|
UNIFEM BANGKOK NEWSIssue No. 4 July - September 1997 ContentsLorraine still on the moveGeoff on the move too - Presentation Skills for UNIFEM PacificGender-AIDs NetworkBrown Bag Lunch No. 3 - CEDAWEvelyn visits Yannawa District, Bangkok for Thai-UNCAPSub-Regional Programme on Trafficking in WomenRegional Dialogue on Globalization and Women in BusinessViolence Against Women Trust FundSoutheast Asian Regional Women in Politics Congress, TaipeiGender workshop, UN Gender Task Force, MyanmarInteresting happenings in the regionMainstreaming - an official definitionHave you Read . . . ?VisitorsWe also visited/attendedLorraine still on the moveIn the PacificThe main purpose of Lorraine's mission to the Pacific was to assist Laufitu Taylor, the UNIFEM Pacific RPA, to conduct a gender training workshop for the UN Gender Task Force in Suva. In order to learn the expectations and needs for the course, Lorraine first met with the various UN agencies whose staff members were participating. She also met with staff at the Forum Secretariat. The gender workshop was held over five days, the first three in the Travelodge Hotel. Late in the afternoon of the third day, most of the participants left with Laufitu for a field trip to conduct a gender analysis of a fish cannery project on a nearby island. Unfortunately, due to a meeting in New Zealand that could not be rescheduled, Lorraine had to miss the field exercise. Instead, she and Geoff saw the participants off on their flight and then travelled on to Nadi on the first leg of their journey to New Zealand.
Lorraine found that she was able to get through the curriculum more comfortably with two and a half days, compared with the usual two, and longer days (9:00 am - 5:00 pm). The participants caught on quickly, and were especially quick to identify the key gender issues in the model case study. All participated very actively and enthusiastically in the group work. At the end of the gender analysis session, in a roundtable feedback session several said that the workshop would change the way they carried out their work in the future. Some realized that their work in the past had been focussed narrowly on women, using a WID [women in development] approach rather than a gender approach [comparing the status of women and men and explicitly considering gender relations between women and men]. It had also often overlooked the key empowerment issues for women of their access to and control over resources and benefits and participation in decision making. They were very keen to put their new knowledge to practical use in the field work. Under the watchful eye of Laufitu, they were to have the opportunity to interview and observe the women and their families involved in fish cannery project in order to see how women and men related to the project and how it affected women and men differently. New ZealandAlthough Lorraine is from Australia, this was her first ever real visit to neighbouring New Zealand. [A couple of hours in Auckland airport in the middle of the night en route to Hawaii in 1980 hardly counts!] While in Wellington, Lorraine met with a number of government officials, including Marion Quinn, Women in Development Specialist, Evaluation, Analysis & Programme Support, in the Development Cooperation Division Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT). She briefed MFAT on the work of UNIFEM and the UNIFEM New Zealand National Committee and met individually with some staff dealing with particular countries in the East and Southeast Asian Region covered by UNIFEM Bangkok. On 14 June, Lorraine also attended a meeting of the New Zealand UNIFEM National Committee. This was actually the main purpose of her visit to New Zealand, as the Committee wants to be better informed on UNIFEM's work so that they can be more effective as advocates and in fund-raising. There was also much discussion of the VASS process through which the Committee hopes to access additional MFAT funds to assist UNIFEM projects in the region.
Lorraine met the Christchurch members of the National Committee at a breakfast on Tuesday morning. They were particularly interested in UNIFEM's work in Cambodia and Laos, which was the main topic of the meeting. Lorraine then visited the local Community Radio Station PLAINS FM 96.9, where she was interviewed by Leslie Evans for their Saturday morning broadcast "Women on Air". The staff also taped the interview for the Christchurch branch of the National Committee to use using during their Annual General Meeting later that week. While in Wellington, Lorraine and Geoff were hosted by Margaret and Pat Shields. Margaret is the President of the New Zealand National Committee. Margaret arranged for Lorraine to meet briefly with Denise Brown, Chief Analyst, Statistics New Zealand to discuss gender statistics and the valuation of unpaid work. Lorraine was interested in New Zealand's experience in time allocation studies and gathered some materials to share with countries in East and Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, that are starting to undertake time allocation surveys. Lorraine also met with Pat Webster of the Council for International Development (CID) although a planned meeting with Council members had to be cancelled due to a delayed and rather rough ferry crossing from the South Island on Wednesday. The Council is establishing a Development Studies Network in New Zealand for NGOs and others interested or involved in development activities. CID would like Lorraine to conduct a gender workshop for NGOs during a possible visit to New Zealand in 1998 for the UNIFEM Breakfast Programme for International Women's Day. Pat explained that there is a lot of interest in women's issues and gender among NGOs but the concepts are still not well understood. Women in politics in AustraliaAt the invitation of Senator Margaret Reynolds, Lorraine attended a meeting of the Caucus Status of Women Committee in the Senate at Parliament House. During the meeting, a group from the Older Women's Network (OWN) described their very interesting and successful health project for older women. They found that women's concept of and concerns about health in older age were rather different from those of doctors. The women were more concerned about their social than their physical well-being. As a result, OWN has set up Wellness Centres focusing on both physical and social activities. A pilot Centre in Sydney has succeeded in attracting a good cross-section of the older women in the local community, including those from non-English speaking backgrounds who are often not reached by such programmes. Lorraine also met separately with Senator Reynolds to discuss women in politics. Senator Reynolds' office, through the kindness of her secretary Jean Willoughby, also arranged for Lorraine to meet with Pru Goward, the new Executive Director of the Office of the Status of Women, and with Chris Faulkes, a senior adviser from the office of Senator Jocelyn Newman, Minister representing the Prime Minister for the Status of Women. While on leave with her family in her home town of Canberra, Lorraine also took time out for a number of meetings related to UNIFEM's work. At AusAID she met staff, including Judith Robinson (unfortunately, Ellen Shipley was ill and then on leave), in SPR (GEDS) at AusAID which deals with women and gender issues. Lorraine also met with Keith England who handles the AusAID regional programme to discuss UNIFEM-UNDP work on trafficking in women.
The site is: "www.stmarys.ca/partners/iatur/index/htm" The web master is Andrew Harvey, an experienced time use researcher from Canada. In Kuala LumpurLorraine was invited by the Ministry for Rural Development, Malaysia to prepare one of three background papers for the Inaugural Meeting of ASEAN Ministers on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication to be held in Kuala Lumpur, 19-24 October, 1997. The other resource persons were Dr Ismail Md Salleh of Malaysia, who was to write the paper on Economic Issues and Professor Dr Sediono M.P. Tjondronegoro of Indonesia, to write the paper on Social Issues.
It was agreed that the papers would be entitled: "Rural Development and Poverty Eradication in the ASEAN Region: Experiences, Issues, Challenges and Prospects from". . . "An Economic Perspective", "A Social Perspective" and "A Gender Perspective". On 20th September, Lorraine made a second, very rushed one-day, trip to Kuala Lumpur, immediately following her return from Myanmar (see below), for a follow-up meeting to review the first drafts of the three papers. As an UNDAF facilitator
Although UNIFEM is such a small agency within the UN System, two RPAs, Lorraine and Aster Zaoude from Senegal, were nominated to join the facilitator team. Their participation is initially being financed by UNIFEM, an indication of the extent of the organization's commitment to working within the UN Resident Coordinator System. The training was very participatory and focused very much on process, since the trainers felt that this was the most innovative and critical aspect of the UNDAF. Initially, Lorraine found this a little confusing because, while participatory approaches are not new to UNIFEM, many of the UN System procedures that were being taken for granted during the training were quite new to her. She had to learn a whole new vocabulary of acronyms such as CCA (Common Country Assessment), CSN (Country Strategy Note) and CCF (Country Cooperation Framework - a specific UNDP "animal"). Thus, one of the advantages of her participation is that such terms now roll easily off the tongues of UNIFEM E&SEARO! One of the most illuminating exercises was an excellent role play designed to confront the facilitators with a "worst case" scenario of the kinds of reactions they may get to this new kind of UN "animal". Some of the facilitators got so involved in their roles -- especially those cast to play particularly obstreperous heads of agencies (the identity of which will not be revealed in order to protect the innocent!) -- that even the most skilled of facilitators could not find a way around their obdurate and mulish attitudes. However, although a few were having second thoughts about their participation, all learned a lot from trying! The facilitators are will facilitate an UNDAF process outside their own regions. Lorraine was rather staggered to find that her assignment is to Romania, a country with which she has not had even a passing acquaintance! In view of her initial ignorance, she is looking forward to learning a lot! Geoff on the move too - Presentation Skills for UNIFEM PacificDespite the amount of time our work often keeps us apart from our families, UNIFEM East & Southeast Asia is very family oriented. We are also fortunate in that the various members of our families are quite talented and useful. As Geoff had not seen Lorraine for several months, he and their son Michael decided to join her on the Pacific section of her long series of missions. Laufitu Taylor, the UNIFEM RPA in the Pacific had heard of the Presentation Skills workshop that Geoff had conducted for the UNIFEM staff in Bangkok and arranged for him to do another for her staff and others. Actually, Geoff's version is that Laufitu bullied him into travelling all the way to Suva at his own expense to train her staff on the flimsy excuse that this would give him a chance to be with his better (?) half! Never one to pass up an opportunity to exploit someone she considers to be under-occupied, she also put Michael to work giving Nisha and May useful tips on their computer systems. The training was held over two days in a very well equipped computer laboratory in a local commercial training centre. It was equipped with Datashow facilities so that Geoff could show overheads directly from his own computer. Geoff also brought along his own video camera to record the participants' presentations and play them back on the centre's television. The course had been advertised through the UN and NGOs and places allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. The course was attended by all of the UNIFEM Suva staff (May returned from leave especially to attend this and the gender training), women programme officers from some UN agencies and also from the Fiji YWCA, Red Cross, as well as one man (very gender-sensitive, being married to one of the other participants) from another local NGO.
The course actually emphasized the development of presentations skills, the computer-generated overheads being merely an aid to that end. Consequently, Geoff insisted that all participants learn to make a good presentation, regardless of their backgrounds. As a result, several found themselves giving their first-ever public presentation on camera! They found this quite daunting, a couple trying desperately to persuade Geoff to release them from this part of the course. Fortunately, his hard heart was unmoved by their entreaties and all -- even May and Nisha -- were ultimately persuaded to give their presentations in front of the video camera. When their efforts were viewed on the TV, they were quite pleasantly surprised to see that all had performed very persuasively. In one sense, it was a pity that more of the professional staff who do need to give presentations on a regular basis had not attended the course. However, in another sense it was an advantage that they did not. The women attending the course then had an opportunity to discover that they have the capacity to do more than simply prepare presentations for others. Several were quite surprised at how easy it was to speak before an audience and how well they had done. They left the course resolved to seek opportunities to utilize their new found skills. Gender-AIDs NetworkThe network had 225 subscribers at the end of August. Lorraine has been spreading the word on its existence and recruiting new subscribers during her travels. Personally, she finds it extremely useful: she is learning a great deal about the gender aspects of HIV/AIDS that she didn't know she needed to know - and all comparatively painlessly. The number of new postings each day is not so large as to be a burden, even when she is unable to open her mail for a week or so at a time during missions. It is very simple to erase those messages that do not seem relevant to your particular needs and print or save those that definitely are. Brown Bag Lunch No. 3 - CEDAWOn 11 July, UNIFEM again organized a GWAD (UN Gender, Women and Development Working Group) brown bag lunch - No. 3 in the series - on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women CEDAW. It was addressed by Dr Saisuree Chutikul, Adviser to the Permanent Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister of Thailand, and Ms Thelma Kay, Chief of Women in Development Unit, Rural and Urban Development Division, ESCAP. The audience of 27 was made up of seven from the National Commission on Women's Affairs of Thailand, three from the ESCAP WID unit, two from UNFPA Country Support Team (CST), six from other divisions in ESCAP, one from ILO, two from AusAID, two from Canadian CIDA, and four from UNIFEM (including Geoff Corner). Thelma Kay reviewed the Convention and CEDAW mechanisms. Dr Saisuree focused on CEDAW in Thailand and current activities related to the Convention. The Government of Thailand originally ratified the Convention on 5 July 1985 with a total of seven reservations on Articles 7, 9 10, 11, 15, 16 and 29. However, the reservations on article 15, paragraph 3 regarding the legal capacity of women and on article 11 paragraph 1 (b) regarding employment opportunities were removed in 1990. The reservation on article 9, paragraph 2 regarding the nationality of children was removed in 1993 and those on article 7 on equal opportunities for access to all government jobs and on article 10 in respect of equal educational opportunities were withdrawn in August 1996. Reservations on article 16 in respect to equality in family relations and marriage and article 29 regarding the settlement of disputes by the International Court of Justice remain. The NCWA hopes that the reservation on article 16 will also be removed during the next reporting period. Readers wanting further information can request the UNIFEM Bangkok Gender Issues Fact Sheet No. 3 on CEDAW that was issued in conjunction with the Brown Bag Lunch. Evelyn visits Yannawa District, Bangkok for Thai-UNCAPOn 28 August, Evelyn represented UNIFEM at the Thai-UN Collaborative Action Programme (Thai-UNCAP) Planning Workshop at the Yannawa District Office in Bangkok. Yannawa is one of five sites for Thai-UNCAP activities, the others being in provinces noted, among other things, for a high incidence of poverty. The objective of Thai-UNCAP is to demonstrate a participatory and people-centred approach to development to government, in line with the policies of the new Eighth Development Plan for Thailand. The purpose of the Yannawa meeting was to initiate a participatory and people-centred approach in this poor district. The meeting was attended by a representative of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, who outlined the city's development plan in relation to Yannawa District, the UN Resident Coordinator, Mr Michael Heyn, who outlined the objectives of Thai-UNCAP and community leaders. The community leaders, including leaders of a housewives group, identified a variety of needs, ranging from pre-school daycare to enable mothers to contribute to family income to garbage recycling, youth development and sewing machines for a women's income-generation group. The Thai-UNCAP coordinator Dr Chatchai na Chiangmai explained the principles of community participation before the communities broke up into three groups to work at a more detailed level on their proposals. One of the groups, comprising eight women and two men, had already participated in training in the AIC (Appreciation, Information and Control) methodology for community level decision-making. Evelyn observed that this group was much more participatory than the others and that the women in this group took a leadership role. Sub-Regional Programme on Trafficking in Women
An Aside: Obviously not everyone is familiar with the term "trafficking": when Lorraine called a particular agency to invite their participation she was advised to speak to the Transport Division in ESCAP!! Regional Dialogue on Globalization and Women in BusinessA Regional Dialogue between Business Women Leaders in ASEAN and Key Government Official involved in APEC on Globalization and Women in Business was held at the Royal Princess Hotel Bangkok on 14 and 15 August. The meeting was organized under a UNIFEM project implemented by the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women in association with the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Philippine Trade and Training Center. Participants included women business leaders from Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand and the government delegates from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei Darrusalam who would be attending the APEC SME and Leaders Meetings later in the year in Vancouver and Ottawa.
Armed with this detailed briefing, the women business leaders then sat down to determine their agenda. They did not focus only on their own needs as leaders of large - and very successful - businesses. Although they saw the meeting as an opportunity to raise issues of concern to their own businesses, they also immediately put the concerns and needs of women in small and micro businesses onto the agenda. The original plan had been to only bring the government representatives to the meeting on the second day, as we felt that they would not be able to spare two days from their busy schedules. However, several countries asked to attend both days and several government delegates actively assisted the business leaders to focus their issues on the APEC context. The second day was opened by Ms Rosario Manalo, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Philippines speaking on Globalization and Women: Experiences in Influencing APEC. Ms Imelda Nicolas, Chairperson of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women and a prominent businesswoman described the Background to the Women Leaders Network from the APEC Economies. Ms Nor Awin, President of the Federation of Women Entrepreneurs Associations of Malaysia then moderated a dialogue between the businesswomen and government representatives. Following lunch and a guided tour to Women's Business Sites on the World Wide Web by Geoff and Lorraine Corner, Dr Meiling Oey-Gardiner of Indonesia, and Ms Sylvia Ordonez reviewed the special needs of women in SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and micro enterprises. Dr Vivienne Wee of Singapore spoke on TRADEFEM, a trading network on the internet for cottage producers, and Evelyn Domingo-Barker of ESCAP described the ESCAP project TRADEPOINT. The remainder of the day was spent debating the final report. This identified the main issues, appropriate responses and actions to be taken at the level of individual economies, within ASEAN and within the APEC framework. For example, the second major issue identified was "the absence of a women's voice in economic decision-making in the public and private sectors at the local and global levels". At the economy level, Malaysia proposed the organization by 1998 of a women's business council with membership from all sectors, and all countries supported action to seek women's representation on ABAC , APEC committees (particularly the Economic Committee and the Committee on Trade and Investment) and individual economy delegations to APEC meetings. Another issue was the lack of data on women's contribution to the economy and on women-owned and operated businesses. Research in developed countries has shown that the contribution of women's businesses is significant and that they differ from men's businesses due to their disadvantaged access to capital and other resources. It is clear, even without quantitative data, that women's businesses play a major role in the SME and micro-enterprise sectors in many Asian countries. Economies that neglect women's businesses are thus neglecting an important potential source of income and employment that could make a greater contribution to the national economy and the eradication of poverty. One very concrete outcome of the meeting was that Malaysia accepted the role of focal point for a confederation of women business leaders and proposed a timetable for the creation of women's business councils in all the ASEAN-APEC economies. They proposed that the Confederation of these councils be launched in Malaysia in May 1998. Violence Against Women Trust Fund
LICADHO, one of the first human rights organizations established in Cambodia after the Paris Peace Agreement of 1991, has also been supported by the Trust Fund. LICADHO works on public education and advocacy on human rights, as well as investigating human rights abuses. The Trust Fund will support LICADHO to pilot a programme for emergency medical treatment for women victims of human rights abuses. A specially trained midwife/health worker will be recruited to treat and follow-up on women victims' health complaints and to investigate the health aspects of reported violations.
Southeast Asian Regional Women in Politics Congress, TaipeiLorraine attended the Fourth Asia-Pacific
Congress of Women in Politics, 1-3 September 1997, at the Taipei
Convention Center. The Congress was hosted by the Chinese Institute for
Women in Politics, the local affiliate of CAPWIP, the Center for Asia
Pacific Women in Politics, which organized the meeting. It was attended by
450 participants from 24 countries, most at their own personal expense. No
less than 290 Filipinas attended, including mayors, provincial
governors/deputies, provincial assemblywomen and barangay and cooperative
officials and community workers. They had been very well prepared by the
national CAPWIP affiliate with a pre-conference training programme. Other
large delegations came from Indonesia (approximately 40), Korea (including
a Participants were provided with free airport transfers in buses, accommodation and most meals at the Grand [very!] Hotel, about eight police-escorted buses to and from the Taipei International Convention Center each day, and lavish official banquets each evening, the last with an impressive cultural performance. The Congress process was extremely interesting, particularly considering the numbers involved. Lorraine says that she would never have thought of organizing workshops with 500 delegates - but that is what CAPWIP did. The agenda comprised two workshops, each designed to produce quite specific outputs. Groups of approximately 40 were formed, each with a Chair, Facilitator and Documenters who were all volunteers trained by CAPWIP. Detailed colour-coded instructions and worksheets were provided to facilitate processes and sub-groups of 6-8 persons were formed within each group for the basic activities. These then combined in a group plenary with the aid of the facilitator to produce a synthesis report from the group as a whole. Workshop I, based on two technical papers by Rounaq Jahan and Patricia Sto Tomas, produced individual "stories" of transformative politics (successful and otherwise) from the personal experience of the participants. Despite the best efforts of the facilitators, the women found it very hard to write about their personal experiences, primarily because they did not seem to think them important. They immediately wanted to generalize and move up to national policies and generalized "should do's". However, eventually a rich texture of transformative experiences emerged for synthesis. Workshop II, entitled "Charting CAPWIP, developed a work plan for the next five years at the national, sub-regional and regional levels. The Pacific sub-region has made the greatest progress, having created several national affiliates, a sub-regional body (WIPPAC) and elected a member (Fanaura Kingstone) to the CAPWIP Board. During the Congress, CAPWIP also appointed to the Board Senator Helen Coonan, Australia, Patricia Licuanan, Philippines, former Chair of the UN CSW during the Beijing Conference, the Hon. Margaret Shields, President of UNIFEM New Zealand, a former MP and Minister and currently a regional councillor and Senator Sandra Peirantozzi, Republic of Palau. The Plenary felt that the major need for institutional development was at the national level. At the regional level, a need was identified for short, everyday-language briefing papers for use in advocacy with politicians, government, donors and others on various aspects of women, gender and economic policy. Other regional level needs were an assessment of training needs for Women in Politics and an inventory of existing WIP-related training materials and resources.
|
|||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
There
were 22 participants on the course, including seven men. They came from
the International Labour Organization (ILO), UN Department of Humanitarian
Affairs (UNDHA); UN Development Programme (UNDP); UNFPA (UN Population
Fund); UNIFEM; UNICEF (UN Children's Fund); World Health Organization
(WHO); Department of Women, Central Planning Office, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Department of Education, Government of Fiji; Prime Minister's
Office, Government of Tonga; and the Chief Technical Assistants from
projects on Small Enterprise Development and Forestry. Dr Kesaia Seniloli
from the Department of Population, University of South Pacific, who had
worked with Lorraine at the Australian National University, also attended
one session.
The
Christchurch Branch President, Carol Nelson, who is also vice-president of
the National Committee and attended the Wellington Committee Meeting,
invited Lorraine to meet members in Christchurch on Tuesday 17 June. This
gave Lorraine and Geoff a nice excuse to travel on the ferry across the
strait to the South Island and then drive to Christchurch by road. They
were then able to see something of the beautiful New Zealand countryside.
At the
Australian Bureau of Census, she discussed the Seoul UNDP workshop on paid
and unpaid work and obtained information and materials on the Australian
surveys on time allocation and violence against women (the Women's Safety
Survey) to share with statistics offices in the region. The Women's Safety
Survey is one of the very few nationally representative surveys on this
issue in the world. The team of all-women interviewers were given three
days of sensitivity training prior to the interviews for the survey. The
interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis without the presence of a
third person, thus reducing the possibility of "interference" due to the
presence of a male partner.
While
there, Lorraine learned of an interesting web site on time use research
from an old friend and colleague, Jenny Widdowson. 
On 21-23
August, Lorraine and the other paper writers met in Kuala Lumpur with
Malaysian officials to discuss the format and content of their papers. At
the meeting were Mr Abdul Aziz, Director-General, Ministry of Rural
Development, Mr Mohd Hoesne Hussain, Director, Institute of Rural
Advancement, Ministry for Rural Development, Mr Mohd Arif Abu Bakar,
Ministry of Rural Development, Mr Wan Yusof Embong, Deputy
Director-General, ASEAN - Malaysia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ms
Rahmah bt Kassim, Ministry for Rural Development. Malaysia hoped that the
Inaugural Meeting would produce a joint communique agreeing to "the
formation of a permanent forum to discuss matters on rural development and
poverty alleviation within the framework of ASEAN". UNIFEM E&SEARO was
delighted to be given the opportunity to put gender on the agenda at such
an important regional meeting.
At the
end of September, Lorraine was unexpectedly called to New York to undergo
training to become one of a small team of 20 facilitators for the new UN
programme known as the UN Development Assistance Framework. A central
element of UN Reform, this is both a process and a document to facilitate
more effective UN System collaboration and cooperation at the country
level. The facilitators will work with the eleven countries that have
volunteered for the pilot phase to develop a participatory process and an
effective framework that will then be implemented in all country offices.
The
curriculum followed that used in Bangkok. Lorraine again conducted the
second session on delivery skills from a woman's perspective, Geoff being
somewhat handicapped in this department! All ten participants (including
Laufitu) gave five minute presentations that were video-taped and then
played back for review in the group. Several participants were secretarial
staff with no experience in giving presentations. They attended because
they wanted to learn how to use the computer to produce good overheads for
others. 
UNIFEM is
working with a number of other agencies to assist UNDP to formulate a
sub-regional programme on trafficking in women. This is an issue of
increasing importance in the region. It involves the cross-border
transportation - usually illegal - of women for a fee and often the
outright sale of women (and children). Some are sold into the sex trade
but many are also trafficked as beggars or workers who can be exploited
through long hours and low wages because of their lack of education and
information, and their illegal status.
The agenda
on the first day allowed the women business leaders to identify and
prepare the issues that they wished to raise with the government delegates
on the second day. In order to ensure that the businesswomen were well
informed on the APEC context, Mr Manu Leoparote, Director-General of the
Department of Industrial Promotion, Thailand presented an overview of the
APEC SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) Business Forum, which would be
meeting in Ottawa in September. Mr Jacobson, Minister Counsellor Economic
Division and Deputy Permanent Representative for Indonesia to ESCAP
provided background on the Trade and Investment Liberalization Facility (TILF
in APEC shorthand) and Economic and Technical Cooperation (ECOTEC).
Finally, Ms Kalsom Abdul Rahman, Chief Executive, Small and Medium Scale
Industries Development Corporation, Malaysia presented an overview of the
SME Ministerial Meeting.
The
Project Appraisal Committee convened in late June in New York decided to
fund three projects from the E&SEARO under the new UNIFEM Trust Fund for
Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women. Two of the projects approved
are in Cambodia, where Shoko visited nine organizations in May to promote
the Trust Fund and seek proposals. One of the approved projects is to
support the Women's Litigation Unit of the Cambodian Defenders Project by
funding an international domestic violence legal adviser. The unit, the
only one of its kind in Cambodia, provides legal advocacy services to
women victims of domestic violence. The international adviser will train
and mentor six Cambodian law advocates to specialize in laws addressing
the legal needs of poor and disenfranchised women. The Women's Litigation
Unit will also train staff from the Cambodian Defenders Project and other
organizations on gender issues related to the practice of law in Cambodia.
The third
project funded was submitted by Kanlungan Centre Foundation, a service
organization for distressed migrant workers, especially women. They will
produce a 30 minute video on Filipino women migrants which will be used to
launch an information campaign on the situation of women migrant workers.
The intention is both to discourage women from migrating, and raise their
consciousness about their rights as workers and as women. Ten returnee
women will participate in the all phases of the production, from writing
the script and shooting the images to editing. Workshops and seminars will
develop their technical production skills and also deepen their
understanding on migration and human rights. The video will be widely
distributed to raise public awareness to the problem of violence against
migrant women workers. Kanlungan will use the video in communities in
Metro Manila and La Union Province where they have community-based
programmes. The women returnees who participated in the production will
become part of Kanlungan's resource pool and be invited to speak to
intending women migrants.
number
of active politicians) and, of course, Taiwan (approximately 60). A number
of local women politicians who did not participate also visited the
congress. Smaller delegations attended from Australia (five including
Senator Helen Coonan who is now a CAPWIP board member the journalist Anne
Summers who formerly headed the Office for Status of Women; Wendy
McCarthy, now Chancellor of University of Canberra and a well-known
businesswoman and feminist; the Women's Officer of the NSW Young Liberal
Movement and the Convenor of the Women's Advisory Council to the Chief
Minister, Norther Territory), Cambodia, India, Japan, Malaysia (Senator Dr
Ng Yen Yen and a representative from the cooperatives), Nepal, New Zealand
(including Margaret Shields, now also on the CAPWIP board, the Women's
Coordinator of the Labour Women's Council, NZ Labour Party, and the
vice-president of the Local Government Association), Palau, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, Vanuatu and Vietnam
A single
mother lamented to WIM that she could not get funding to expand her
home-based baking business because almost all her earnings went to her
children's education. Her problem is not unique. WIM estimates that there
are at least five thousand single parents in Kuala Lumpur. Most single
mothers are aged between 25 and 35 and have two or three children.
Responding to their need, WIM organized a basic business course for them
in 1995. As a follow up, a dialogue was also held with them in March 1996
to monitor their experience and provide them with additional support and
advice. As an NGO dedicated to providing career and business training to
all women, WIM is particularly targeting this often-overlooked sub-group.
[Source: Windows '96 Newsletter
of the Women's Institute of Management Vol 2, June 96.]
On Mothers' Day 1997, WIN announced a nation-wide programme of
entrepreneurial training for single parent women.
[Source: Dato' Nellie Tan-Wong]
Malaysian women are obviously set to enter business in a big way. Another
Malaysian women's group, Wanita UMNO, is also set to produce a target of
100,000 women entrepreneurs by the year 2000 at the rate of 200 per year
in each of the 165 divisions of the organization.
[Source: New Straits Times 23 August 1997]
Dialogue, Feminist Economics, 2 (1), 1996, 67-132.
Annemarie
Reerink, newly appointed Gender specialist - ILO regional programme.
Following an initial meeting on 10 July to introduce herself to Lorraine
[following Lorraine's return from missions], Annemarie has been a frequent
visitor to the UNIFEM office. A fast operator, she has already initiated
several collaborations, including the ILO-ROAP gender mainstreaming
briefing [see below].
6
- 18 July. This exciting meeting was organized by the Gender in
Development Unit of UNDP New York and the National Commission on Women's
Affairs (NCWA), Thailand with support from UNDP Bangkok. During the
Conference, Lorraine and Evelyn were able to work with Annie Serrano of
the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW) and
Isabelita S. (Sabsy) Palanca of the Philippine Women in Business Council,
both participants in the meeting, to finalize arrangements for the
Regional Dialogue on Globalization and Women in Business. Shoko also
attended the Forum as an observer.