Reflections on CSW59 by Gillian Booth-Yudelam (AWC Perth)
I was inspired and humbled by the experience and extremely grateful to be invited to attend such an important educational event.
I attended multiple sessions on issues ranging from human trafficking and slavery, to increasing women’s participation in the workforce, to women and war and the transformation of trauma. I gained valuable insights into the relationship between technology and gender based violence, into the relationship between Islam and Women’s Human Rights and into the way in which Women are adversely affected by armed conflict.
I derived great benefit from listening to Kailash Satyarthi, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner, who spoke so passionately about the need to Globalize Human Compassion. He described the enslavement of children as the buying and selling of boys and girls like animals and he cautioned that as long as one girl is sold and sexually abused, then society has no right to be called cultured nor civilized. Sobering and powerful statements!
The final sessions that I attended were equally interesting – Kenya now has a programme in place in which over 600 female professionals volunteer their time as mentors to girls with significant and enduring success. Australia, I came to learn, has developed the first tool of its kind to measure poverty – called IDM – Individual Deprivation Measure. I was shocked throughout the conference to learn about the significant global increase in domestic violence – 2/3rds of Australian women have been subjected to domestic violence, one women is killed every 8 hours due to domestic abuse in South Africa, and 2.6 billion women live in countries where it is not a crime for a husband to rape his wife.
The final session that I attended was on Transforming Trauma of Political Violence and I was particularly moved by Ms Eugenie Mukeshimana, a genocide survivor from Rwanda. She spoke about the way in which she had given birth during the genocide but also watched her husband being slaughtered. Yet, she has used this fraught experience to empower survivors of war – Herein lies the message that I took away from the conference – Women are doing incredible work throughout the world to empower and transform society – How wonderful to meet many of these inspirational individuals and how humbling.