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Panelists discuss "male involvement in the elimination of violence against women." From left, Leila de Lima, with the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines; Philippine Senator Pia S. Cayetano; Emmeline Verzosa, executive director of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women; Alice Bela, with the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development; and Dennis Pulma, with Men Oppose dto Violence Against Women Everywhere (MOVE).
Tuesday’s Commission on the Status of Women meeting offered attendees the opportunity to learn first hand and become part of the solution for a plethora of issues beyond this year’s priority theme focusing on the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS.
Workshops, panel discussions and lectures focused on eliminating violence against women, the global food crisis, educating men and boys on gender issues, combating malaria, AIDS orphans and programs to empower women.
Speakers included health ministers, AIDS orphans, ambassadors, human rights leaders, women’s advocates, university professors, economists and a television actress who now is the U.S. envoy for women’s health issues.
In addition, special interest caucuses met throughout the day to analyze and suggest alterations to the draft outcome document outlining the decisions the governments will make at the end of the two-week session. Two College of Notre Dame students with the School Sisters of Notre Dame’s CSW delegation attended two of the caucuses and offered the revisions that their group wrote on Sunday.
Jessica Rohaly said that the suggestions received a favorable response at both the U.S. Caucus and the Coordinating Caucus on Tuesday. Jessica said that the School Sisters of Notre Dame believe that there should be more of a focus on girls in the document.
“It is important because girls have different needs and different issues, and they grow up to be women,” Jessica said. “That sparked a discussion in the U.S. Caucus because it seemed that many of the people there had the same focus but didn’t have the language.”
Work will continue on this document on Wednesday in various caucuses, including the Girls’ Caucus, with which SSND has a strong connection.
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| Actress Fran Drescher (right) listens as Linda Stillman, chair of the Sophia2010 World conference introduces her. |
More than 40 sessions, organized by member States, UN entities, other international and regional organizations, and NGOs, were scheduled on Tuesday. In just one of the conference rooms, the five diverse programs included:
- “Male Involvement in the Elimination of Violence Against Women,” which also included discussion on the “equal sharing of Responsibilities between women and men: the Philippine experience.” The program offered discussion on a “rights’ based approach” to equality, examined how a re-thinking of the role of men strengthens the family and presented the male perspective of the Men Opposed to Violence Everywhere (MOVE) organization.
- “Ending AIDS Stigma: Women and Men working together,” in which Papua New Guinea Ambassador Robert Aisi said, “The AIDS stigma continues although it varies from country to country. It is evidenced through ostracism, rejection and avoidance. These people are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our parents; ultimately, they are our family.”
- “Global Food Crisis: Gender, Food Security and Agriculture,” organized by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and co-sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and World Bank. Isatou Jallow, chief of women, children and gender for the World Food Program (WFP), explained how the food crisis impacts women. “The woman will be the one who sacrifices so the children can eat. The diet also suffers because when you have limited resources, you don’t think about the quality of the food but just how much you can buy.” In addition, the woman’s ability to work suffers if she is undernourished, and she is likely to give birth to low birth weight babies. “The global food crisis impacts all the multiple roles of women.” The WFP has responded to the current crisis by identifying 24 countries. Already in place is a school food program that also encourages parents to send their daughters to school by rewarding them with extra rations.
- “Learning to be a Girl: Care Giving in the Context of HIV/AIDS,” with a six-member panel including the secretary for human rights and social affairs of the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations, a professor from the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, a representative from UNICEF’s gender and rights unit, an AIDS orphan from Tanzania, the director of the Chipua agency in Tanzania and the co-director of Promundo, a social service agency, in Brazil.
- “Global Leadership for Future Health Care,” with a four-member panel that included actress Fran Drescher, who starred in the television sitcom “The Nanny” and who now is the U.S. envoy for women’s health issues and who founded Cancer Schmancer, after she survived uterine cancer. “We must become the brethren shepherds we were intended to be who caretake with reverence and compassion,” she said. “Anyone who says you are too small and insignificant to make a difference has never slept in a bed with a mosquito.”
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