“Sharing power with women is a shortcut to reducing hunger and malnutrition, and is the single most effective step to realizing the right to food,” the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“Family agriculture has become gradually feminized, with men frequently moving away from the farm in search of work. Yet the women who increasingly face the burden of sustaining farms and families are too often denied the tools to thrive and improve their situation – on and off the farm.”

While De Schutter welcomed initiatives to empower women such as quotas in Indian public worker schemes, he warned that there are multiple barriers to female participation in society which need to be addressed.

“Women will not benefit from female quotas in work schemes if no provision is made for childcare services,” he said. “Individual measures will not suffice – gender roles and responsibilities must be challenged holistically and systematically.”

De Schutter said one of the measures that must be implemented immediately is the removal of all discriminatory laws and practices that prevent women from accessing farming resources such as land, inputs and credit.

He also called for women to be relieved of the burdens of care responsibilities in the home through the provision of adequate public services such as childcare, running water and electricity. Taking care of children and fetching water can amount to the equivalent of 15 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in middle-income countries, and as much as 35 per cent in low-income countries, he said.

The right to education is also vital, De Schutter said, as data shows that from 1970-1995 as much as 55 per cent of the reduction in hunger can be attributed to improvements in women’s situation in society.

“If women are allowed to have equal access to education, various pieces of the food security jigsaw will fall into place,” Mr. De Schutter said. “Household spending on nutrition will increase, child health outcomes will improve, and social systems will be redesigned – for women, by women – to deliver support with the greatest multiplier effects.”

The Special Rapporteur called on countries to actively redistribute traditional gender roles and responsibilities while still being sensitive to the constraints of women. Less labour-intensive assets such as poultry can be provided to them, he said, along with extensive asset management and social development training.

“There is a fine line between taking into account specific constraints and reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes,” he said. “Food security strategies should be judged on their ability to challenge gender roles and to truly empower women. Gender sensitivity is important, but is not a substitute for empowerment.”

Independent experts, or special rapporteurs, are appointed by the Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

“The Working Group is concerned that in the drafting of a new constitution, in particular, its article 28, gains on equality and women’s human rights and women’s status in society achieved in the last five decades risk being rolled back,” said Kamala Chandrakirana, who currently heads the UN expert panel.

Made up of five independent experts, the Working Group’s focus is to identify, promote and exchange views, in consultation with States and other actors, on good practices related to the elimination of laws that discriminate against women. At the time of its establishment by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, in September 2010, it was hailed as a milestone on the road towards women’s equality with men.

Demanding democracy and freedom, the people of Tunisia were at the vanguard last year of a wave of popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East, which became known collectively as the Arab Spring. These movements have led to changes in government in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and to uprisings elsewhere. Tunisia’s political transition started in January last year, and in December, an interim Government was appointed.

According to a news release from the Office for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Tunisia’s new draft constitution places women on unequal footing with men and does not consider them as independent, full individuals. It also delineates their role as ‘complementary to the one of the men in the family’ and fails to ensure that this provision is reciprocal.

“Rights are guaranteed to women not on the basis of them being entitled to human rights by virtue of the fact that they are human, but rather, them being complementary to men,” Chandrakirana said.

“Although the text refers to women’s role in nation-building, it conditions this on women being ‘complementary to men,’ thereby failing to establish the basis for full independence and empowerment of women, and their participation as active citizens for change,” she added.

According to the Working Group, women in Tunisia have long enjoyed an admired position in a region where much remains to be done to protect and promote women’s human rights, thanks in part to previous efforts by the women’s movement and the Government’s adoption in 1956 of the Code of Personal Status, which contained progressive laws on equality between men and women.

“The current Government has an obligation and responsibility to build on these achievements,” Ms. Chandrakirana said. “While Governments change, international human rights obligations remain binding.”

The Government of Tunisia has accepted a visit of the Working Group in November.

Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), noted in a statement that recent weeks have witnessed cases of “extreme abuse and appalling violence against women.”

They include the torture and rape of a young woman, Lal Bibi, by Afghan Local Police and the public execution of a young woman, Najiba.

“These cases have once again focused attention on the continuing and urgent need to protect women’s and girls’ rights as the world redefines its role in Afghanistan, and as the Government of Afghanistan moves forward in [its] transition,” she stated.

Ms. Bachelet said such brutality is “intolerable” and called on the Government to respond urgently to these crimes, bring the perpetrators to justice, put an end to a culture of impunity and create a culture of zero tolerance of violence and discrimination against women and girls.

It is vital, stressed the Executive Director, that the important gains made for and with women over the past decade are advanced and sustained and that women are fully engaged in charting the future of Afghanistan.

“If Afghan women and girls continue to be ignored within the major decision-making processes affecting their country, the vision of a more secure, prosperous and stable Afghanistan cannot be realized,” she stated.

“To ensure progress for Afghanistan, we must act in solidarity to prioritize women’s rights, equality and accountability, and in ending impunity for violence against women and girls,” she added. “UN Women remains committed to working with the Government and people of Afghanistan to advance women’s empowerment and gender equality.”

“This decision, following a similar one by Brunei Darussalam and Qatar, marks a significant progress in realizing the right of all to take part in physical and sporting activities, and hence achieving greater gender equality in sport,” the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, Wilfried Lemke, said in a news release.

“Decisions such as the one taken today by the Saudi Arabian authorities definitely set a positive example and bring us gradually closer to the realization of a more equitable future, on and off the field of play,” he added.

According to the International Olympic Committee, Saudi Arabia will send two female athletes – Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, who will compete in judo, and Sarah Attar, who will compete in athletics – to the 2012 Games, which start on 27 July in the UK capital.

Lemke noted that the UN family, the Olympic Movement and their partners, have long worked together to promote the participation of women in sports activities and competitions, as well as in management and leadership roles.

“This is for instance reflected in the fact that today, at the Olympics, participation of athletes is almost equally balanced between women and men,” he said, adding, however, that women and girls still face today a great deal of discrimination and marginalization in all sectors of society around the world.

“This saddening reality applies to the world of sport, despite the remarkable advances made in that area over the past decades,” the Special Adviser said. “The practice of sport and physical activity, at all levels, can have immense benefits for individuals, communities and societies. No one should, on the basis of gender, race, ability, age, culture or religious considerations, be denied access to sport and miss on the positive effects its practice can bring.”

One of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – anti-poverty and development targets agreed on by world leaders at a UN summit in 2000 – aims at “promoting gender equality and empowering women.” Mr. Lemke’s office has noted that sport has been recognised as a viable and practical tool to assist in the achievement of the MDGs.

In February, at the 5th World Conference on Women and Sport, organized by the IOC and attended by several UN officials, including Special Adviser Wilfried Lemke, participants adopted a declaration which said that “the promotion of women’s participation in sports activities, management and administration should, and must, serve the wider goal of supporting the international agenda of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.”

The EU Framework identifies four pillars where national efforts to improve the integration of Roma are required: access to education, jobs, healthcare and housing. For the first time, all Member States committed to developing an integrated approach across these four policy areas and delivered national strategies to address these priority areas.

In yesterday’s report, the Commission concludes that Member States have made an effort to develop a comprehensive approach to Roma integration. However, the Commission report highlights that much more needs to be done when it comes to securing sufficient funding for Roma inclusion, putting monitoring

“It is good news that Member States have delivered on their commitment and presented Roma integration strategies. Presenting national strategies is a first and important step,” said EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. “However, Member States now need to move up a gear and strengthen their efforts with more concrete measures, explicit targets, earmarked funding and sound monitoring and evaluation. We need more than strategies that exist on paper. We need tangible results in national politics that improve the lives of Europe’s 10 to 12 million Roma.”

EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion László Andor said: “The inclusion of Roma in Europe is a shared economic, social and moral imperative, even if the challenges facing Roma communities vary between Member States. This report underlines the need for our October 2011 proposal that Member States, for the 2014-2020 financial period, should have in place an appropriate Roma inclusion strategy before receiving European Social Fund money for it.”

In their strategies, all Member States acknowledge the need to reduce the gap between Roma and non-Roma in the four key areas identified by the European Commission.

Most Member States have presented specific measures on how they intend to reach the agreed objectives.

Surprisingly enough, the problem is banal and everything seems to come down to how much each culture enforces repression and stereotypes. Gender equality does not necessarily mean gender-sameness; and expect that a woman to win equality needs to behave like men, is a meticulous reinforcement of the status quo: a woman either conforms to the existent set of rules, in the logic of a male oriented society, or has not place in it.

However, being cultures different from each others, to acquire equality can mean lots of different kind of battles. For lots of women in the Western world, feminism gets to the point of equal pay for equal work. Often, it comes down to the right to have women legislate on new laws directly related to a woman’s body, as in the case of abortion. Today these women don’t burn their bra or clip the apron strings; such a public display of struggle wouldn’t help them. They simply enforce the belief that women can do whatever they want as men do, whether that means baking cookies and staying home with their babies, or becoming an astronaut, or doing it all.

Other women step towards equality gaining the right to vote, even better if accompanied with the right to an education; since the latter will allow them to better understand the society they live in, and influence change as they see fit. Others fight to simply be; to retrieve their citizenship papers, in the hands of abusive fathers, brothers or spouses. To gain the chance to work legally, be independent, or move around freely. In other cases, the road is longer; women being simply shocked and surprised when told that they can be a person, speaking their own minds; not a body useful only to nurture, give pleasure or procreate.

Ideally, to be female should not be directly linked to producing children as its primary quality, being it only a biological function. This suggestion, however, makes sense only if society grows to see male and female as individuals, whose genetic qualities are transmitted by parenting. A mutual effort to be shared and faced by both, male and female, within a social supportive structure; not as an obvious female role, which is linked to a self-sacrificing mission expected women to take on from a certain age – since this kind of role is perfectly appropriate to a male individual as well.

People belonging to different cultures, and wishing to promote changes towards equality, often face the automatic repression the established status quo puts in action as a defense mechanism; the eternal attempt to retain power within the authoritative voice of what by tradition is considered ‘natural’, and obvious. Therefore, change is slow and civil rights need centuries to be fully absorbed, to become in their own respect ‘natural’; habits of our sociocultural interactions.

As for us here today, in spite of cultural differences, I believe it is safe to say that woman’s day is not about revolutionary articles; those that come out today in women magazines, which during the whole year promote nothing but a stereotyped image of women perennially in hight heels and looking for a husband. Or about special discounts in restaurants and spas; as if today women are allowed to recall what they are, that they can in fact take care of themselves once a year, provided they go back to their established role the day after.

No matter what, this day is when some women need to be remembered. Those who struggled, and struggle, to be first of all a respected individual, who has a mind on her own, no matter the decision she takes, because nobody is allowed to force her into a life of unwanted obligations. And most of all, it is a day in which women should recall their integrity and their power to say ‘no, thanks’ to several sly and diminishing choices men put them in front of, as if those were the only one allowed. Well, they are not. We can walk away from them, trace our own paths; or at least try to, because this is what the future generations of women need, examples to follow.

Romana Turina is a writer and cinematographer

Human Rights Watch called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to put an end to the discrimination against women in sports in the kingdom a condition for Saudi Arabia’s participation in Olympic sporting events, including the 2012 London Games.
“The fact that women and girls cannot train to compete clearly violates the Olympic Charter’s pledge to equality and gives the Olympic movement itself a black eye, ”according to 
Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Saudi Arabia is one of only three countries in the world never to have sent a female athlete to the Olympics. The other two, Qatar and Brunei, do not bar women from competitive sports and their women athletes have taken part in other international sporting competitions. Qatar has supported sports for women over the past decade and said that it plans to send women athletes to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The 51-page report, “‘Steps of the Devil’: Denial of Women and Girls’ Right to Sport in Saudi Arabia,” documents prejudice by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education in denying girls physical education in state schools, as well as discriminatory practices by the General Presidency for Youth Welfare, a youth and sports ministry, in licensing women’s gyms and supporting only all-male sports clubs. The National Olympic Committee of Saudi Arabia also has no programmes for women athletes and has not fielded women in past Olympic Games.

While the IOC has criticized Saudi Arabia for failing to send women athletes to the Olympics, it has not conditioned the kingdom’s participation on ending discrimination against women in sports. In July 2011, IOC spokeswoman Sandrine Tonge said that the IOC governing body “does not give ultimatums nor deadlines but rather believes that a lot can be achieved through dialogue.” The IOC charter, however, asserts that sport is a right for everyone and bans discrimination in practicing sports on the basis of gender. 
Human Rights Watch called on Saudi Arabia to act within one year to introduce physical education for girls in all schools, open women’s sections, and fund women’s sport in the youth ministry, the Saudi National Olympic Committee, and Saudi sports federations. The organization said that these steps are essential proof of a Saudi effort to end discrimination against women in sports and thus a precondition for allowing the kingdom to be represented in Olympic events.

Women and girls are not only denied the excitement of competition, but also the physical and psychological benefits, leading to longer, healthier lives, that participation in sports conveys. Obesity rates have been on the rise in Saudi Arabia in recent years, in particular among women, as have related diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In Saudi Arabia, between two-thirds to three-quarters of adults and 25 to 40 percent of children and adolescents are estimated to be overweight or obese, according to a scientific article in Obesity Review in 2011.