CAW Delegates to the UNCSW55 - Update

While the 55^th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women continues in New York, Julie White and Kim Yardy returned home this past weekend having had the honour and the privilege of attending the first 7 days of the two-week UNCSW55.

After a full week of official UNCSW proceedings, round table events, and NGO parallel events, we left some incredible trade union women in New York who continue to work towards ensuring that the final conclusions of this UNCSW session reflect the needs of trade union women, and more broadly, women around the world.

Attending the UN was a great opportunity to connect with women and activists from around the world and engage politically on the issue of women's equality. It has also been our first attempt at using technology and social media as an activist tool - as a means of reaching out and sharing our experiences, of building new relationships and deepening existing ones with activists here at home.  Our main objective in using technology tools such as the blog and twitter was to keep our members connected to this important work. One of the surprising by-products was the depth of connections made with people from around the world. While the majority of visits to our blog came from Canada, people checked in from the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Singapore, Brazil, Sweden, Australia, and Belgium.

This has been a learning curve for us all, and while there have been things we feel worked well, there are many that could have been done differently. And we cannot underestimate the need to have a communications strategy when embracing such an undertaking.

Look for our final posts on the UNCSW shortly, in which we will share the conclusions of the UNCSW and reflect on our experiences there. Stay tuned...

In sisterhood,

Julie and Kim 

At the Round Table with Minister Rona Ambrose

On Thursday, February 24th, Julie White - along with several other invited union and NGO representatives - attended a round table meeting with Minister Rona Ambrose to discuss the issue of violence against girls.

This is a report on the round table meeting as posted on the CLC blog UNCSW: A Union Perspective, written by Margaret McPhail of the OSSTF:

Report on the Roundtable on violence against girls 

Several representatives from Canadian NGOs and unions were invited to a roundtable discussion on violence against girls with Canada’s Minister for Status of Women Rona Ambrose, SWC staff, and other members of the official Canadian delegation, including the White Ribbon Campaign, Plan Canada/International, and representatives from several provincial governments. Invitees included the YWCA, FAFIA, FFQ, CAW, OSSTF, and the Canadian Voice of Women.

The White Ribbon Campaign representative, and co-chair for the session, opened by asking the women to make a brief statement about their organization’s work. He indicated this would be followed by an interactive conversation highlighting experiences and challenges, and consideration of a shared vision and opportunities.
The overview of involvement by unions, agencies, advocacy groups and government departments was both informative and thought-provoking.  It was unfortunate - but not surprising with only one hour allocated to the roundtable - that there was no real opportunity to move beyond these introductory statements.

Nonetheless certain themes emerged.  One was the complexity and sheer extent of violence against women and girls. The YWCA noted that 100,000 women and children enter shelters each year in Canada, while others spoke of initiatives on sexual assault, missing and murdered aboriginal women, trafficking, and gender-based violence in schools and workplaces. In particular, the young women from Plan International highlighted issues regarding the rights of youth and girls.

A second theme concerned the need to go beyond the provision of services, important as these are, to research and analyze the environments that permit, and even foster, violence against women and girls.  This includes legal and other impediments facing women, such as economic barriers and a lack of options/rights to prevent or leave violent situations. There is also a need for legal protections and workplace supports to deal with gender-based violence, including domestic violence, and the ability to access time away from work and counseling services. As well, stereotypical and harmful definitions of masculinity, as well as violence in entertainment and media, must be addressed.

The need for a comprehensive, co-ordinated and properly-resourced action plan to address gender-based violence was another recurring theme. Representatives from government programs spoke of their current work to share best practices, provide training for agencies and departments, and develop new strategies on identified concerns.   Others filled out this picture identifying the need for a strong legislative framework, including the recent changes to the Ontario Health and Safety Act, and the campaign to retain the gun registry.  The importance of doing prevention work with men and boys was also flagged as a necessary part of the strategy.  Several identified the urgent need for government leadership in developing a national action plan, such as that in Australia, and drawing together all levels of government.

In her response, the Minister noted that what she had heard at the roundtable was the same as what she was hearing across the country and there was still a huge, unfinished agenda.  She referred to her own experience working in shelters and gave a personal commitment to work together on this issue, saying she now used every table available to her to talk about women’s issues.  She noted that the government under Stephen Harper had already spent $30 million in funding projects since 2007.

While the Minister agreed on the need for a national strategy on violence and talked about the significance of “dollars and infrastructure” she framed her comments around the importance of making sure the right type of data is available to know where to target attention, and the need to reach out to girls and people who are not “as aware of” their rights and available resources, particularly those in “vulnerable communities”.  This seemed consistent with the focus of her earlier statement at the United Nations where she emphasized the attention her government is giving to “honour killings” although these represent only a very tiny piece of violence against women and girls and can be addressed under existing legislation.

The Plan International representative ended the roundtable saying she did not want to come back in a few years to find we were still in the same place and calling for a National Action Plan. She asked the Minister if we could look to her Ministry on that.  In response, the Minister made a commitment to continue to work on this issue, saying she would “love to see a national strategy” but that must involve the provincial/territorial partners also.  This could be a topic at the upcoming federal/provincial/territorial table discussion of Ministers responsible for women’s issues.

Following the meeting, an attempt was made with staff to get a commitment for a future meeting with the Minister to continue the discussion.  We were told to send her a letter.

Reporter: Margaret McPhail, Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers'

Minister Meets with Canadian NGO Delegation

On Thursday, February 24, following her statement at the UNCSW55, the Canadian Minister on the Status of Women’s, Rona Ambrose, met with representatives from the Canadian NGO delegation. The delegation had agreed on some key messages and decided that 4 representatives would speak : Patty Ducharme, National Vice-President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Louise Mercier, Vice-President of the Québec Federation of Labour, Alexa Conradi, President of the Fédération des femmes du Québec and Ann Decter, of the YWCA. Patty Ducharme expressed the profound disappointment and strong disagreement of the NGO delegation with what the policies and positions that the government of Canada has been adopting in the last few years. She informed the Ministers that we feel there is a huge disconnect between what the government’s priorities are, and the reality of women’s lives. For example, at the UNCSW the Minister boasted about Canada’ s work on the tragic situation of the missing and murdered Aboriginal women, and the fact that the government has committed 10 million dollars to address this issue. But as Patty pointed out, this  money is essentially going to fund RCMP and Department of Justice general initiatives, rather than any Aboriginal-driven initiatives. Indeed, several organizations, including organizations representing Aboriginal women have denounced the lack of funding for the Sisters in Spirit initiative, and the absence of a concerted action plan against violence against Aboriginal women. Still on the theme of violence, the Minister addressed the issue of honour killings in her UNCSW address. Patty pointed out that during the years 2002-2009 there were in total only 13 honour killings in Canada, while there were 4,836 homicides. Of these homicides, one in 5 were spousal homicides and 83% of the victims were women. In other words, more than 800 women were killed in Canada by a partner during this period of time. If the government were serious about ending violence against women, it would focus on this larger problem, and it would commit to ensuring that the gun registry remain open and operational. Indeed, the gun registry had a proven track record of reducing violent crimes in general and domestic violence in particular. Patty also expressed our concern about the funding cuts to feminist organizations. Patty informed the Minister that we are here watching what Canada is doing at the UNCSW, and that we will report and blog on the positions that will be advocated by Canada. She expressed our disappointment that despite the CSW theme on education in science and technology and access to full employment for women, the Minister did not mention jobs, let alone decent work, education or science and technology. Finally Patty ended by informing the Minister that we will be closely analyzing the upcoming federal budget, and that we hope to see budget items that will promote women’s economic equality. If the minister is serious about wanting to make a difference, we would need to see some pretty significant changes in the Conservative government policies. Reporter: Andrée Côté, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Canadian Women's Trade Union Delegation Meets with Minister Ambrose

Julie White, Vicky Smallman, Patty Ducharme and other trade union
women meet with minister Ambrose.

The Canadian women's trade union delegation to the UNCSW55 met with Minister Rona Ambrose following her presentation to the UN. Further details of this meeting will be posted soon, but this is some of the twitterfeed from sisters at the meeting:

Canadian NGO delegation made it clear to Ambrose that we are opposed to this government's actions which undermine women's rights #uncsw

Patty Ducharme asks Minister why the focus only on 13 honour killings when over 800 women were murdered by men in Canada btw 02 & 09 #uncsw

Unions to Minister Ambrose: funding for missing and murdered Aboriginal women should go to Aboriginal women's groups not to the RCMP #uncsw

Patty Ducharme challenging Minister Ambrose on the gun registry and violence against women #uncsw