Gender Planning And Human Rights

Challenging the traditional treatment of human rights cast in purely legal frameworks, the authors argue that, in order to promote the notion of human rights, its geographies and spatialities must be investigated and be made explicit. A wealth of case studies examine the significance of these components in various countries with multi-cultured societies, and identify ways to integrate human rights issues in planning, development and policy making. The book uses case studies from UK, Israel, Canada, Singapore, USA, Peru, European Union, Australia and the Czech Republic.

Challenging the traditional treatment of human rights cast in purely legal frameworks, the authors argue that, in order to promote the notion of human rights, its geographies and spatialities must be investigated and be made explicit. A wealth of case studies examine the significance of these components in various countries with multi-cultured societies, and identify ways to integrate human rights issues in planning, development and policy making. The book uses case studies from UK, Israel, Canada, Singapore, USA, Peru, European Union, Australia and the Czech Republic.

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and reproductive rights.

This publication provides practical guidance on the integration of a gender perspective throughout the work of investigative bodies or entities, from the planning phase to the investigations and to writing the report and presenting its findings. It should be read in conjunction with existing OHCHR guidance in the Manual on Human Rights Monitoring and Commissions of Inquiry and Fact-finding Missions on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law: Guidance and Practice. The publication specifically aims to strengthen the content of human rights reports in order to accurately depict the different experiences of women, men, girls and boys. It is primarily aimed at United Nations Human Rights Officers, especially those performing investigative functions, including with CoIs/FFMs. It may also be used as a reference material for the human rights monitoring, analysis and reporting performed by OHCHR field presences or as part of peace operations mandated by the Security Council and overseen, managed and supported by OHCHR. States Parties, regional mechanisms, national human rights institutions, national commissions of inquiry, civil society organizations and others could also benefit from guidance on how to integrate a gender perspective into monitoring and investigating human rights violations and abuses.

This book brings together the papers commissioned for a Pan-Commonwealth Expert Group Meeting on Gender and Human Rights which took place at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London in February 2004. These papers, together with other key background papers, represent much of the analysis and experience from Commonwealth member countries that informed the development of the Human Rights section of the new Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality 2005-2015. The papers address a wide range of Gender and Human Rights issues, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), gender-based violence, culture and the law, indigenous peoples, trafficking and migration, land and property rights, diversity, and a life cycle approach to gender and human rights. The contributors include government policymakers, judges, lawyers, academics, representatives of civil society organizations, and specialists from multilateral agencies including the Commonwealth Secretariat. The purpose of this book is to contribute to current policymaking, program planning and implementation on Gender and Human Rights. It is intended for a wide audience of policymakers, magistrates, judges and lawyers, academics, and civil society organizations grappling with these issues. It is also intended as a conceptual and policy-oriented resource for those committed to implementing and supporting the Human Rights goals of the new Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality 2005-2015.

II: WOMEN AND HEALTH

10. Guidance for action

Women's Human Rights: Seeking Gender Justice in a Globalising Age explores the emergence of transnational, UN-oriented, feminist advocacy for womens human rights, especially over the past three decades. It identifies the main feminist influences that have shaped the movement liberal, radical, third world and cosmopolitan and exposes how the Western, legalist, state-centric, and liberal biases of mainstream human rights discourse impede the realisation of human rights in womens lives everywhere. The book traces the evolution of the womens human rights movement through an examination of its key issues, debates, and practical interventions in international law and policy arenas. This includes efforts to: Develop global gender equality norms via the UN Womens Convention Frame violence against women as a human rights issue Address gender-based crimes in conflict situations, include women in conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction, and challenge new forms of militarism Highlight the gendered human rights dimensions of widening inequalities in a context of neo-liberal globalisation Develop human rights responses to anti-feminist fundamentalist movements with a focus on reproductive and sexual rights Ultimately, Women's Human Rights reaffirms a commitment to critically reinterpreted universal human rights principles and demonstrates the vital role that bottom-up, transnational movements play in making them a reality in women's lives.