First up was an ECOSOC session on the 58th Commission on the Status of Women that considered position statements from civil society, which included the following issues:
- Rule of Law and women’s participation in legal processes
- Women’s participation in decision making – private sector and government/political
- Underlying economic and political structures that support discrimination against women
- Unequal distribution of care work and unpaid work
- Women in conflict and post conflict zones including refugees
- Women and climate change
- Women and sustainable development
- Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery
- Girls as a distinct, marginalized group
- Sexual orientation
- Family Planning and reproductive rights and education
- Rights of older and indigenous women
- Education for women/girls, particularly in STEM fields
- Early and forced marriage
- Property and land rights
- Violence against women and girls
- Access to resources: capital, technology, and land/water
Women and Leadership was a chaired by HE Mr Carolos Garcia from El Salvador, Vice-Chair of CSW58. Outstanding women from academia and the private sector presented their own personal journeys into leadership roles. It was noted that:
- 135 of the Fortune 500 companies have no female officers at all and only 25 of the have women as CEOs.
- Two-thirds of illiterate people in the world are women.
- 807 men and 44 women have own Nobel Prizes.
Lawyers without Borders engaged the Innovative Teaching Tools for Vulnerable Women and Girls participants in a game; “Find Me”, to teach, reinforce and assess the level of knowledge of key human trafficking principles. We learned about the geographical movement of human trafficking and indicators, common scenarios, patterns and different types of exploitative crimes associated with human trafficking. This was a fun and very educational session that I hope to share with FAWCO at our next conference.
Erica Higbie