The Preliminary UNCSW 54 Post-Mortem

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This is the final part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9
I will probably write more than just one post-mortem on the 54th Commission of the Status of Women for me. I’m writing while staying up too late in Calgary, waiting impatiently to be home with my kids, and have stayed up to that point that I’m scared that if I go to sleep that I will miss my plane.

I didn’t actually get to see Senator Clinton. I had referred to her in my tweets, facebook and blog as “Hillary” and some other tweeple sent out a message to people blogging and tweeting the CSW asking that we refer to the Senator by her proper title. The Feminist communication on this is that when people refer to male politicians they do so by either the proper title and last name, or simply last name.

I suppose referring to a public or professional official by their first name kind of implies a familiarity that isn’t seen as respectful as the title-last-name thing. I’m not that picky about much. I usually refer to people by name because I’m never totally sure of their proper titles (unless it’s an easy one like “president” or “minister”) and I’m usually too lazy to google.

All of that, however, is secondary to the fact that I didn’t actually get to see her address the United Nations on the last day of the CSW. I did wait for over two hours in a line where I was shouted at by UN security personnel. I started livetweeting that after one of the security guards yelled viciously at a woman who looked over seventy. She had approached the guard because she wasn’t sure which line she should have been in.

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UNCSW 54: March 4

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Commission on the Status of Women, international women's day, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 , Part 9 , Part 10
I am lagging lagging lagging behind, but luckily for me, I have been live tweeting, which means that not only can interested readers follow along in point form (search #csw54 at twitter.com) but I can go back and refresh my memory from the tweets!

March 4th (Thursday) seemed to hold a Rural women’s theme. I began the day at a session highlighting the work of the Salesian Sisters in rural South America. The Sister’s panel was made up of women who had accessed their services in Ecuador and Guatemala. The women talked about the circumstances that they had come to the Sisters from.

UNCSW 54 March 3rd

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

March 3rd was the day that the United Nations Celebrated International Women’s Day. The occasion is celebrated a few days before the actual event to allow Delegates to the UN the chance to get home in time to celebrate with their communities.

I started the Day at the NGO general briefing at the Salvation Army. A South East Asian delegate asked if we could lobby for a resolution specific to women in extreme poverty and women with disability with our respective government meetings and regional caucuses. The Women’s Labour Congress also asked us to join them in their lobby for a resolution on women’s economic empowerment, and women from Arabic women’s caucus would like to see a resolution on women in occupied territories, and the general women’s labour group finished and released a draft of their open letter to the Secretary General about the long lines and poor state of the UNCSW.

After the NGO debrief I moved back to the main building and made my way to the overflow room (Conference Room 2) to watch the UN celebration of International Womens Day.

It was very nice, the Secretary General made a wonderful and engaging address. He spoke about the way that he honors women because he is a husband and a father and a grandfather. He talked about how important he felt it was for men throughout the world to recognize that violence against women is a direct violation of their inalienable human rights.

UNCSW 54 March 2nd Country Reports

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Beijing Platform for Action, Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

The theme of this UNCSW is the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action. You can find the Platform here:

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/

The 54th UNCSW has focused on taking stock of the progress that has been made in the implementation of the platform, as well as using the opportunity to identify and prioritize the ways that we need to move forward. The main indicators that countries seem to be reporting on are access to education, political participation, economic security and violence against women. The latter three priorities are mirrored in the “Three Pillars” that the Status of Women Canada seem to talk about so often.

UNCSW 54 Being Organized & Having Space

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

The first global debrief happened Monday morning at the Salvation Army on 52nd Street here in New York. A panel of four women from the UN Division for the Advancement of Women address the civil society every morning at 8:45-9:30.

I didn’t envy the UNDAW representatives. Many of the women waited up to 8 hours through long lines to register. No one that I know of was able to make it through the lines in less than 3 hours, and people waiting were not able to sit. A lot of the women at the debrief were extremely angry at the long lines, lack of seating, and general lack of organization of the 54th UNCSW.

Because this UNCSW marks such an important anniversary there are more than 8,000 women here to take part. This is more than double the participation rates of earlier years, and UN renovations have exacerbated the capacity problems by limiting space and by complicating the needs of  UN Security.

UNCSW 54 Day 1

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3, Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

At todays briefing session our Minister remembered my name (cool!) and then looked me in the eye and said the following:   “I was just in a bi-lateral session with Israel, it’s where we share practices, and Israel said that they’ve increased women’s access to education and their birthrate is rising too! They have such strong family values there that they don’t need a National Daycare plan! Wouldn’t it be great to figure out how they’re doing that?”

She then went and told a number of other people the same thing (individually).

This left me really torn. I’m going to go on about the events of the day following this short moment where I try to figure out what to do with what was said.

Northern Blogger meets with Minister Guergis

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

This morning Minister of State, Junior Cabinet Minister for the Status of Women met with Canadian NGOs who are here in New York for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

I was able to attend a meeting with Minister Guergis along with KateMcInturff of the Feminist Alliance for International Action. Kate made a verbal presentation to the Minister on the three pillars that the Minister has been stressing in her position directing the focus of the Status of Women Canada.

The Three Pillars as identified by the Status are…

Sporatic Northern Blogger, Trip to the UN

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

Before I start blogging, I just wanted to take a moment to mention the Chilean earthquake disaster. I have caught tidbits through the news as I’ve hopped through the airports and wanted to say that my thoughts are with the victims of this disaster.

Knowing the complete devastation that has been visited upon Chile and other countries who have (or may soon) suffer the fallout of the earth quake made the fact that Air Canada lost my luggage AGAIN seem kind of trivial.

The Sporadic Northern Blogger is going back to where it all began! (the United Nations)

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

A few years back I met the amazing Amanda Reaume in New York City while attending the 52nd UNCSW. During this experience I blogged (via facebook) and the blogs were re-published to Antigone. I’ve been meaning ever since to blog on Antigone about my experiences as a Northern Feminist, but I haven’t been great about the consistency. I just found out today that FAFIA is generously providing me with another opportunity to attend the UNCSW (because they received an unexpected donation) and I am goign to be re-posting my blog over here. so voila, here it is cut and pasted for your enjoyment!
At the opening of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) training session that happened in Yellowknife a few weeks back, Nancy Baroni of FAFIA (the Feminist Alliance for International Action) presented the following tale: