SOCHUM I: The Empowerment of Women 

Jason Hu

YMUN Taiwan
@ymuntaiwan

Letter from the Dais

Dear Delegates,


My name is Jason Hu, and I am very excited to be chairing the The Third Committee of the United Nations at the fifth annual Yale Model United Nations Taiwan conference (YMUNT). I am a junior at Yale, and I am majoring in psychology on the neuroscience track. I am also apart of Yale's Education Studies Scholar program. In addition to being apart of the Yale International Relations Association (the parent organization of YMUNT), I participate in student government, do graphic designer for several publications on campus, tutor various subjects, and do psychology research.


Through the Yale International Relations Association (YIRA), I have been a part conferences such as the Security Council Simulation at Yale (SCSY), the World Scholar’s Cup (WSC), and Yale Model United Nations (YMUN). I served as a chair for SCSY and YMUN for three years. In this capacity, I worked closely with delegates to make sure debates ran smoothly. For WSC, I served to help coordinate hundreds of delegates, plan logistics, and organize events for delegates. With the experience that I gained from these conferences (and the prior experience that I gained from competing in model United Nations conferences in high school), I look forward to chairing the Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian, also called SOCHUM.


As the third general assembly of the UN, SOCHUM is quite an important player. I think that SOCHUM plays a special role in addressing human rights issues that affect people all over the world. I am excited to see how you, the delegates, tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems, covering issues such as development, governance, health care, environment, education, poverty reduction, and much more. Through the specific lens of the rights of women and indigenous people, I hope you will be able to see connections between various areas of the world and between marginalized peoples to find solutions that also recognize regional and group differences. To do so, teamwork as well as careful analysis of possible solutions is imperative. I cannot wait to see how you answer difficult questions about the unique and shared problems each member nation faces as well as provide possible, pragmatic, and enforceable solutions to those problems. Granted, the topics of empowering women and education in indigenous community present many challenges that will not necessarily be easy to answer—but that is just another reason I look forward to working with you all.


Best wishes,

Jason Hu

jason.hu@yale.edu

Topic History

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer, published a brief article entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The article argued that women are not less than men—instead, a lack of education was hindering women’s participation in society. Wollstonecraft argued that women participating in society was essential to that society’s well being, and thus argued that equal access to education ought to be ensured.


Across the world in the United States of America, and over half a decade later, activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott pressed for women’s rights at the Seneca Falls Convention held in 1848. At the convention, attendees drafted the Declaration of Sentiments, which argued that “all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—clear referencing the United States’ Declaration of Independence.

Securing women's rights also often coincided with other political issues. In the United States, for example, matters of women’s rights were frequently associated with the fight for the abolition of slavery. Across the world, these rights often coincided with more economic issues, such as the push for socialism. The Second International Socialist Women’s Conference in 1910, for example, addressed issues like legislation, suffrage, education, and public health. The conference also pushed for an international day to honor’s the women’s rights movement and push for universal suffrage. One year letter, on March 19, 1911, International Women’s Day was first celebrated. Men and women attended rallies across the world to support a greater role for women in society. Among the rights they envisioned for women were the right to vote, hold public office, obtain vocational training, and participate in the labor force.

With an international framework in place, women’s rights became a more and more prominent issue. Shortly after the first celebration of International Women’s Day, the first International Congress of Women met in The Hague in 1915. The Congress would later develop into the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which has defended human rights by emphasizing the role of women in the building of peace. Their work helped guide the Fourteen Points, used to make peace with Germany after World War I, and enact change for women’s peace and security.

When the UN was created, it acknowledged the aforementioned work by women’s rights activists by recognizing "the dignity and worth of the human person and [the] equal rights of men and women," in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the first international documents to recognize gender equality. But despite this added legitimacy, it was only until 1995 that women’s rights became synonymous with fundamental human rights, emphasized at the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women when the Beijing Declaration was unanimously adopted by 189 countries. The impacts of the declaration continue today, with global reviews conducted every five years to assess progress with respect to the declaration’s goals which included empowering women through education, eliminating violence against women and girls, ensure equal access to economic resources, and more.

In between the creation of the UN and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration, the First World Conference on Women was held in Mexico City in 1975. The conference devised a plan with actions and objectives to help empower women. In 1979, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is regarded as a bill of rights for the women, defining the obligations of states to end gender discrimination.

In 1985, the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace (Third World Conference on Women) was held in Nairobi. Alongside the conference was ran the NGO Forum, which hosted over 15,000 representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This event marked the beginning of what many term “global feminism,” a form of feminism that breaks from Western tradition and recognizes the legacy of colonialism in its fight for women’s rights across the world. At these discussions, it was evident that the goals of the First World Conference on Women had not been met, and new strategies had to be adopted. Primarily, the members concluded that although there were improvements, the number of women who were able to access the benefits of those improvements were very limited. As solutions for this, the Third World Conference on Women pushed for constitutional reform and urged for more opportunities for social and political participation. The conference also framed all issues to be women’s issues.

Today, the struggle continues. In January 2017, American women led the Women’s March in their nation’s capital to support women’s rights. Though the march largely centered around the election of President Donald Trump, there was much focus on women’s rights issues. Moreover, the American march was joined by marches across the world—in Africa, Europe, South America, and more. The marches included various initiatives supporting women in political office, youth, and discussion on a wide range of topics.



Current Situation

As mentioned previously, the UN's support of women’s rights started when it was founded. Article 1 of the Charter emphasizes that the United Nations ought to promote "respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." Within a year, the UN established the Commission on the Status of Women as the policy-making body dedicated specifically to gender equality and the advancement of women. It was this Commission that pushed for gender neutral language in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the UN’s support of women’s rights has only continued to grow. For example, in 2010, a UN body was created to focus on women’s empowerment: The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, a “global champion for women and girls.” To date, UN Women has helped women become local leaders in India, actively advocated for women to be apart of post-disaster decision making, increased the understanding of gender dimensions during the Ebola outbreak, and more. Currently, it is located in 30 different countries helping support female-headed household and providing support for refugees.

At large, much of the UN is focused on achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) set forth in 2015. Goals include eliminating poverty and hunger, promoting quality education, climate action, and more (you can see all 17 of the goals here).

While many of these goals do not specifically mention women, women have a critical role to play each one of them. Many of the goals simply require women’s equality and empowerment as part of their solutions.

Violence Against Women

Note: The section below addresses sensitive topics.

The UN defines violence against women, a global issue, as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life." Even in countries that have made much progress in the area of women's rights, violence against women is still a significant issue. Globally, 35% of women have experience some sort of violence.

There are several types of violence that are referred to in the literature:

Intimate partner violence is any behavior by an intimate partner or ex-partner that causes physical, sexual, or psychological harm to the victim. It includes, but is not limited to physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse, and controlling behaviors.


Sexual violence includes any sexual act, act directed against a person’s sexuality, or attempts to obtain a sexual act. It can occur regardless of the perpetrator’s relationship to the victim.


Intimate partner violence (both physical and sexual) is the primary form of violence that women face. Male intimate partners are also responsible for 38% of murders of women. But violence also creates significant, lasting consequences other than murder. Violence can cause detriment to a women’s physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health, as well as increase their risk of acquiring HIV.


In 2008, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the campaign UNiTE to End Violence Against Women, calling the issue one that “cannot wait.”


The causes of violence against women are many and cannot exhaustively be listed. The World Health Organization reports that “[m]en are more likely to perpetrate violence if they have low education, a history of child maltreatment, exposure to domestic violence against their mothers, harmful use of alcohol, unequal gender norms (e.g. accepting of violence), and a sense of entitlement over women.” On the other hand, “[w]omen are more likely to experience intimate partner violence if they have low education, exposure to mothers being abused by a partner, abuse during childhood,” and unequal gender norms (e.g. “attitudes accepting violence, male privilege, and women’s subordinate status”). These factors, however, cannot be simply thought of as causes of violence (read about the difference between correlation and causation). For example, lower levels of education are also associated with lower socioeconomic status, which may be another influence on how one may act.


Solutions to this problem are not simple, though various approaches have been effective. For example, advocacy, empowerment counselling interventions, and home visitation have been effective at preventing and reducing intimate partner violence against women. One critique of these methods, however, is that they are not pragmatic for resource-poor settings. In such cases, other approaches can be taken; for example, empowering women through microfinance (see next paragraph) and skills training has shown to promote gender equality. Literacy training programs, for example, have helped over 6,000 women in Senegal. Reproductive health training, vocational (e.g. in construction, agriculture, textiles, etc.) training, and soft skills (e.g. communication and leadership) training are several other areas that skill building programs focus on.


Microfinance is the process of loaning small amounts of money to new businesses.


Other strategies include promoting communication and relationship skills, reducing access to and harmful use of alcohol, and transforming gender norms through group-based education.


Another factor of interventions to consider is how long their impacts last. To create long lasting results, legislation needs to be developed and enforced. Specifically, governments should work towards policies that achieve that end discrimination against women, improve women’s access to employment, and develop local and national plans to address violence against women. Currently, many countries like Bahrain, Nigeria, and Jordan do not consider sexual violence as a violent crime; rather it is a moral one, which allows convicted offenders to escape punishment. Equality Now, an NGO dedicated to the protection of women, says that these type of policies discriminate women and re-victimize victims.


Even with effective intervention and well-designed policy, situations of conflict and displacement from conflict often worsen violence, both by intimate partners and non-partners.

Wage Equality

On average, working women receive 24% less than men globally, and that number continues to widen. It is currently estimated that it will take 217 years to close this gap. However, in purely economic terms, this gap needs to be closed. A lack of gender parity hinders economic growth, which is not possible if half of the world's "talent pool" is not appropriately developed or utilized. In fact, parity would add $28 trillion to the global economy. From the perspectives of companies, women account for 70% of sales and are the fastest growing group of consumers—yet another reason to close the wage gap between men and women.

Therefore, closing this gap is crucial. Goal 5 of the SDGs specifically calls for the achievement of this objective but more broadly, the economic empowerment of women is critical for the achievement of all other SDGs.

Social norms and stereotypes limit the expectations of what “women can or should do,” which limits their opportunities to be hired. Training programs can be used to combat these limiting norms and stereotypes. For example, in Nepal and India, women often have to ask their husbands for permission to leave the house, which can greatly decrease their ability to work or even seek employment. Education has also been crucial towards increasing employment opportunities through literacy training, financial training, confidence building, and skills training. Microfinancing has also been utilized to empower female business owners, and even help them escape poverty.


Political Representation


While the number of women in representative governments (e.g. parliaments) has improved over the years, parity is far from being achieved. In 1995, only 11.3% of parliamentarians were female; as of 2016, that number has only risen to 22.8%. While the numbers regarding women in government are improving, only 2 countries have more than 50% women in parliament (Bolivia and Rwanda). In 2017, only 11 women were serving as Heads of State and only 12 women were serving as Heads of Government. This trend pervades other areas of government as well.


The role of women in government, however, is crucial. Their representation can make a difference. For example, in Norway, a causal relationship has been found between the presence of women in municipal councils (governments) and the amount of childcare coverage. In other areas, women have been champions of gender equality, pushing for the elimination of gender-based violence, childcare, pensions, gender-equality, and electoral reform.

In order to increase the number of women involved in government, some countries, particularly those in South America and Africa, have reserved seats or quotas for women, opening space for women’s political participation.

Several key challenges frame this issue. On one hand, women are underrepresented as voters. On the other hand, women face many barriers to participating in politics. Discriminatory laws, restricted education, and access to fewer resources are often responsible for both of these challenges. To address these challenges, the UN has offered training to help build political capacities, worked to increase civic engagement, called upon governments to empower women, and more.


Questions to Consider

What issues do the women in your country face?

Which issues that women face has your country tried to address?

Have these attempts been successful?

What systems exist in your country to prevent violence against women?

What systems exist in your country to help women who have experienced violence?

What conditions influence/cause violence against women in your country?

How disparate is pay for men and women in your country? Why does such a gap exist in your country?

What actually is empowerment?

What does empowerment look like for your country? Does that match with the global standard?

How do you balance changing the norms and preserving the culture?

What role do women play in your country's politics?

How many women vote?

How many women hold office?

Does your country have any gender quotas for its government?

Are there other unmentioned issues that women in your country face?

Further Resources

Glossary

Abolition- the action of ending something; in most cases, the action of ending slavery

Abolitionist- one who wishes to end something; in most cases, slavery

CEDAW- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

Microfinance- Lending small amounts of money at a low interest rate with the intention of supporting new, small businesses

NGO(s)- a non-governmental organization; non-profit, voluntary group that wishes to effect change

Quotas- a limit or required quantity of a particular thing

Suffrage- the right to vote in elections

Suffragette- a woman seeking the right to vote

Universal suffrage- the right to vote of all adults, subject only to minor exceptions