Yesterday at the very well-attended CSW IWD event, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Under Secretary- General and Executive Director of UN Women and the Chair of CSW56 Marjon Kamara spoke about the importance of IWD, CSW and working towards gender equality. It was wonderful to hear from the Secretary-General about how high a priority empowering women and girls is for him, and that this has been a high priority since day one of being S-G. And, the S-G is committed to ensuring that the UN leads by example by having a good representation of women working at all levels throughout the organisation.
As some of you may have seen from my tweets, the S-G believes that improvements in gender equality are necessary throughout the world, and he is regularly updated on the numbers of girls in schools, right up to the numbers of women in executive and board positions in different countries and brings this up with leaders. He also emphasised the need to focus on empowering rural women, recognising that barriers holding back rural women from reaching their full potential are detrimental to entire communities and nations. Similarly, Marjon Kamara and Michelle Bachelet recognised the importance of empowering women, particularly rural women, recognising them as economic agents and as a critical part of efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Most importantly, yesterday’s panel emphasised the importance on IWD to celebrate the achievements that have been made and recognise all the work that is being done by individuals, NGOs, private sector organisations and governments throughout the world to empower and improve the lives of women and girls. So to that, I would like to recognise Julie, all of the UN Women Australia staff, board members and volunteers for all their hard work, dedication and brilliance. And to all of you for reading these posts and following me on this CSW journey!
In a separate session on IWD, I attended an event called ‘Change Makers and Peacekeepers’ about the representation of women in the military and peacekeeping. It was enlightening to hear from an Admiral of the US Navy, accompanied by a number of female naval officers in very high rank, non-traditional positions, about the gender evolution that is taking place in the Navy. There are now 55000 women serving throughout 93% of the units in the US Navy and great emphasis has been put on changing the culture in the Navy to recruit, retain and support women in the Navy. This includes ensuring women are in high-level and visible leadership positions to both be involved in decision-making and determine acceptable behaviours towards women; provision of mentoring for young female officers; and implementing life-work integration policies such as options for a 3 year sabbatical, a 1 year deferment of operational duties after having a baby, paternity leave and provision of childcare. Indeed, my favourite quote of the session demonstrated the focus that is being put on family-friendly policies: ‘It should not be about the Navy or my family, but it should be about the Navy and my family’.
Unfortunately, however, this increase in the numbers of women working throughout the US Navy is not consistent in peacekeeping and negotiation roles – less than 4% of peace negotiators and less than 2% of signatories to peace agreements have been women. Indeed the UN has never had a woman as a chief mediator. The panel promoted the benefits of having women involved in peacekeeping roles, in particular because of their ability to bring particular gender and cultural sensitivity to the process. As such, it was strongly advocated that a critical mass of women in military and peacekeeping throughout the world should be pursued, and to achieve this it may be necessary to ‘raise the floor as well as break the glass ceiling’.
Happy IWD everyone!

Yesterday at the very well-attended CSW IWD event, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Under Secretary- General and Executive Director of UN Women and the Chair of CSW56 Marjon Kamara spoke about the importance of IWD, CSW and working towards gender equality. It was wonderful to hear from the Secretary-General about how high a priority empowering women and girls is for him, and that this has been a high priority since day one of being S-G. And, the S-G is committed to ensuring that the UN leads by example by having a good representation of women working at all levels throughout the organisation.
As some of you may have seen from my tweets, the S-G believes that improvements in gender equality are necessary throughout the world, and he is regularly updated on the numbers of girls in schools, right up to the numbers of women in executive and board positions in different countries and brings this up with leaders. He also emphasised the need to focus on empowering rural women, recognising that barriers holding back rural women from reaching their full potential are detrimental to entire communities and nations. Similarly, Marjon Kamara and Michelle Bachelet recognised the importance of empowering women, particularly rural women, recognising them as economic agents and as a critical part of efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Most importantly, yesterday’s panel emphasised the importance on IWD to celebrate the achievements that have been made and recognise all the work that is being done by individuals, NGOs, private sector organisations and governments throughout the world to empower and improve the lives of women and girls. So to that, I would like to recognise Julie, all of the UN Women Australia staff, board members and volunteers for all their hard work, dedication and brilliance. And to all of you for reading these posts and following me on this CSW journey!
In a separate session on IWD, I attended an event called ‘Change Makers and Peacekeepers’ about the representation of women in the military and peacekeeping. It was enlightening to hear from an Admiral of the US Navy, accompanied by a number of female naval officers in very high rank, non-traditional positions, about the gender evolution that is taking place in the Navy. There are now 55000 women serving throughout 93% of the units in the US Navy and great emphasis has been put on changing the culture in the Navy to recruit, retain and support women in the Navy. This includes ensuring women are in high-level and visible leadership positions to both be involved in decision-making and determine acceptable behaviours towards women; provision of mentoring for young female officers; and implementing life-work integration policies such as options for a 3 year sabbatical, a 1 year deferment of operational duties after having a baby, paternity leave and provision of childcare. Indeed, my favourite quote of the session demonstrated the focus that is being put on family-friendly policies: ‘It should not be about the Navy or my family, but it should be about the Navy and my family’.
Unfortunately, however, this increase in the numbers of women working throughout the US Navy is not consistent in peacekeeping and negotiation roles – less than 4% of peace negotiators and less than 2% of signatories to peace agreements have been women. Indeed the UN has never had a woman as a chief mediator. The panel promoted the benefits of having women involved in peacekeeping roles, in particular because of their ability to bring particular gender and cultural sensitivity to the process. As such, it was strongly advocated that a critical mass of women in military and peacekeeping throughout the world should be pursued, and to achieve this it may be necessary to ‘raise the floor as well as break the glass ceiling’.
Happy IWD everyone!

A particular issue discussed during CSW that has got me thinking CSW is early and forced marriage. Discussion about this topic has occurred across a number of sessions I have attended, and there was a particularly informative event hosted by Plan International that brought together parliamentarians from countries including the UK, Finland and Pakistan along with girls from countries where early and/or forced marriage is common. These girls have friends who have been married at a very young age, most of them without any say about the union. Indeed, statistics from the UK indicate female UK citizens who have been forced into marriage are aged from 5. (And up to the age of 87! I am also still flawed by the fact  that this is an issue in countries such as the UK and indeed Australia, but that will have to be another post for another time!).

I have learnt that early and forced marriage is a complex issue, as are the motivations for why families arranging early and forced marriages do not centre only on commonly identified factors such as religion. In many countries, women do not have economic independence, earning capacity and are not of particular ‘value’ to their families – rather they are somewhat of a burden. Often therefore families arrange marriages for girls with a view to provide them with more fortunate circumstances and alleviate the financial pressure on the family. However, this takes the woman or girl away from her family and unable to contribute to household chores and caring duties. Adding additional complexity to this issue is that many families actually arrange marriages for their daughters at a young age with the view that this will protect them from experiencing rape or sexual violence that might be prevalent in their communities.
Furthermore, early marriage as opposed to forced marriage should also be considered as independent issues. For example, the young girls presenting at the Plan International event described the marriages of their friends at a very young age (13-15) not as ‘forced’, but instead identified the primary issue was that these girls were still children. Some were excited, and even hoped that their husbands would pay for their ongoing education. However, they did not understand the obligations associated with marriage, including the household duties that were likely to mean they were unable to continue with their educations, and even sexual activity. Indeed, this leads to an important health issue that is associated with early marriage – marrying young often means pregnancy (or pregnancies) at a young ages which can lead to significant health issues.

So while the motivations behind early and forced marriages may be considered noble in some senses, the continuation of this practice will significantly impede progress towards achieving gender equality and indeed many of the Millenium Development Goals, particularly in the impact it has on girls’ education and health. It is encouraging, however, to hear governments such as the UK and Pakistan speaking strongly about the action they are taking to eliminate early and forced marriage both in their countries and throughout the world. Tackling this issue, and the diverse motivations underpinning it, is something that all of use concerned with gender equality should get behind.

 

 

During the first week of CSW I have been so thoroughly inspired by how many young women throughout the world are so active in their communities in trying to empower and/or advance the development of women and girls, and also how much support there is from a diverse range of organisations. I wanted to provide brief summaries from two excellent and thought-provoking events I attended towards the end of Week 1, that presented some of the hard work being undertaken by young women and their supporters.
The first event was presented by WAGGGS – the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. This session outlined just a few of the the community-inspired and community-led programs that are being run and supported by Girl Guides and Girl Scout groups both in rural areas of the US, and overseas. As in Australia, girls from rural areas in the US face significant barriers including difficulties accessing transport, education, health and other critical services. However, through the hard wok and dedication of Guides and Scouts members to initiate and establish projects, other young women have been provided with the opportunity to get involved, achieve something and contribute to the betterment of their community. Furthermore, such projects are providing a social outlet and support for young women in these communities, and the opportunity to work with other community members. And there have been some powerful results – for example, a project that started out with the aim to increase awareness and participation of recycling has now grown to provide employment; and, a small community garden project has been taken over by the local council and now has a significant waiting list of young girls who would like to participate.

I also attended a session presented by young women from throughout the Asia-Pacific including Australia, Fiji, Japan, Sri Lanka and India, talking about the treatment, recognition and experiences of lesbian women. There were significant variations throughout the countries represented in terms of whether this is recognised and discussed publicly, and whether there has been any progress towards legalising the union of lesbian couples. Unlike in Australia, in many other countries there is no public discussion or engagement in this issue at a political level, and indeed Australia appears to be many steps ahead in terms of even considering legislation to legalise marriages between gay and lesbian couples. Some of the stories told were heartbreaking, including for example stories of double suicides of some young women who felt too much social pressure about their relationships with other women. The presenters at this session did a wonderful job sharing these stories, their experiences and views, and the need for women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights to remain high on the agenda.

Lauren Burke, UN Women Australia CSW Youth Delegate

Day 1 of CSW 56, we attended the inspiring opening ceremony, which included speeches from the Deputy Secretary General (DSG), and the Executive Director of UN Women and Under-Secretary General, Michelle Bachelet.

The DSG spoke about the advancement of gender equality being a priority in the UN Secretary General’s five year action agenda and the particular need to protect and empower rural women in order to unleash their potential. In particular, the DSG discussed the fact that only 5% of financing for agricultural expansion goes to women, and in 2008-09, only 3% of aid went to programs where gender equality was the primary objective. The DSG argues that ad hoc interventions to improve conditions and opportunities for rural women and girls is an inadequate response, and instead there is a need for strong ,comprehensive action on the ground with effective accountability mechanisms to ensure that global commitments are implemented.

Ms Bachelet argued that listening to and supporting rural women is fundamental to achieving sustainability, and that the empowerment of rural women is not just good for women, but is good for the growth of the economy, food security and the benefit of society more generally. We therefore need to urgently and systematically open opportunities for the participation of rural women. Similarly to the DSG, Ms Bachelet argued that action to improve conditions and opportunities should not be incremental, but rather there needs to be transformation of government budgets, and the enforcement of laws and policies. In particular, Ms Bachelet called for an increase in the participation of rural women in political and policy processes, so the women themselves can lobby for their views to be heard, their needs to be met and their rights to be respected. My favourite quote from Ms Bachelet was: ‘when women have a voice and representation – change happens’. Here’s to taking one big step closer at CSW 56 to that change for rural women.

Stay tuned for my next blog about the opening panel session, the Australian government’s parallel event on women’s access to education and employment, and the first meeting of the Youth Caucus.

UN Women Australia hosted a side event at the Commission on the Status of Women last week.  I had the opportunity to speak about the importance of, and how to, engage young women in the work of non-governmental organisations.  In this article, I outline some of the key points of my talk.

The point of this article is to give some good, general advice on how to engage young women meaningfully in the work of an NGO.  I speak from my experience as a leader in a youth-run NGO and from being involved in non-youth-run NGOs that still work extensively with young people.  In this article, I want to discuss three key themes: the importance of engaging young women, the key issues faced by NGOs in doing so, and some strategies for overcoming these difficulties.  

Firstly, it is essential for NGOs to ask themselves why it is important to engage young women.  Organisations should have a clear idea of the 'why' so that they can be truly effective in carrying out the 'how'.  For me, there is one overarching reason that is widely given for wanting more young people involved: the common notion that young women bring energy, a fresh perspective, ideas and enthusiasm to an organisation.  I will say more on this later.  However, I think it is equally important to recognise just what your organisation can give to a young woman who gets involved.  I have gained some of my most useful skills and experience, not to mention increased self-confidence and leadership skills, from being involved in NGOs. View the engagement of young women as a synergy: by giving young women meaningful opportunities to get involved in your NGO, they will grow and be able to give back.  

So, we come now to the major issues that NGOs face in engaging young women.  These can be summed up as the common complaints of 'we can't get young women interested' and 'we can't hang onto interested young women - they come to one meeting and then leave!'  Sound familiar?  If so, some of my advice below could be of help.  

The idea underlying all of the advice below is that NGOs should give young women spaces to meaningfully participate.  Keep in mind that my advice is not meant to be exhaustive.  Different contexts will call for different solutions  However, I hope that it is a good starting point from which your NGO can begin a discussion about how best to engage young women. 

1.  Show confidence in young women.  It is absolutely essential that your NGO shows faith in young women.  Many organisations are scared that young people will make mistakes.  This is a legitimate concern; however, we should remember that everyone, regardless of age, makes mistakes, and it is rare that these mistakes are truly catastrophic!  Furthermore, we learn best by doing, so it follows that we learn best from our successes and failures.  If young women don't feel like they have the trust and support of the organisations, then I can guarantee they will seek more fulfilling opportunities elsewhere.  Worse still, if no one shows faith in a person, then they will not show faith in themselves.  One of the best things that older and/or more experienced members of an organisation can do is to tap a younger woman on the shoulder and ask her directly to take on responsibility for a particular task or project.  Many young women lack the self-confidence to put their hands up to take on jobs, although they are probably more than competent.  

2.  Give young women ownership.  Meaningful participation means giving responsibility to young women.  If young women can feel like they are truly part of a project or task, that they have been entrusted with a responsibility, then they will become much more engaged, rather than just hanging around on the sidelines.  Giving young women ownership for things such as running events, coming up with ideas for new initiatives, etc., also gives them the chance to gain new skills or improve new ones.  This is good for young women and good for your organisation.  

3.  Consultation.  If your organisation wants to carry out a project targeted at young women, then ask young women themselves about what would be most effective!  Unfortunately, consultation is often done very poorly.  Consultation should be carried out with a group of an appropriate size and it should be as representative as possible, with regard to the context.  Facilitation should be about getting the young women themselves to speak, rather than asking participants to sit and listen.  Above all, respect people's intelligence and avoid tokenism at all costs.  Make sure that participants know what the outcomes of the consultation will be and give them the chance to be involved with the delivery of the project.  

4.  Peer-to-peer education.  One of the most effective techniques for engaging young women that I have seen and used countless times is peer-to-peer education.  This means equipping young women with the skills and knowledge to teach and inspire other young women about the work of your NGO.  Get them to write materials such as presentations and workshops, and help them develop skills in public speaking and facilitating group discussions.  This is a great way of showing faith in young women and it gives them the chance to exercise and improve their leadership skills.  Peer-to-peer education is so effective because peers know best how to communicate with each other.  It eliminates the barriers presented by age, different communication skills or status that often prevent young women from getting really engaged in and excited about a topic.  It also gives young women positive role models in their own peer group.  

5.  Mentoring.  As I've mentioned, being involved in an NGO can be hugely beneficial for a young woman.  Mentoring takes this one step further and helps to create intergenerational dialogue and solidarity that will strengthen your organisation.  Consider 'buddying up' a young women with an older and/or more experienced member who can guide them through your NGO's structure and culture, encourage them to take on new opportunities as they arise and give them advice when they need it.  

To wrap up, here are some final points that are important to keep in mind:

1.  Young people are not endless fountains of energy and enthusiasm.  This common belief can lead to young women being tasked with more than they can cope with (especially as we are not yet good at saying 'no'!).  Please take care of young women in your organisation and stress quality, not quantity, of involvement as being the most important in order to avoid burn out and the loss of interest.  

2.  Allow young women to speak for themselves as much as possible.  As Kofi Annan said, 'If you want to know about young people, ask them'.  

3.  Young women often get told, 'youth are the leaders of tomorrow'.  This is just plain wrong. Young women lead today, in their communities, nationally, regionally and globally.  Don't let young women think that they have to 'grow up' before they can be 'real leaders'.  Encourage them to recognise the various ways in which they are already showing leadership and help them to develop further.  

For the very first time, UN Women Australia has included a youth delegate on their delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.  I have had the honour of filling this role, which has been a great learning experience so far.  The purpose of this post is to update you on what I have been up to here at the CSW and, in particular, how young women are making a great contribution to the conference.  

The CSW has a Young Women's Caucus.  This caucus, made up of about 30 young women from around the world, has been working on suggestions that we can add to the final agreement of the conference.  The purpose of this is to make sure that the final agreement (also called 'agreed conclusions' in UN jargon), is working in the favour of young women and girls everywhere.  We have been focused on including points about the importance of involving young women in the creation and delivery of policies that affect us, as well as urging countries to create or expand comprehensive education programmes on sexuality and reproductive health.  These two points came up a lot throughout my consultations with young Australian women, so it is great to see that there is a real push here to get these points into the agreement.  The youth caucus has also come up with an oral statement to deliver to the CSW plenary - this is the main meeting where countries sit and debate the priority theme.  I was lucky enough to have the chance to deliver this statement on behalf of the caucus, so as I write this, I'm waiting in the plenary for my turn to speak and listening to what the country delegations have to say!

Of course, one of the best things about being at this conference so far has been the amazing other young women here!  I have been really impressed by how professional they have been in delivering talks and workshops, and in negotiating amendments to the final agreement.  Many of them have also been brave enough to share their stories about what it is like to be a young women in their own countries.  Something that has struck me is how, although there are cultural differences, many of the issues affecting young women around the world are very similar.  These are physical and sexual violence, negative depiction of women in the media and gender stereotyping, and the difficulties in attaining full-time, decent work and the challenges posed by having and raising children. It is my hope that the strong representation and participation of young women here at the conference will lead to action on the ground.  

As you may know, I have also been doing a video blog (click here) and have been using Twitter (click here) and facebook (click here) regularly to update you all on what's happening here.  I have also set up an online discussion where you can ask me questions about what is going here at the conference and I encourage everyone to get in touch!  Click here to get involved in the discussion!  
I shall be bloggin again very soon!

Catriona 

UN Women Australia Youth Delegate to the CSW