Women's human rights

Banúlacht is committed to a critical holistic human rights perspective as a framework for analysis and action. This is a global vision of interconnectedness which recognizes the indivisibility of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. It includes a critical engagement with the development of human rights frameworks which attempt to recognise, protect and promote women’s rights as human rights.

Banúlacht sees the international human rights framework of the United Nations, in particular the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, as global advocacy tools aimed at transforming decision-making processes at all political levels. The framework of international human rights places people rather than markets, and public goods rather than commodities, at the centre of decision-making, and places responsibilities on states to provide such public goods. In this way, human rights provides a counterweight to current neoliberal economic policy, which tends to lead to a reduction in the role of the state, and the privatisation of public goods, such as water. Human rights also provides a global structure within which to challenge violations of human rights by state and non-state actors.

However, the creation of two separate human rights instruments, the ICCPR and the ICESCR, has resulted in economic, social and cultural rights remaining second-class to civil and political rights. Civil and political rights (such as the rights of freedom of association and expression) are universally accepted as legally enforceable. However, economic, social and cultural rights (such as the right to health and the right to shelter) have tended to be treated by governments as only aspirational. The women's movement has long challenged this false dichotomy, arguing that the systematic discrimination and resulting deep patterns of inequality experienced by women globally can only be addressed by specific government policies, measures and resources directed at the economic, social and cultural spheres, as well as the political and civil spheres.

Banúlacht’s work on human rights is underpinned by a feminist perspective and informed by an anti-racist position as a framework for analysis and action. Our approach includes a critical engagement with human rights frameworks that attempt to recognise, protect and promote women’s rights as human rights. We focus in particular on the need to protect and promote women’s economic, social and cultural rights. Banúlacht's work aims to provide the tools for women’s organisations in Ireland to promote, debate and raise awareness of international human rights frameworks as strategies both to provide concrete tools and forums for organising, and to catalyse lobbying by the women's sector for the creation of mechanisms for greater local, national, regional and international accountability.

For more information on Women's Economic Rights, see Banúlacht's November 2006 Gender and Development Bulletin, entitled, 'Realising Economic and Social Rights through Community Development'.

Key international human rights agreements

The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) are the two international human rights agreements which focus specifically on women’s human rights, recognising the indivisibility of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights. CEDAW sets out the key international principles underpinning governments' obligation to take action in promoting and fulfilling gender equality and women's empowerment. The BPfA outlines strategic objectives and action in relation to twelve critical concerns: poverty, education, health, violence, armed conflict, the economy, power and decision-making, government structures to support equality, human rights, media, the environment and the girl child.

For more information on women's human rights, see the links below:

Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

For more information on how to use CEDAW see the website of the International Women's Rights Action Watch (Asia Pacific)

See also the Women's Human Rights Alliance (Ireland) website.

For more information on the BPFA, click here.

Millennium Development Goals

The international development policy framework which is the Millennium Declaration is a powerful synthesis of the goals of the UN conferences of the 1990s. It reiterates and reinforces the recognition within the UN human rights system of the equal importance of economic, social and cultural rights and political and civil rights. It also reinforces the centrality of gender equality to human rights and development. With their focus on, among other goals, the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, the achievement of universal primary education, the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, the improvement of maternal health and the combating of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, the MDGs reflect the vision of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA).

For more on Banúlacht's analysis of the MDGs, click here.

White Paper on Irish Aid

Irish governments have been consistent in bringing Ireland's commitments under the Beijing Platform for Action, CEDAW and the MDGs to the fore, most recently in the Gender Equality Policy and in the Irish Aid White Paper on Development Co-operation. The Irish Aid White Paper on Development Cooperation names gender equality as one of the four cross-cutting issues of its development policy and the promotion of human rights is widely acknowledged. The BPFA and CEDAW are specifically named, and there is a key decision ‘to increase our support for gender equality measures', as well as a specific section on gender and development. The approach to women's human rights and gender equality is outlined in more detail in Irish Aid's Gender Equality Policy, 2004. The Policy Goal of the Gender Equality Policy is: 'to support the achievement of gender equality as an essential component of sustainable human development. The Policy Objectives are to advance equal rights for women and men; to eliminate gender inequalities in access to, control of and benefit from resources and services; and to promote gender equality in political and economic power.

For more on Banúlacht's analysis of the White Paper from a gender perspective, click here.