SAARC Gender Database launched
New Delhi: The recent Sixth South Asian Regional Ministerial Conference, organised by the UNIFEM South Asia regional office was formally inaugurated by the President Smt Pratibha Patil last week on January 17.
A single data pool on gender issues of the region, it has records on trafficking and violence against women, and women’s health, including HIV/AIDS and feminization of poverty. While lauding SAARC for its effort, the President Smt Patil said there is a need to implement more legislative and policy measures for the empowerment of women. There is also the need to make women aware of various schemes and development initiatives, she added. “Empowering women is the most effective tool for development as well as for poverty reduction… Educated and enlightened women can look after families better, make societies compassionate and make nations progressive.” In her speech, the President made a tribute to the women of India who had fought along with men in the freedom struggle. In the words of Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, she quoted: "Most of us men folk were in prison. And then a remarkable thing happened. Our women came to the front and took charge of the struggle…which took not only the British Government but their own men folk by surprise." “Such is the strength of our women and all that is needed is to give them the opportunities and options for realising their potential,” she added. Ms Renuka Chowdhury, Minister of Women and Child Development, said “It is undeniable that the goals of development are essentially entwined with those of women.” Chandni Joshi, Regional Programme Director, UNIFEM, admitted that gender inequalities continue to persist and perpetuate in the region. “Women are still on the fringes of social, economic and political developments, and key processes in participation and decision-making.” According to UNESCAP (2007), gender discrimination has cost the Asia Pacific region nearly US$ 80 billion per year, she added. At the same time, she was emphatic that gender equality was “doable”, when backed by political commitments and resources. Keeping the spirit alive The recent Sixth South Asian Regional Ministerial Conference was a commemoration of the 1995 Beijing Platform of Action. More than a decade back, world leaders from 189 countries had gathered at Beijing at the Fourth World Conference on Women, to make a commitment of gender justice and equality to the women of the world, and develop a global action plan – the Beijing Platform of Action. In an effort to keep the spirit of Beijing alive, the UNIFEM South Asia regional office has been organising the ministerial conferences along with host governments since 1996. These meetings are a collective journey by the governments of the region and women's groups to assess progress on gender justice and empowerment, fill in the gaps and strategise the future. |
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"Gender, Religion, and Sustainable Development"Author:
Luis Gutierrez
Time: 22.01.2008 18:21
Comment: How can I access the new Gender Database?
FYI: Hello -- I have just posted an article on the "Religious Dimension of Sustainable Development." The link is: http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv04n01.html Please take a look when time permits. The article is on the left column (white background). I would be grateful for any feedback (positive or negative or in-between). Specifically, what do you think about the linguistic analysis of Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 5 in connection with the original unity of man and woman and the current situation regarding global issues of social and environmental injustice (excerpt pasted below). With best wishes for a good 2008, Luis ------------------------------------------------- EXCERPT Question: What incentives would motivate religious institutions to overcome patriarchy? The Baha'is have found the motivation via new religious insights (see the invited article). Other religious bodies may or may not be receptive to new insights. Old habits die hard, and it is not difficult to fabricate rationalizations. The Vatican's abrupt termination (via the publication of Ordinatio sacerdotalis, 1994) of the process of discernment about the ordination of women is a case in point. The literalist interpretation of certain scriptural texts are indicative of dubious and antiquated (if not self-serving) biblical exegesis. To add insult to injury, the subsequent ban on further discussion of the issue (clearly, a travesty) appears to close the door to further rational discourse. The continued exclusion of women from imaging God is a tragedy, and one that is already having severe and painful ramifications; for it leads to the delusion that domination by force is in accordance with a God who dominates by force. This applies not only to gender relations, but to all human relations. Other churches have been more open to new insights in human sexuality, and have allowed the ordination of women, but they are certainly paying the price in terms of divisive internal tensions. Question: What is it that, deep in the human psyche, rebels against women in roles of religious authority? Answer: Only God knows, but one possibility is the story about the creation of man and woman in early chapters of the Book of Genesis. These are the key texts: * "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27) * "Then the LORD God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." (Genesis 2:23) * "This is the written account of Adam's line. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them 'man.'" (Genesis 5:1-2) The traditional understanding of these texts is that the "man" was male-only and the "woman" was female-only. However, consider the following: * Genesis 1:27 does not support the notion that "man" was either male or female. On the contrary, the text states that God created one "man" that was both male and female. The same linguistic analysis applies to Genesis 2:22-23 and Genesis 5:1-2. * Genesis 2:22-23 confirms that the male "man" and the female "man" were not created independently of each other. On the contrary, "woman" was in "man," and only a literalist reading of the text would conclude that the "female man" was in "man" but the "male man" was not in "woman." * Genesis 5:1-2 reiterates that "man" was a single body-person, a single human being, in which both male and female abide. Sexual differentiation is the necessary culmination of the mystery of creation because it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18) and, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24). In brief, a man is a man and a woman is a woman, but there is man in woman, and there is woman in man. Surely, man and woman are mutually complementary, but it does not follow that they are mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as a man in whom there is no woman (i.e., no anima in Jungian terminology), and there is no such thing as a woman in whom there is no man (i.e., no animus in Jungian terminology). Furthermore, how much his anima influences a man, and how much her animus influences a woman, may have something to do with the propensity to homosexuality experienced by some persons. If so, it follows that homosexuals are perfectly normal persons. Be that as it may, it would be wrong for secular institutions to force religious institutions to embrace new insights in human sexuality that, for whatever reason, they are not ready to accept. On the other hand, it would be unfair to use tax revenues to subsidize churches that continue to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation. They are free to believe what they believe. But it is an injustice to support them with tax funds provided by citizens who know better. All such subsidies should be cancelled, and sooner rather than later. Freedom of religion does not exonerate civil authorities from adjudicating preferential treatment only to institutions that benefit society. |
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