Ph Islands to Manhattan Island, New York City: Key Messages from the UN 57th Commission on the Status of Women’s (CSW) Meeting

Working with women from many nations is always inspiring. This thought kept me warm as I poised to bundle up for the end of winter at minus 3 degrees Centigrade in New York City. And as Alicia Keys says in her Empire State of Mind song, New York is a “concrete jungle where dreams are made of.”

The primary output of the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting is the agreed conclusions on priority themes set for each year. This year's theme is "The elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women" - which is a cross cutting theme towards gender equality, & which should be a post 2015 agenda. 

                                 Breakfast meeting at the Philippine Mission in New York
                                      with PCW Executive Director Emmeline L. Verzosa                                    

                               Plenary Opening of the UN 57th Commission Status of Women Meet

Representatives of 45 member states of CSW, UN entities, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from all regions of the world attend this annual session. The Ph official delegation was composed of 37 members from various government agencies & civil society organizations.  I was there as a delegate of the Coalition for Sexual & Bodily Rights & the International Women’s Health Coalition along with about 50 feminists from all over the world. Our role as a group of feminists from around the world is to lobby for a progressive language in the outcome document for action by Governments, intergovernmental bodies and other institutions, civil society actors and other relevant stakeholders, to be implemented at the international, national, regional and local level. Lobby work included early preparations with attention to the language map of the issues and many details, feminists’ morning meetings for two weeks during the session, press releases, and coordination with official country delegations.

The language that we lobbied for at the start of this year's UN CSW were sexual rights, intimate partner violence ( IPV), emergency contraception, actual or perceived sexual orientation & gender identity (SOGI), harmful traditional or customary practices ; that neither sovereignty nor culture nor tradition nor religion are used to avoid governments obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of women or the commitments in this UN CSW outcome document, multiple forms of families, early and forced marriage, comprehensive sexuality education,  among others. Most of these were contentious issues, particularly the part on sovereignty, diverse families, sexual rights, etc. The opposition came mostly from the Holy See (Vatican), Iran, Syria, Russia, Qatar, Libya, and from a group of African nations, who were reportedly displeased with the outcome document.  

We got recognition as women human rights defenders and this became a part of the agreed conclusions.

A very important outcome for me, personally, is the inclusion of emergency contraception for victims of violence. This is a triumph for us, as emergency contraception is a long standing project of our center Pilipina Legal Resources Center, Inc. & the Asia Pacific Network of Emergency Contraception (APNEC) under the leadership of lawyer Emelina Quintillan.

The CSW addressed the issue of child, early and forced marriage, which is a violation of the bodily autonomy of women and girls. The outcome document also mentions comprehensive sexuality education thus defining and differentiating it from the limited sex education.  

                                        photo credit : Lana Finikin 

For now, our five year old advocacy to protect the rights of women facing multiple forms of discrimination including on the grounds of actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity is not yet part of the CSW Agreed Conclusions but hope springs eternal.

A ray of hope for me is the mentoring process that happened from the white haired older group of delegates to the successor generation of savvy young feminists.

The Philippines, particularly, Ms. Ana Marie Hernando, of the Philippine mission in the United Nations chaired the negotiations and was congratulated by many nations for her painstaking work to come out with the agreed conclusion, which though not yet perfect, is already good based on its potential to influence many programs in various countries and as compared to last year’s UN CSW which failed to come up with a consensus for an agreed document.

From the Philippine delegation, we got these inspiring words from Emmeline Verzosa, Executive Director of the Philippine Commission on Women who said, “We salute the leadership of the Chair (of the CSW57) and other members of bureau; we give thanks to UN Women and the secretariat for all their support; we also thank our own Ana Marie Hernando, who with her patience and stamina, guided us through the completion of the agreed conclusions which we fully support. With all the gains in the document, we fully support it. We thank the delegations for the rich discussions and we thank all those who commended us. Our delegation has been strengthened because of the inclusion of various civil society organizations (CSO) in our delegation.  And we are also grateful to all the CSOs outside who have been watching us, guiding us and reminding us of the realities of women's experiences on the ground.”