ENDEAVOUR FORUM NEWS WEEKLY ARTICLES
UNITED NATIONS
GENDER DIVERSITY BATTLE AT UN WOMEN'S SESSION
by Babette Francis, April 2, 2011
UN Woman is a new international entity with a billion-dollar
budget, created by merging four major United Nations agencies focused
on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
The 55th session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW),
held in New York in February/March this year, was the first under the
auspices of UN Women. CSW 55, as the recent UN session was called, had
the ostensibly wholesome theme: “Access and participation of women
and girls in education, training and science and technology, including
the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent
work”.
The session’s “agreed conclusions” document, after two
weeks of negotiations, was also wholesome, apart from a recommendation
on childhood sex education and omission of parental rights. That the final
document was as good as this was thanks to the firm leadership of the
Holy See (Vatican) delegation which vigorously contested issues such as
the European Union’s definition of “gender” as a fluid,
changeable social construct, not biologically determined as male and female.
The Holy See insisted “gender” be defined rigorously because
sexual rights activists expand the definition of “gender” in
UN documents to include a diversity of “genders”.
Consequences of such redefinition would be monumental as it could change
the meaning of thousands of UN documents. Activists would use this expanded
definition in their respective countries to try to strike down laws governing
such things as heterosexual marriage which they see as discriminating
against diverse sexual orientations.
During negotiations, the EU and its supporters tried to quell fears by
reassuring pro-family countries from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Russia
that “we know what the definition is”. To which one delegate
retorted, “If it’s really not a problem, then why can’t
we plainly state what it means?”
Finally, the Holy See and pro-family nations modified many of the paragraphs
in the “agreed conclusions” that included “gender”
by either adding the phrase “men and women” or ensuring that
the context in which the term “gender” was used would not easily
lend itself to be understood as anything other than male and female.
The Holy See delegation stressed that in international law the only binding
definition of gender is in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court, which states that “the term ‘gender’ refers to the
two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. The term ‘gender’
does not indicate any meaning different from the aforementioned definition”.
Which is just as well for us, as the Australian Human Rights Commission
is currently promoting federal anti-discrimination legislation for no
fewer than 19 different genders. (See News Weekly, November 13, 2010).
Another victory for pro-family countries was defeating a EU resolution
endorsing “The International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights”,
which call for the legalisation of same-sex marriage, legalised prostitution,
protection for “men having sex with men”, mandatory graphic
sex education for children and penalties for people who criticise homosexuality.
At one NGO side-event, the suggestion was made that the requirement to
disclose HIV status to a sexual partner was an infringement of the human
rights of those who are HIV-positive. At a panel discussion on combating
“homophobia and transphobia”, Diane Schneider of the National
Education Association (NEA), the US’s largest teachers’ union,
called for graphic sex education to be taught in the classroom. She said,
“Oral sex, masturbation and orgasms need to be taught in education.”
She argued that comprehensive sex education is “the only way to combat
heterosexism and gender conformity”. She explained, “Gender
identity expression and sexual orientation are a spectrum”, and said
that those opposed to homosexuality “are stuck in a binary box that
religion and family create”.
Since the theme of CSW 55 was promoting girls’ success at science
and technology, is Schneider aware that girls are far more likely to succeed
in education if they do not get involved at an early age in sexual activity?
The low point of CSW 55 was the election of Iran, with US support, as
a member of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women. Iran executes
more people than any country except China, and has just hanged a Dutch-Iranian
woman. How does this square with CSW’s mandate for promoting women’s
empowerment?
On a happier note, this year there were a large number of pro-life and
pro-family NGOs, including Family Watch International, Concerned Women
for America, the Family Research Council and Real Women of Canada, who
organised side-events.
Our own Endeavour Forum Inc. ran an informative event on the abortion-breast
cancer (ABC) link, and Nigerian women who work in cancer-support were
particularly interested.
The highlight of CSW 55 was the presentation of the International Protect
Life Award to Chile, honoured for reducing maternal mortality while protecting
the right to life of the unborn. The award was presented by Dan Ziedler,
the award committee’s co-ordinator, to Chile’s ambassador to
the UN, Octavio Errázuriz, who affirmed Chile’s commitment
to the protection of both mothers and unborn children.
Babette Francis is Australian and international co-ordinator of Endeavour
Forum Inc., an NGO having special consultative status with the Economic
and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC).
Member Organisation, World Council for Life and Family
NGO in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the UN