1. Introduction and Overview
The Women’s Economic Equality Project (WEEP) was founded in 1998 in recognition of the need to ensure that women’s experiences and needs are considered in a meaningful way when economic, social and cultural rights are interpreted and implemented at both the international and domestic levels.
Women, of all ages, experience gender inequality within and outside the home. Women are denied access to basic healthcare, housing, education, and work. Even when they are employed, women's wages in industrialized countries are only 60-75% of wages of men. Women in most countries are disproportionately employed in non-standard work in the informal sector, working in exploitative conditions and without adequate protections. Women’s inequality is increasing, as evidenced by the increasing poverty of women, and the re-emergence of sweatshops and other forms of economic exploitation, including trafficking in women.
To confront gender inequality women around the world have formed networks and coalitions to educate the public and give greater exposure to women's problems. The international women's movement has been successful in gaining recognition of women's human rights. However, this success has not been without some costs. Until recently violations of human rights have been male-defined, and precedence has been given to civil and political rights concerns, such as torture and infringements of free speech. Because of this, to break into the human rights framework, women have been forced to highlight the part of their life experience that best fits the male paradigm of a human rights violation -- namely, their experience of violence. As a result, mirroring the pattern within the human rights movement overall, women’s civil and political rights have eclipsed their economic and social rights. This has occurred even though abuses of economic and social rights underly women’s growing inequality and they are integrally connected to every other violation of human rights that women experience. The need to emphasize women’s civil and political rights in order to break into a male-defined paradigm has lead to an impoverished understanding of women’s right to equality, a version of equality stripped of its economic and social rights dimensions. Although the economic and social rights movement has been successful in putting specific rights such as the right to food, housing, and health on the human rights agenda, this movement has failed to consider the particularity of women’s experience and consequently failed to incorporate a gender perspective into the interpretation and treatment of these rights.
With this in mind, the central goal of the Project is to make visible the connection between economic policy and women’s human rights, and to enlarge the idea of women’s equality to ensure it encompasses women’s economic and social rights. These goals are particularly relevant in light of the severe and negative impacts on women of globalization and neo-liberal political, economic and social agendas which encourages diminishing the size of governments, cutting social programs, privatizing public services, and deregulating markets. The human rights framework needs to offer an effective counter-discourse to these dominant theories - a counter-discourse, which can address women’s poverty and economic inequality as violations of women’s human rights.
Beyond developing new and more inclusive discourses, the Women’s Economic Equality Project is designed to assist women to develop new strategies. By bringing together women who work at different levels – domestic, national, and international – a variety of approaches can emerge for contending with practices and policies that perpetuate women’s social and economic subordination.
A key initiative for the Project is the preparation of a Draft General Comment on Women for the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). The Chair of the Committee, Virginia Dandan, has invited the Women’s Economic Equality Project to develop a Draft Comment for consideration. The CESCR is responsible for monitoring States parties’ compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Adopting a General Comment on Women affords an opportunity for the Committee to provide States that have ratified the ICESCR with an authoritative interpretation of what they are legally obliged to do to implement women’s economic and social rights.
The Project held its first Consultation in Cape Town South Africa between 7 – 10 December 2000. The three founders of the Project - Shelagh Day, Leilani Farha and Sarah Zaidi - invited two organizations from South Africa, The Women’s Legal Centre and The Economic and Social Rights Project at the Community Law Centre, to co-host this first Consultation. It was attended by 30 women participants engaged in economic and social rights work including domestic litigation, advancement of the right to food, housing, and development and grassroots anti-poverty organizing. The participants included academics, lawyers, Parliamentarians, trade unionists, and human rights activists.
The organizers were delighted to be able to host the Consultation on Women’s Economic Equality in South Africa, where economic and social rights are justiciable constitutional rights and where there is ongoing activism to advance women’s economic and social equality. The South African hosts noted that in the South African context, women’s human rights have to be understood to relate to poverty and disempowerment, the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. Women’s issues have been marginalized in domestic human rights discourse, but there is the potential for this to change within the South African constitutional context as the Constitutional court recently ruled that the government has a responsibility to the most disempowered groups. To date, however, equality litigation has been initiated in South Africa by the more privileged members of society: men and white women. The courts have yet to grapple with the problems of disempowered women, particularly poor black women.
As participants introduced themselves at the opening of the Consultation, the diversity and depth of experience, knowledge and insight of Consultation participants was apparent and was reflected throughout every other session of the Consultation.
The Consultation opened with a presentation on women’s equality that provided a theoretical framework for the Consultation. This was followed by an analysis of equality in the South African context. On the following day, presenters focused on the negative impact of the global implementation of neo-liberal economic policy on the economic and social conditions of women. Presenters also considered how the specific rights to social security, food, and adequate housing can take women’s experiences into account. It was evident from the presentations and the ensuing discussion that gender-neutral treatment of economic, social and cultural rights does not advance women’s equality. The final day of the Consultation was spent on discussion of concepts to be included in a General Comment on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The group also discussed strategies that can be employed to protect and fulfill women’s rights, such as feminist budget analysis, using the World Bank Inspection Panel, and grass roots organizing and action.
The papers that were prepared for the Consultation will be published in 2002 in a law journal. In addition, the General Comment on Women and the ICESCR is currently being drafted and several regional consultations will be held in 2001 – 2002 to review the draft. We expect that the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights will adopt the General Comment in late 2002.
Warm thanks to all those who participated in the Consultation, and to those who helped in the many facets of organizing it. Special thanks are due to our South African hosts, the Women’s Legal Centre, and the Social and Economic Rights Project at the Community Law Centre. The Women’s Economic Equality Project is also grateful to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, the Centre for Economic and Social Rights, and the National Association of Women and the Law of Canada for their support. We appreciate the generous financial support received from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Canadian International Development Agency, and the Canadian Autoworkers for the Women’s Economic Equality Project.
The Capetown Consultation was an important event as it raised the profile of women’s social and economic rights and what women’s right to equality means in the context of these rights. We hope you enjoy reading these proceedings as much as we have enjoyed working with such a diverse and impressive group of women throughout this Project.
Leilani Farha Sarah Zaidi Shelagh Day
