The Commission on the Status of Women is a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council that is dedicated to evaluating progress on gender equality, identifying challenges, setting global standards and formulating concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide. It makes recommendations and reports to the Council on promoting women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. It also reviews and appraises progress made on achieving these objectives at the regional, national and global levels.

The Commission meets annually to discuss progress and set policies. It has adopted resolutions on a range of issues, such as HIV/AIDS and women and female children, and the situation of and assistance to Palestinian women. In addition it also makes a set of recommendations for Governments and other relevant stakeholders on the priority themes it sets for consideration each year. At the most recent 52^nd session of the Commission (held February-March 2008) the priority theme considered by members was financing for gender equality and empowerment of women. It also considered gender perspectives on climate change.

53rd Session of CSW

2 – 13 March 2009

Review theme

"Equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes at all levels

Priority Theme

Equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care-giving in the context of HIV/AIDS

An overview of the main issues in the Priority Theme

The concept of equal sharing of responsibility for care-giving is not new. It was noted in the Beijing Platform.
There are many social, developmental and health consequences of HIV/AIDS which need to be considered within a gender framework.
Holding the burden of care giving, largely means women’s participation in paid employment and education is limited
Many governments have created ‘family friendly’ policies in recognition of the need to support a work/family balance, however these policies are mainly only applied to women – which serves only to maintain the stereotype of women as primary care givers.
Worldwide, women and girls receive the least HIV medication, despite the highest infection rates

How to address these issues

Sharing of responsibility leads to women having:

better quality of life
enhanced opportunities to shape and design public policy
their interests recognised and addressed

Governments need to increase the provision of resources and facilities to women who have to provide care and support for those infected with HIV/AIDS including:

affordable and accessible health care
ongoing access to education
financial support
information about the condition they/ those in their care face – choices, options etc

How to engage men in care giving

More information on this topic will be available soon. However, a brief overview is provided below.

Some incentives may include:

Cash payments
Tax allowances
Subsidised care services

Institutionally:

provision of healthcare services
medicine
aid and debt relief
clean water access
Need to regard inaction by men publically as “disregard for women’s lives"

Parenting Policies

same access to parental leave for men and women

Proactive Campaigns

Evidence suggests engaging men in ‘protection’ campaigns works – eg White Ribbon
Men can change

Links

Issues Paper on Priority Theme for 53rd Session [1]

Papers presented at the Parallel event at CSW 52 [2]

Information on the Commission on the Status of Women [3]

UNIFEM International's Commission on the Status of Women 2008 Portal [4]

Report on the 52nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women [5]