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Boitchenko Larissa Dmitrievna
Candidate of Historical Science, Docent, Law Faculty, State University of Petrozavodsk;
Head of the Karelian Сentre of Gender Research
Address:
Karelian Centre for Gender Studies
PO BOX 199
185035, Republic of Karelia
Tel./fax: (814-2) 55 70 89, 52 53 40.
e-mail: gender@onego.ru
UNO and Women`s Rights
Overview of course
I`ve given a special course in PetrSU «UNO and women`s rights» which was very popular among students and was generally recognized in our University. I`m also an author of the text-book «UNO and women`s rights: history and contemporaneity». It is supplied with the following appendix:
- 1) Chronological database of all main events of the women`s rights development;
- 2) List of international documents and programs on women`s rights;
- 3) Bibliography.
We consider this course to be an important part of our University Program as it presents a discussion of women`s rights.
The problem of women`s rights is becoming increasingly actual in human society. Women of the whole world have been have been struggling for their rights for a long time but their position remains always secondary compared with men. There are a lot of examples of it all over the world.
UNO plays a special role in supporting of the women`s movement. It always proclaims the essentiality of the Human`s rights which include the rights of women. But as far as the latter have a specific character, they are worth to be specially treated and discussed.
Abolition of all forms of gender discrimination is the first aim for the world community. All initiatives in the field of the women`s rights were based on this principle.
For many years UNO has been taking an initiative as the main factor which defines the process of recognizing the women`s rights as the basic human`s rights and of codification of these rules among other provisions for international agreements.
As one cornerstone of this development in its early period was a Commission on the Status of Women established in February 1946, firstly as a part of the Commission on Human`s rights and then as a separate organ subject to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The main functions this Commission has are preparation of the recommendations and reports to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights about the protection of women`s rights in political, economical, social and educational fields. According to this their have been prepared by this Commission and approved by the General Assembly some important international rules: Convention on political women`s rights (1952), Convention on citizenship of the married woman (1957), Convention on the rights of the child (1989), Convention on the abolition of all forms of women`s discrimination (1979) and many others.
The function of control in observing of the rights proclaimed in these documents lies on the Committees of independent experts , chosen from each member state. All the states must submit the information about their achievements and difficulties in fulfillment the recognized rights. The long term aim of UNO is the improvement of the women`s status and widening of the opportunities in all spheres of everyday life. UN`s four World Conference were devoted to this task (in Mexico –– 1975, Copenhagen –– 1980, Nairobi –– 1985 and Beijing –– 1995). The forth World Conference continued a discussion raised at first Conference in Mexico: «Action for equality, development and peace». Second Conference added three problems: employment, health and education. All these themes were summoned on the 3d Conference in a document «Nairobi`s perspective strategies in the field of the improvement for the status of women till 2000».
Recently there were made a few other steps in the world to defense woman`s rights, for e.g. discussion and acceptance of the Declaration about Prevention of woman`s abuse in 1993, appointment of a special Reporter on the question of women`s rights in 1994.
But there are still a lot of problems. All the steps mentioned above couldn`t help this problem to become a systematic part of the United Nations Organization`s work. Practically the reports connected with the problem of women`s rights are excluded of the agenda. Only a few women take part in the sessions of the UNO`s Commissions. Women take part only in the Sections which discuss some special questions.
So, we think this course to be of great importance for the students and teachers. We hope it`ll help to realize these problems to law-defending organizations and gender organizations.
Bibliography:
- Equal Possibilities and Gender Stereotypes on Labor Market (Gender Expertise of RF Law Code, l998)
- Sociologist View of the Results of the 4th World Conference on Women, Beijing, l996 –– Galina Salliste
- Novikova A. The international protection of women`s rights: history and contemporaneity
- Human rights: the facts ? 22, the women discrimination: Convention and Committee/ UNO, 1995
- UNO`s Chronicles. 1996, February, vol.32, nu.3
- Introduction into UNO, Moscow, Iouridicheskaia literatura, 1995
- Mertus Julia. Women`s rights –– Human`s rights: textbook. Moscow, Glas, 1996
- State Responses to Domestic Violence. WLDI. Washington. D.C. 1996-1998
- Advertising Women of New York (AWNY). The AWNY Report: A Study of Women and Men in the Advertising/ Communication Industry. - New York, AWNY,1993.
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