among nations to end human rights abuses and promote the health and well-being of girls. | As part of the its World Plan of Action, the Mexico City Conference encouraged drafting work on the text of the Treaty for the Rights of Women, formally named the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the most comprehensive international agreement on basic rights of women. Often described as an international "Bill of Rights" for women, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. The treaty has been ratified by 182 nations and has become an important tool for partnerships among nations to end human rights abuses and promote the health and well-being of girls. | ||
| − | In many countries worldwide that have ratified the treaty, women have worked with their governments in partnership to change inequitable laws: to help girls receive a primary education | + | In many countries worldwide that have ratified the treaty, women have worked with their governments in partnership to change inequitable laws: to help girls receive a primary education, to enable women to get assistance to set up small businesses, to stop sex slavery, to improve health care services, to secure the right to own or inherit property, and to protect women and girls against violence. |
| − | The Treaty requires regular progress reports from ratifying countries but it does not impose any changes in existing laws or require new laws of countries ratifying the treaty. It lays out models for achieving equality but contains no enforcement authority. Currently, the United States is the only western country not to have ratified it. | + | The Treaty requires regular progress reports from ratifying countries but it does not impose any changes in existing laws or require new laws of countries ratifying the treaty. It lays out models for achieving equality but contains no enforcement authority. Currently, the United States is the only western country not to have ratified it. |
==Global Forums== | ==Global Forums== | ||
Revision as of 07:43, 5 August 2008
This article is based on an article written for the NGO Handbook by Kate Perchuk titled "Women and Civil Society."
The modern landscape of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to causes and issues critical to women is the legacy of human rights activism in times of historical crisis and is rooted in the fundamental principles of equality first articulated by philosophers in the age of Enlightenment.
Early women’s rights groups challenged the prevailing social order arguing that all individuals were born with natural rights that made them free and equal; that all inequalities that existed among citizens were the result of an inadequate educational system and an imperfect social environment and that these inequalities would be justly remedied by improved education and more egalitarian social structures.
Among these thinkers was Mary Wollstonecraft, a British author best known for her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which was one of the first to claim that women should have equality with men. The book was inspired by the democratic principles of the French Revolution (1789-1799). Wollstonecraft argues that the quality of women’s lives was directly related to their inferior educational opportunities.
Riding the momentum of the American Revolution, the nascent campaign for women’s rights in the U.S. was born from the passion of patriots with a mission to improve American democracy by helping to deliver on the promise of better, more egalitarian lives for all its citizens, outlined in the Declaration of Independence (adopted on July 4, 1776). A small group of educated women, known to one another through their work in the Abolitionist movement , gathered in a corner of New York State in 1848 to address “the social, civil, and religious conditions and rights of woman,” and invoked the powerful language of the seminal document to make their case. The positions articulated in their “Declaration of Sentiments” echoed the hallowed predecessor: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
