Address by Ms. Kyung-wha KangDeputy High Commissioner for Human Rights at the 86th Assembly of the Association Suisse des Femmes Diplômées des Universités

Geneva, 20 March 2010

Madame Wagenknecht, President of ASFDU Geneva,
Ambassador Angell Hansen,
Distinguished Colleagues and Friends,

I am delighted to address this 86th Assembly of the ‘Association Suisse des Femmes Diplômées des Universités’.  As a long serving member of the Korean Association of University Women, I feel that I have come home to enjoy the company of sisters.

We gather here today as women who have had the benefit of receiving primary, secondary, and higher education. We should always be mindful of the advantages the education has given us, and pledge to be united in addressing the unequal status of women in all parts of the world, both in our professional and private lives.  At the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, discrimination , including and in particular discrimination based on gender,  is an ongoing priority, and we have identified  the right to education as a key focus for the 2010-2011 biennium in our fight against discrimination.
So I would like to use this opportunity to discuss the importance of education, the centrality of the right to education in achieving gender equality, and the lack thereof in perpetrating gender inequality around the world.
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that everyone has the right to education.   Indeed, education is the surest way to empower individuals so that they can enjoy all their human rights. It offers pathway out of poverty and disempowerment and opens up access to participation to a society’s life.  Thus, education must be inclusive and accessible to all, in law as well as in practice.   No provider of public or private education may discriminate on the grounds of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

In the quest to achieve education for all, all countries and governments must prioritize free and compulsory primary education. Yet many young girls, particularly the poor, do not even receive primary education.  At the current rate of progress, the Millennium Development Goal No. 3 to eliminate the gender disparity between girls and boys in primary education is unlikely to be achieved. The recent financial and economic crises and their effects on the well being of girls in many countries have rendered gender equality, including in access to education, further removed from reality.   Girls have been the first to be withdrawn from school in order to help their families cope with economic hardship.  

Today, of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 per cent are girls. When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries on average four years later than a girl without any education.  She is more protected from early or forced marriage, and she is likely to have fewer children. This may avert those pregnancy-related complications that are the main cause of death for 15-19 year old girls worldwide.

Let me briefly expand on the point of maternal health.  Only six years are left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.  Goal 5 aims at improving maternal health, at reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters by 2015, and securing universal access to reproductive health.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Goal 5 is the most off-track of all the MDGs.  A staggering half a million deaths of women and girls occur each year during pregnancy and childbirth.  Most of these deaths are preventable. There is no single cause of death and disability for men between the ages of 15 and 44 that is close to the magnitude of maternal mortality.

Dear Colleagues,

Women produce half of the world’s food, and their work accounts for two-thirds of the world’s working hours. However, women earn only 10 per cent of the world’s income and own less than one per cent of the world’s property.

By some analysis, if just 10 per cent more girls were allowed to obtain a secondary education, a country’s economy can be expected to grow by three per cent.  When an educated girl earns an income, she reinvests 90 per cent of it in her family, compared to 35 per cent that boys devote to such investment.  Just consider how this has influenced the distribution of humanitarian aid in refugee camp settings, for example. Today, such aid is increasingly distributed not to the male heads of households, but to the women to ensure that the food is distributed fairly to all members of the family. In short, the impairment of women’s right to equality and their disempowerment not only deny women their fundamental human rights, but they also undermine development and economic growth.

While significant strides have been made in recognizing the rights of women in many countries, women continue to suffer extensive violations of their human rights due to discriminatory laws and other barriers to their equal participation in society.   Too many countries still have not passed legislation to protect women against the most prevalent forms of violence, such as those perpetrated within their families and communities.

Women’s fundamental civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights are closely intertwined.  For example, issues related to women’s exclusion from education and participation intersect with other problems, such as discriminatory patterns in ownership and exploitation of land, dispossession and forced eviction, and the right to inheritance. Odious in times of peace, these discriminatory patterns inflict a disproportionate toll on women in times of conflict and expose them to massive human rights abuses, including sexual violence.

To achieve full equality in law and practice, it is vital to apply the principles and standards enshrined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Among its envisaged effects, the treaty aims at eliminating discrimination in the field of education, particularly in vocational training and higher education, as well as stereotyped educational choices.  Indeed, access to education has a proven “cascading effect” as it empowers women to empower other women.   

Yet the persistence of entrenched traditional attitudes continues to hold women back in a number of areas, including education, the labor market, decision-making and participation in political and public life.   As a result, women represent only a small fraction of elected officials in most countries. Today only 25 countries have more than 30 per cent female representatives in parliament.  Even fewer women are in leadership positions in politics or occupy executive positions in business, trade unions, higher education, local government, the judiciary or the military.

Since its first session in 1982, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women -- the 23-member body established to scrutinize implementation of CEDAW-- has identified women’s participation in decision-making as one of its priorities.   Until women participate fully, women and men will not enjoy the vision of human rights promised by the Universal Declaration, nor will the development and security of communities be guaranteed.  The Committee has recommended various strategies, including the creation of women’s parties, the voluntary adoption of quotas for candidates of either sex, the reservation of seats for women candidates or the inclusion of a percentage of women candidates in electoral lists. On the basis of its consideration of the practices of States parties, in 2004 it adopted general recommendation 25 on temporary special measures which provides comprehensive guidance to ensure that women in significant numbers participate in and contribute to making decisions that have society-wide implications.   

A key strategy to strengthen and increase women’s participation in decision-making in all areas is to get girls and young women involved in public life.  Access to public office typically requires early engagement.  However, girls’ participation in the public arena lags behind that of boys.  As a result, women generally do not run for political office until much later in their lives than men.  There are many reasons for this, but foremost amongst them is the persistence of stereotypical attitudes regarding the proper roles of women and men.  Thus, in a groundbreaking provision, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women requires States parties to take all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns that foster prejudice, entrench discriminatory practices, crystallize gender roles and ultimately hamper or preclude women from attaining education and from participating in decision-making.

States have the primary obligation to implement the Convention, but all stakeholders should reflect on how in their various roles can combat such stereotyping and such marginalization.   

We must empower and inspire girls and young women to get the education to which they are entitled.  We must invest in girls, and when we do, we will discover that they will do the rest.

Fifteen years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action calls are in order for a new vision for creative measures to ensure the full participation of women from all walks of life.  A vision where the participation of women in all contexts, be it in peacetime, conflict or post conflict situations, or during other types of crisis such as natural disasters or financial crises, is a requisite element for the protection of their rights, but also to achieve peace, security and sustainable human development.

Thank you.