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First Quarter 2002 Newsletter

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UNITED NATIONS

UN NY – Commission on the Status of Women

The work of the Commission on Women spanned the period from 4 to 15 March. NGOs pursued advocacy activities related to the two themes of this year�s session, the impact of poverty, and environmental management and the mitigation of natural disasters. Participants from WFMH included Main Representative Nancy Wallace, UN representatives Ricki Kantrowitz and Pamela Collins, Board Member-at-Large Chueh Chang, and a group of Federation members from Asia.

Nancy Wallace and Chueh Chang chaired a panel discussion on the impact of poverty and natural disasters on Asian women�s mental health on 6 March. Ricki Kantrowitz organized a panel on 7 March featuring presentations about poverty in Europe, the response after Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, and poverty and economic change in Taiwan. The speaker from Taiwan, an aboriginal woman called Melevlev (many people in her tribe use only one name), gave an account of the stress endured by the island�s aboriginal peoples because of their marginal economic situation and exclusion from mainstream society.

The WFMH group took a lead role in a successful lobbying effort by the NGO Committee on Mental Health to have appropriate language about women�s mental health inserted in the Agreed Conclusions of the CSW Session. With invaluable help from government representatives from Thailand and Turkey, who brought the language to the floor, the following paragraphs were inserted in the official documents:

On Natural Disasters:

  • Improve and develop physical and mental health programs, services and social support networks for women who suffer from psychological effects in natural disasters.

On Poverty:

  • Improve and develop physical and mental health programs, services and social support networks, and preventative care for women who suffer from poverty.

Nancy Wallace said that she was particularly pleased that the mention of prevention was accepted, as some of the government representatives were unfamiliar with the work that has been done in this area.

At the March session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (left to right): Chueh Chang, WFMH Board Member-at-Large; A-bu, President, Kaohsiung County Indigenous Women’s Growth Association, Taiwan; Nancy Wallace, WFMH’s Main Representative at UN NY; and Melevlev (Huei-Chuan Sung), Director, Aboriginal Women’s Affairs, Awakening Foundation.

At the March session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (left to right):
Chueh Chang, WFMH Board Member-at-Large; A-bu, President,
Kaohsiung County Indigenous Women�s Growth Association, Taiwan;
Nancy Wallace, WFMH�s Main Representative at UN NY; and
Melevlev (Huei-Chuan Sung), Director, Aboriginal Women�s Affairs, Awakening Foundation.

Support for Women in Afghanistan
International Women�s Day was observed at United Nations headquarters on 8 March 2002 during the annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). This year the event was focused on the status of women in Afghanistan (where the first public observance of the Day was held in eleven years). The theme was the right of girls and women in that country to education.

To underscore the importance that the United Nations attaches to improving the situation of women in Afghanistan, high-profile speakers addressed the assembled government representatives and NGO observers. These included Secretary General Kofi Annan, Mrs. Laura Bush, Queen Noor, the presidents of the UN General Assembly and Security Council, and representatives from UN agencies.

In a series of presentations about the multiple problems faced by women in Afghanistan, mental health was not mentioned. But the magnitude of the problems described left no doubt that over time, this will need to be addressed after the most urgent requirements are met. One of the most compelling accounts came from Sima Wali, an Afghan woman who heads Refugee Women in Development (and one of the three women delegates at the Bonn talks on the future of Afghanistan in late 2001). She described the feminization of poverty and a systematic isolation of women, creating �non-citizens in our own country.� The illiteracy rate for women is 80% or more.

Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), gave a powerful speech describing the situation of women – early marriage, high birth rates, absence of health care, malnutrition � leading to early death. A woman on average has eight children and lives to 44 years.


First Quarter 2002 Newsletter