Women: Equality and Advancement

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the role of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and its impact on gender equality and the advancement of women in both national and international policy.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, known as CSW, first met in 1947, soon after the founding of the UN. Its work forms a close and long-standing relationship with a number of NGOs and civil society, and it advises the UN Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC. Throughout its history, CSW has been supported by various UN bodies. In 2011, all these bodies—DAW, INSTRAW, OSAGI and UNIFEM—merged to become UN Women. This now functions as the secretariat to CSW and, thankfully, is much less of a mouthful to pronounce.

From its inception, CSW forged new ground in its global assessment of the status of women and helped to draft the early conventions on women’s rights, including those on political rights, marriage and equal pay. The 1960s saw CSW draft the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: CEDAW. However, it was not until 1972, CSW’s 25th year, that it held its first World Conference on Women. For the past seven years, I have attended CSW as a delegate—as an NGO delegate and this year as a parliamentary representative—and it is this experience that prompted me to table this debate.

CSW is the second-largest meeting of the year held at the UN. This year, 6,000 delegates from around 850 organisations from all over the world registered. While sometimes referred to as the “Davos of Women”, unlike Davos it is hardly ever mentioned in the UK press and is little known to members of the general public. Each year, the conference is structured around a central theme, with a review theme also considered. Draft conclusions on the theme are published in advance and are then negotiated during the conference, hopefully culminating in agreed conclusions. I say “hopefully” because, two years ago, conclusions were not reached. This was somewhat of a wake-up call and an issue I will return to later.

UN Women is mainly funded by voluntary contributions from countries. I am pleased to say that the UK has so far funded UN Women to the tune of more than $10 million this year, the fourth-largest core contribution to date. Contributions are also raised by UN Women’s national committees and, last year, the UK committee sent an additional $66,020. Although unheard of by the wider public, CSW is well represented from the UK. This year, over 80 representatives from civil society and NGOs attended, as well as three Ministers and parliamentary representatives. I should like to put on the record the huge value and import of the work put in to support the UK at CSW by the UK Gender and Equalities Office—the GEO—so ably led by Helene Reardon-Bond. One of its roles is to liaise with civil society, and its work for CSW starts months before, when it convenes stakeholders to consult them on the theme.

Preparatory work is done in advance not only by the Government but also by the NGOs. For the past two years, there has been a UK NGO CSW Alliance convened by NAWO. The alliance, the INGOs and others send in briefings and also comment on the CSW draft conclusions, so the Government are very aware of the views of UK civil society. Once at CSW, the UK NGOs are the envy of the NGOs from other countries because of their relationship with the Government. A meeting is convened most evenings at the UK mission during the first week to brief delegates. We are very lucky in this country not only to have a Government who put so much work into CSW, but also to have such a committed civil society. I thank all those government officials for the effort they put in to try to ensure the best outcome from CSW, and also the NGOs which play such a sterling role, including backing up the negotiations by lobbying member states. Without doubt, it is of immense value to have an annual UN conference in the pursuit of gender equality. CSW has been a pioneer in influencing positive changes internationally.

This year’s conference was focused on the post-MDG agenda. Not only were significant issues not in the original MDGs, such as violence against women, highlighted, but the agreed conclusions also endorsed the imperative need for a stand-alone gender target and for gender to be mainstreamed. The issue of unpaid care work, first raised at CSW, now appears in the working document of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. So CSW continues to play an important and vital role in pushing for gender equality.

However, I cannot help but feel that in these times CSW misses opportunities and could achieve so much more. My experience as a delegate is of a conference of two halves. While in the UN building member states are making their statements on achievements in their countries, across the road, in Church House, the NGOs are holding meetings which, in some cases, challenge their Governments’ assertions. There is very little interaction between the two. Perhaps more global progress could be made if there were more opportunity for transparent and informed discussions between the Governments and their civil society delegates.

When CSW took place this March, the headlines were full of crises in Syria, Afghanistan and Egypt, yet the CSW failed to make any statement on these issues or to highlight the horrific plight experienced by women in those countries: women being raped in Syria; refugees fleeing with their children; and the terrible fear of women in Afghanistan as the West withdraws its troops. Some might even go as far as to say that this was a failure to speak up. We cannot truly seek long-lasting and positive changes in gender equality in isolation of global events. A statement from CSW, supported by 6,000 women from around the world, would have had some clout.

It is a sad indictment of our times that the call for a fifth women’s world conference has faded away, not due to lack of interest but, rather, out of concern that, in recent years, there has been such a struggle to maintain the language of the last one, the almost 20 year-old Beijing Platform for Action.

I mentioned that two years ago there was a failure to reach conclusions. This had a domino effect throughout UN language and other agreements that look to CSW. Every year, basic rights that we here take for granted and are the cornerstone on which to build gender equality—especially sexual and reproductive rights—come under fire and a huge effort has to be made by activists at CSW just to hold the line, rather than progressing debate and action. For example, issues such as intimate partner violence are not addressed, because fundamentalists feel that to include this language is to condone relationships outside marriage. But IPV is a sad reality of our times and we need to be able to ensure that the expert voices at CSW are able to be loudly raised in the negotiations.

So I feel that I must ask your Lordships whether you think that CSW could be more effective. Can the Minister please inform me whether assessment has been made of its impact, nationally and internationally? How can we make the work and outcomes of CSW more accessible to wider audiences, those outside our CSW geeks, who do not fully understand how the sometimes dry language in the outcome reports can relate to them and what it means in practice? Surely, raising awareness should be a major outcome of CSW. Statements on burning topical issues would make headline news around the world and perhaps contribute to getting countries to campaign to stop some of the abuse.

We should be enormously thankful to have a global UN conference for women. Indeed, it is vital. I have said before that I am hugely grateful to the Government for all their diligent work for CSW. However, the present CSW structure seems to offer little room for swift movability and flexibility. From time to time, most institutions benefit from a little restructuring and a fresh approach. As David Cameron said in January, Britain is “leading the charge” to promote equality for women around the world and our Government should be applauded for all that they are doing. Following the enormous success of last month’s Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, and the wonderful Girl Summit today, together with the wider work the UK is leading on to end violence and gender inequality, would this not be a good opportunity for the UK—one of the key financial supporters and core members—to work with other founders to make CSW more effective and its impact felt more forcefully at national, European and global levels?

I thank noble Lords for giving me this opportunity to raise the issue of CSW today and I am looking forward to hearing contributions from those taking part and the response from my noble friend the Minister.