A Call to End Gender Persecution Globally...

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A Call to End Gender Persecution Globally

by or before January 1, 2020

 

Revision 33.

 

A call to end gender persecution.

 

Gender-based violence is one of the most pervasive of human-rights abuses. It

covers a range of injustices – from gender abuse to systematic rape and from

pre-birth sex selection to female genital mutilation – that affect as many as

one in three women. [uNFPA.] (1)

 

In 2005, Human Rights Watch described " violence and discrimination against women

[as] global social epidemics. " (2) Aware of the widespread trend of gender-based

violence in the world today, Vision 2020 calls for an end to gender persecution

globally by (or before) January 1, 2020.

 

The Nairobi Forward-Looking Platform defines equality as:

 

" … both a goal and a means whereby individuals are accorded equal treatment

under the law and equal opportunities to enjoy their rights and to develop their

potential talents and skills so that they can participate in national political,

economic, social and cultural development and can benefit from its results. For

women in particular, equality means the realization of rights that have been

denied as a result of cultural, institutional, behaviourial and attitudinal

discrimination. " (3)

 

For me, an egalitarian world is one in which one's rights do not depend on one's

gender. An egalitarian world is one in which both genders enjoy equal rights and

dignities. They are " gender-equal " even though biology makes different demands

on them. I consider none of these demands to be grounds for the violation of

basic human rights. If anything, the world community has agreed that motherhood

and childhood call for special consideration. (4)

 

I also do not consider a culture or a religion to be grounds for the violation

of basic human rights. Where these conflict, in my view, basic human rights must

prevail.

 

Gender persecution is not a fact of life

 

I think we need to remind ourselves that gender persecution is not a principle

of life, but a condition. It is not a fact of life, but an artifact (an artifact

is a human creation). There is nothing in the laws of nature that I am aware of

that says that gender persecution must exist.

 

Gender persecution arises because men force on women a worldview that works to

women's detriment. That worldview (it is not a " philosophy " ) has been called

male dominance, male chauvinism, patriarchy, machismo, and sexism. It condemns

women to a life of abuse. It turns its gaze aside from rape and murder. It has

written for us a sordid and sorrowful chapter in world history.

 

This worldview has neither support from genuine spiritual sources nor a

grounding in human rights. The wisest and most compassionate among us contradict

it.

 

What they declare is that no man can claim an innate right to rule over a woman.

We all submit to rule as citizens, but all other matters are governed by human

rights and law.

 

Life is not a struggle for existence in which only the strongest survive. The

words of men do not carry more weight than the words of women. Men cannot do

whatever they want to women.

 

In some parts of the world, gender persecution has disappeared from women's

lives, though crime and lesser discrimination persist. But the widespread,

serious harm that the word " persecution " conveys has ceased as a daily feature

of the lives of enough people on this planet that it is becoming commonly

discussed that it need not be a feature of the lives of any.

 

Male dominance exists solely because we as a world allow it to exist. It has no

innate strength in the face of our strong and determined unwillingness to allow

it to prevail on this planet any longer.

 

Male dominance forever challenged

 

Male dominance was globally and forever challenged on December 10, 1948. On that

day the world, represented by the United Nations General Assembly, acknowledged

that basic human rights exist, equally shared by all human beings. The Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, which the world adopted through its

representatives, lays down that all human beings, male or female, are born free

and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone on Earth, it says, has the inalienable

right to life, liberty and security of person. No one shall be held in slavery

or servitude. No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or

degrading treatment or punishment. All human beings are equal before the law and

entitled to equal protection from it.

 

After the acceptance of the UDHR, the world agreed that no religious

interpretation, cultural tradition, or political circumstance should prevail in

a court of law over basic human rights.

 

Out from the trunk of the UDHR have sprung branches in every direction –

covenants, treaties, charters, declarations, statutes, codes of behaviour. The

UDHR holds the place over us as global citizens that the Bible holds over

Christians, the Koran over Muslims, and so on. Gradually a web of laws is

arising that will change our behaviour as a planet. The new commandments, the

new commitments are human rights.

 

The ending of the story of male dominance was written on that day in 1948. Male

dominance is not inevitable; equality is.

 

Apology

 

Noticeable by its absence in many parts of our world is the political will of

men to stop harming women, to speak out against harm, and to act to stop it

where another commits it.

 

In my opinion, if men awoke from their selfishness, they might apologize to

women.

 

I apologize to all the women of this world for the harm that men have visited

upon you. I am aware that this harm has included mutilation of your body,

restriction of your social and personal life, marriage to a person not of your

choosing, sexual harm, involuntary impregnation, forced abortion, and the denial

of education and employment. I am aware that many of you have been beaten by men

over long periods of time and some of you, whom we remember, have been sexually

enslaved and murdered.

 

I agree with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination

against Women (CEDAW) that the world should accede to interim measures to right

the balance between men and women, some of which may seem uneven or

discriminatory. I agree that these temporary measures are necessary to correct

the present imbalance. As CEDAW says:

 

" Adoption by States Parties of temporary special measures aimed at accelerating

de facto equality between men and women shall not be considered discrimination

as defined in the present Convention, but shall in no way entail as a

consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate standards; these measures

shall be discontinued when the objectives of equality of opportunity and

treatment have been achieved. " (5)

 

Much work ahead

 

My background is in the adjudication of refugee law. My viewpoint is

international and focused on " refugee-producing countries. " What I see from my

limited vantage point is a failure to live up to the values enshrined in the

UDHR and a failure to offer state protection to women who suffer from

human-rights abuses.

 

Much work awaits us. There are countries that will need to pass laws, create

uncorrupted police forces and armies, build a fair and impartial judiciary, and

so on.

 

Why a deadline? Only a global deadline will allow the vertical and horizontal

realignment of forces needed to cause momentum to build. Only a deadline will

make possible the orchestrated, synchronized effort required to turn back the

wave of gender abuse drowning the world today.

 

Matters will not happen overnight. They will not happen as separate steps. As

the wave of willingness to accede to human rights grows, so will the wave of

corruption in state protection end. As the wave of corruption ends, so will the

wave of willingness grow.

 

It may be that the world needs nowhere like a time limit of 2020. All may be

achieved by 2015. I don't know. The sooner male dominance loosens its grip, the

better for the world. But, to my mind, 2020 permits the time needed for momentum

to build and for institutions to transform themselves.

 

Have we precedent? Yes, we do. In 1961, John F. Kennedy set a deadline of 1970

for the United States to put a man on the moon. In the orchestrated effort that

followed, which might never have arisen without a deadline, an astronaut landed

on the moon in 1969.

 

Surely, a world with the skills to put a man on the moon has the skills to see

that each woman has a free, safe, and equal place on Earth.

 

This is not the last evolutionary step we will take as a planet, but, in my

view, it is the next.

 

Notes

 

(1) UNFPA, http://www.unfpa.org/16days/, downloaded 7 Feb. 2005.

(2) " Women's Rights, " Human Rights Watch 2005.

(3) Nairobi Forward-Looking Platform. New York: U.N., 1986.

(4) Article 25.2, UDHR.

(5) Article 4.1, CEDAW.

 

Steve Beckow

Vision 2020

Vancouver, Canada

unity22

Written: January 1, 2007.

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