Miren Gutierrez* interviews INES ALBERDI, executive director of UNIFEM
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ROME, Nov 15 (IPS) – The fight for women’s rights came about hand in hand with the struggle for democracy, civil rights and national liberation in different countries and periods, says Ines Alberdi, executive director of UNIFEM.
The time has now come for action on the effect of the global financial crisis on women, and other problems such as stereotyping, gender-based violence, unfair budgeting, lack of work opportunities and social protection for women, and the plight of women migrants.
On the eve of its 30th anniversary, Alberdi spells out the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) for IPS. The first of a two-part interview.
IPS: How would you explain CEDAW to someone who has not heard about it?
INES ALBERDI: Across the globe, women confront manifold violations of their human rights – when they cannot articipate in the decisions that affect their lives or claim fair political representation, when they face discrimination in employment, when they are denied entitlement to land and property, or when they suffer violence within their own home.
CEDAW is the means by which governments around the world have undertaken legal human rights obligations to combat these violations, and advance gender equality. It is the core international agreement on women’s human rights.
Ratified by 186 U.N. member states, CEDAW encompasses a global consensus on the changes that need to take place. Under CEDAW, states are required to eliminate the many different forms of gender-based discrimination women confront, not only by making sure that there are no existing laws that directly discriminate against women, but also by ensuring that all necessary arrangements are put in place that will allow women to experience equality.
IPS: It probably means a lot to a whole generation of women who fought for women’s rights. Could you mention some of the challenges faced at the time it was adopted?
IA: This varied of course from country to country. In my own country, Spain, the struggle for women’s rights was part of the broader struggle for democratisation in the country.
Under the dictatorship, women had almost no rights, we couldn’t vote, or work outside the house without our husband’s permission for example. Reproductive rights were extremely limited, as they were in the vast majority of countries. This was very similar in countries in Latin America, where women’s rights movements emerged in the context of democratisation movements.
In the U.S., this movement came out of, and in connection with the civil rights movement, and later it was very much identified with the struggle for reproductive rights, while in many other places the women’s movement was linked to a movement for national liberation.
