HKMUN 2013: Chair Report of the General Assembly

Forum: Social, Cultural and Humanitarian Committee Issue: Gender Inequality

This guide should serve as a helpful introduction to the topic and possible questions. Independent Research is expected and encouraged.

Some say that sexual orientation and gender identity are sensitive issues. I understand. Like many of my generation, I did not grow up talking about these issues. But I learned to speak out because lives are at stake, and because it is our duty under the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to protect the rights of everyone, everywhere. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Human Rights Council, 7 March 2012

Introduction
Despite huge progress in gender equality, both economic and social through the past five decades, social barriers between genders is a devastating actuality. Currently transcending merely just male and female roles, transgendered people face huge discrimination and difficulty in their everyday lives. There has been persistent debate on the rights and roles of women in todays world, including measures to alleviate poverty (where women are still vastly over-represented) and create opportunity especially in countries with highly patriarchal systems. Entrenched in the problem is the socially constructed gender norms that often lead women to be overrepresented in certain fields, and highly unrepresented in both government and high positions of power. Segregation of occupation is a growing problem, as it contributes to the still wide pay gap between men and women as well as entrenching power male-dominated power structures. Furthermore, traditional masculine stereotypes which encourage men to have more sexual partners have contributed to the spread of HIV through increased transmission and missing out on HIV prevention education.

The United Nations defines violence against women 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 in private life." In areas where womens status is lower, fear can lead to lack of reporting as well as accessing treatment after traumatic injury. A combination of extreme poverty and traditional biases against women concocts a vicious cycle of gender discrimination and gender inequality that wrongly justifies tragedies such as high statistics of neglect towards young girls as well as high frequencies of infanticide and sex-selective abortion.

Key terms and areas of concern

Past UN reports and resolutions
A/HRC/RES/17/19 Human Rights Council Resolution 14th of July 2011 was the first ever resolution on the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people, outlining a need for better protection and legislation. It also expresses grave concern at violence and discrimination against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. "No society treats its women as well as its men." That is the conclusion from the United

Nations Development Programme, as written in its 1997 Human Development Report. Almost 50 years earlier, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly had adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which specified that everyone, regardless of sex, was entitled to the same rights and freedoms. The 1997 Human Development Report, as well

as every Human Development Report that followed, has highlighted that each country falls short of achieving that goal. The severity of the shortfall varies by country; Nordic

countries such as Sweden, Norway and Iceland, for example, are routinely hailed as having the smallest gender gaps. In the developing world, however, women face unfairness that can be hard to fathom. 2011 Human Development Report The disadvantages facing women and girls are a major source of inequality. All too often, women and girls are discriminated against in health, education and the labour marketwith negative repercussions for their freedoms. Thus, the UN has introduced a new measure of these inequalities built on the same framework as the HDI and the IHDI to better expose

differences in the distribution of achievements between women and men. Inequality Index shows that:

The Gender

Gender inequality varies tremendously across countriesthe losses in achievement due to gender inequality (not directly comparable to total inequality losses because different variables are used) range from 17 percent to 85 percent. The Netherlands

tops the list of the most gender-equal countries, followed by Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. Countries with unequal distribution of human development also experience high inequality between women and men, and countries with high gender inequality also experience unequal distribution of human development. Among the countries doing

very badly on both fronts are Central African Republic, Haiti and Mozambique.

Gender Inequality Index (GII)

The Gender Inequality Index (GII) is a new index for measurement of gender disparity that was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This index is a composite measure

which captures the loss of achievement, within a country, due to gender inequality, and uses three dimensions to do so: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation. The dimensions are captured in one synthetic index, as to account for joint significance. According to the UNDP, none of the measures in the dimensions pertain to the country's development and therefore a less-developed country can perform well if gender inequality is low. The UNDP considers the dimensions complimentary in that inequality in one Therefore, the GII captures association

dimension tends to affect inequality in another.

across dimensions, making the index association-sensitive, and ensuring that high achievement in one dimension does not compensate for low achievement in another dimension.

Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that were officially established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. All 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve these goals by the year 2015. The goals include the promoting of gender equality and empowering women. The goals and areas regarding gender inequality are as follows: Target 3A: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015 Ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament For girls in some regions, education remains elusive Poverty is a major barrier to education, especially among older girls

In every developing region except the CIS, men outnumber women in paid employment

Women are largely relegated to more vulnerable forms of employment Women are over-represented in informal employment, with its lack of benefits and security

Top-level jobs still go to men to an overwhelming degree Women are slowly rising to political power, but mainly when boosted by quotas and other special measures

Professional Obstacles
Women fought for decades to take their place in the workplace alongside men, but that fight isn't over yet. According to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Census, women earn just 77 percent of what men earn for the same amount of work. In addition to this gender wage gap, women often face a glass ceiling when it comes to promotions. Women who have children often find themselves penalized for taking time off; if they're not dismissed, they may face discrimination and outdated ideas of what a woman can accomplish if she's pregnant or a mother. Jobs that are considered traditional women's work, such as nursing and teaching, are often some of the lowest-paying fields.

Gender Violence
In 2008, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported that one in every three women is likely "to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime". In both the

developed and the developing world, violence against women in the form of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse or spousal killing is such routine behavior that it rarely even makes the news anymore. In conflict zones, rape of women and children is increasingly used as a

weapon of war. In other countries, marital rape is condoned, and some countries have laws that require a certain number of male witnesses to testify before a court before it will acknowledge that a rape has occurred. Even in developed countries, women are often

blamed and questioned about actions if they become the victims of rape or physical abuse, while their attackers may not face such questioning. There is also a significant stigma that

surrounds reporting rapes, as evidenced in the recent incident in India.

Feticide and Infanticide

In some countries, such as China and India, a male child is perceived as more valuable than a female child. Thanks to advances in genetic testing, parents can find out if they're having a

boy or a girl, and they may elect to end a pregnancy that would yield a female child. the parents don't receive advance notice, they may kill the child after its birth.

And if

As a result,

the gender ratio in some countries is skewed; in India, for example, there were 927 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001.

Restricted Land Ownership

In some countries, such as Chile and Lesotho, women lack the right to own land. must include the name of a man, be it the woman's husband or father. All deeds If one of those men

were to die, the woman has no legal claim to land that she may have lived on or worked all her life. Often, widows are left homeless because the deceased man's family will throw them out of their homes. And some women remain in abusive marriages so that they won't lose a place to live. Such restricted rights can be particularly frustrating in rural areas where agriculture is dominant. Women may spend their entire lives cultivating and

harvesting foodstuffs for no pay, only to lack a safety net when the father or husband leaves or dies.

Feminization of Poverty
Of course, poverty is not to be the main focus of the resolution pertaining to this topic, but it is interesting to note that there is an increasing trend within societies with exceeding amount of poverty in where females are more likely to sink into lower and lower income brackets. In some cases, women in some countries have no right to own the land on which they live or work. Not only can such a state trap women in abusive marriages, it also contributes to a phenomenon that economists have deemed the "feminization of poverty." More than 1.5

billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day, and the majority of those people are women. The United Nations often cites the statistic that women do two-thirds of the world's work, receive 10 percent of the world's income and own 1 percent of the means of production. Women can be left destitute if they're denied access to land, but inability to claim land also perpetuates the cycle of poverty. Many female entrepreneurs

have been foiled and left to dwell in poverty because of restricted access to basic legal rights.

Access to Healthcare
In many countries, a pregnant woman in labor can head to any hospital, confident that she will receive assistance in delivery. However, according to the World Health Organization, one woman dies in childbirth every minute of every day. That's more than 500,000 deaths every year, many of which could have been prevented if the woman had been allowed to leave her home to receive treatment, or if she'd had a skilled attendant by her side. Childbirth is but Another

one example of how women receive unequal access to health care services. example is the growing number of women infected with HIV/AIDS.

For many years, men

comprised the bulk of new infections, but in Sub-Saharan Africa, women now form half of the infected persons.

Freedom to Marry and Divorce

In some countries, love may not enter the discussion at all when it comes to marriage. In many countries, young girls are forced to marry men two or three times their age. According to UNICEF, more than one-third of women aged 20 to 24 were married before they turned 18, which is considered the minimum legal age of marriage in most countries. Child brides give birth at early ages, which increases the chance of complications in childbirth and the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. When a woman wants out of a loveless marriage, her options are limited in many countries. In some places, courts automatically grant custody of children to the husband, and women often have no chance of receiving any measure of financial support. In other places, such as Egypt, women don't even have access to a court. While men are allowed a divorce after an oral renunciation registered with the court, women face years of obstacles to get in front of a judge. For this reason, many women around the world are trapped in abusive marriages.

Political Participation
Analysts often posit that many of the issues of gender inequality could be solved if women had higher levels of political participation. Despite making up half the global population, women hold only 15.6 percent of elected parliamentary seats in the world. They're missing

from all levels of government -- local, regional and national. Why is it important that women take part in politics? A study that examined women in leadership in Bolivia,

Cameroon and Malaysia found that when women could take part in shaping spending priorities, they were more likely to invest in family and community resources, health,

education and the eradication of poverty than the men, who were more likely to invest in the military.

Education Attainment
Of the children that aren't in school right now, the majority of them are girls. Women make up more than two-thirds of the world's illiterate adults. Girls may be kept out of school to help with household chores, they may be pulled from school if their father deems it's time for them to marry, or there may only be enough money to educate one child from the family -- and the boy assumes the responsibility. This gap in educational attainment is especially pertinent as numerous studies show that educating girls is a key factor in eliminating poverty and aiding development. Girls who complete school are less likely to marry young, more likely to have smaller families and exhibit better health outcomes in relation to maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS. These women also go on to earn higher

salaries, which they then invest in their own families, thus ensuring that future generations of girls get to go on to school. Indeed, it is addressing the inequalities in education that

may solve many of the problems of gender inequality.

Country Case Studies

Kuwait
UNDP assisted Kuwait as women participated in parliamentary elections for the first time ever in 2006. Before and during the poll, UNDP partnered with civil society organizations to help prepare women running as candidates and to disseminate information about voting so that all women who wanted to vote could do so. Billboards, posters on buses and advertisements on television urged women to let their voices be heard. A leading expert on Islamic law came from Morocco to hold a series of seminars on Islam and women's political participation. In the end, no women candidates won seats in the new Parliament, but 35 percent of eligible women voted, a participation rate higher than in some long-established democracies.

Rwanda
Recently, Rwanda conducted elections for the Presidency and the parliament had a referendum on a new constitution. For the first time in Rwanda's history, free and fair elections were held. The new constitution guarantees a minimum of 30 percent of

parliamentary seats and other leadership positions to women. Today, Rwanda has the

highest number of women parliamentarians in the world with women constituting nearly 50 percent in the Chamber of Deputies and about 35 percent in the Senate. The Government of Rwanda also has 34 percent of women in its Cabinet. UNDP has been supporting the Rwanda Parliament, in particular the Rwanda Women Parliamentary Forum. In February 2007, the Forum held an international conference to share its experiences and to forge partnerships with development allies in the area of nation building. Speakers at the

conference agreed that women play a critical role in the development of nations and in the attainment of the MDGs.

Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia provides the most extreme example of limited mobility for women: country, women are not allowed to drive a car or ride a bicycle on public roads. In that The strict

Islamic law in the country prohibits women from leaving the home without a man's permission, and if they do leave the home, they can't drive a car. Doing so would require

removal of their veils, which is forbidden, and it could potentially bring them in contact with strange men, another forbidden practice. While Saudi Arabia is the only country that prohibits women from driving a car, other countries restrict women's overseas travels by limiting their access to passports, and even women in developed countries may complain of limited mobility. While these women may have the legal right to drive cars and ride planes, they may elect not to go out by themselves at night due to the threat of rape or attack.

Possible approaches
The United Nations recognizes that the issue of gender inequality is a thorn that has long been in the body of the world. It is a sensitive topic, yet one that pervades deeply into everyday life and work, reaching to the more than three billion women that inhabit the Earth. Delegates must understand the issues and cultures that influence and shape a countrys policies regarding gender inequality. Thus resolutions should address the broad spectrum of inequality. Resolutions being made should address first of all the broad definition of gender inequality and the reams and constructs that put those structures in place. The issues of past UN resolutions, declarations and reports, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Gender Inequality Index and the Human Development Reports can all be taken into consideration.

Furthermore, resolutions could target issues such as disparity of pay between male and females, gender violence, female infanticide and feticide, restricted socio-economic options such as land ownership and political participation and access to healthcare and education.

Bibliography and other resources

Human Development reports and consequences
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/examples-gender-inequality-around-wo rld.htm http://hdr.undp.org/en/mediacentre/summary/gender/ http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Complete_reprint.pdf

Gender Inequality Index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Inequality_Index http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Complete_reprint.pdf

Millennium Development Goals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Development_Goals#Goal_3:_Promote_gender_e quality_and_empower_women http://www.mdgmonitor.org/story.cfm?goal=3

Pay Equity
http://www.pay-equity.org/

Gender Violence
http://uk.oneworld.net/guides/gender

Feticide and Infanticide

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0209/p11s01-wosc.html

Restricted Land Ownership

http://www.fao.org/economic/es-policybriefs/briefs-detail/en/?no_cache=1&uid=40497

Feminization of poverty
https://members.weforum.org/pdf/Global_Competitiveness_Reports/Reports/gender_gap. pdf http://www.globalissues.org/article/166/womens-rights

Access to Healthcare
http://www.who.int/features/qa/12/en/index.html http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports/re56.pdf

Freedom of Marriage and Divorce

http://www.unicef.org/protection/files/Child_Marriage.pdf

Political Participation
https://members.weforum.org/pdf/Global_Competitiveness_Reports/Reports/gender_gap. pdf

Education Attainment
https://members.weforum.org/pdf/Global_Competitiveness_Reports/Reports/gender_gap. pdf

Country Case studies

http://www.mdgmonitor.org/story.cfm?goal=3