Arab Women Taking the Stage at the CSW Meeting in NYC
Request to Speak During General Discussion
Topic: Refugee and stateless women and financing for gender equality and women's rights
Preferred Session: Thursday, 2/28/2008, 10:00 am
Name of Speaker: Azza Kamel, Egypt, for the Western Asia Caucus (Azza Kamel is an NGO delegate from the Karama regional movement, a partner of Open Society Institute, the ECOSOC-accredited NGO)
Email to contact speaker: sarah@sarahvaill.com, actegypt@yahoo.com
Local phone number to contact speaker: (323) 251-6521 mobile, (212) 758-1234 #3018
The Western Asia Caucus comprises NGOs of the Karama movement in the Arab region, (includes North Africa and the Middle East), as well as Pakistan and Turkey. We note the geographic grouping of 'Western Asia' is difficult to represent in a caucus. The issues are very different for women, for instance, in Turkey, Pakistan, Syria, and Sudan.
Nevertheless, we highly praise the effort exerted by the Secretary General in his report on the Status of the Palestinian Woman submitted to the 52nd Session of CSW, and the assistance provided to her, which reflected the concern of the international organizations for the deterioration of the situation of the Palestinian woman and occupied Palestine, and the lack of information, limited resources allocated for dealing with the violation of human rights, and the halting of direct support extended by the donors.
However, the report did not allude to the situation of the Palestinian woman outside the Occupied Territories and their double suffering and her specifically needed human rights, foremost her self-determination and Right of Return. In this context and in the lack of absence of protection, support, and resources extended to deal with the situation of women refugees in the Arab region, we believe that it is necessary to address these issues and those of Iraqi women refugees which number 2 million, as well as the Sudanese and Somali women refugees, and the Moroccan Sahara women.
www.elkarama.org
Recommendations—we are calling upon the United Nations to:
1) To support the UNRWA and all concerned international organizations with resources to increase efforts towards improving the living conditions and to empower and protect women
2) To provide sufficient and adequate resources for building the women's movement, networks, and NGOs in an independent manner and to call upon the governments to eliminate the obstacles impeding NGOs
3) To urge the government to set policies and resurces for countering marginalization and discrimination—Pakistan—and to set mechanisms for monitoring and implementing the policies of these countries regarding the special programs countering sexual and economic exploitation.
4) To set policies codifying the work of household and migrant workers in the region and to enact laws to protect their civil and labor rights
We ask the CSW to amend the Agreed Conclusions with the following language in:
Paragraph 11j. Initiate transparent expenditure reviews, with the participation of civil society, which link the allocation of resources to overall development goals, including gender equality, and evaluate impacts on the poor, in particular women and vulnerable populations including refugee and stateless women and migrant women workers.
Paragraph 11l. Carry out gender assessment of labor laws and standards to ensure protection of migrant women under national and international codes with particular attention to export processing zones … on existing agreed multi-lateral instruments including the international labor organization conventions.
Note: Underlined text denotes our suggested changes to the Draft Agreed Conclusions.