Much still to be done on gender equality: UN Women's Day forum

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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
Much still to be done on gender equality : UN Women's Day forum
Phatarawadee Phataranawik
The Nation



BANGKOK: -- Better education, effective laws that protect women, empowering women, and more women represented in legislatures will bring about gender equality in Thailand and the Asia-Pacific region, say international women's rights experts.

They were commenting yesterday at a United Nations conference marking International Women's Day 2014 at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand in Bangkok.

The UN said that to ensure gender equality and women's empowerment received sufficient priority as necessary conditions for meaningful, inclusive and sustainable development, any post-2015 development framework should contain a standalone goal on gender equality.

UN Women and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap) hosted the event under the theme "Equality for Women Is Progress for All".

"Fourteen years since the Millennium Declaration, it is clear more than ever that progress for all requires us to tackle the structural and root causes of inequality between women and men, girls and boys, in Asia-Pacific and across the globe," said Dr Shamshad Akhtar, UN undersecretary-general and Escap executive secretary.

Women in the Asia-Pacific region continue to face severe deficits in health and education, and in their access to power, voice and rights, the conference heard.

The skewed male and female child-morality rate is another issue, with more girls under the age of 15 dying than boys.

The forum highlighted gender inequality and gender-based discrimination as impeding progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which are to expire next year, and women's rights experts across the globe underlined the urgent need for action to ensure gender equality.

The commemoration featured an interactive dialogue that examined the impact of the MDGs on women's rights and how gender equality could be achieved in the region amid rising inequality.

"We should stop violence again women, especially sexual violence," said India-based Dr Gita Sen, founder and executive committee member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era.

"Governments can do this but they're not doing enough. Political change is the key issue."

Sivananthi Thanenthiran, executive director of the Malaysia-based Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women, said sex education in the region needed to be updated to help prevent the spread of the Aids virus.

She also said child marriage was a growing problem.

Saman Zarifi, the Thailand-based regional director for Asia and the Pacific at the International Commission of Jurists, said there was much violence against women in the Kingdom but many did not report it.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN undersecretary-general and UN Women executive director, said: "International Women's Day is therefore also a day to recommit ourselves to working harder for gender equality, together as women, men, youth and leaders of nations, communities, religions and commerce.

"We also acknowledge that progress has been slow, uneven, and in some cases women and girls face new and more complex challenges."


-- The Nation 2014-03-08

[chainarong]

One would think that under Thailand's present circumstances this would be the last thing that Thai's would be worrying about , when you look around and get away from the wealthy and the top end of town, the peasants at the coal face either Male or Female don't have much to look forward to , to put it mildly ,they are slaves to the establishment , until this changes and more equality with better education and political influence ,Thailand will always be Amazing Thailand.

[BSJ]

More UN horseshit! If their really worried about something they could put in a good word for the Thai peasants who don't have flush toilets. Oops, my sarcasm is showing!

[ETatBKK]

'Better education, effective laws that protect women, empowering women, and more women represented in legislatures will bring about gender equality in Thailand '

RESPECT WOMEN first, then talk about these glorious and superficial words above !

[falangadang]

Whilst women need more protection and rights in Thailand,... for God's sake don't let the feminist NWO UN nutjobs take hold.

Rights for women and feminism has just gone way too far in the west and is one of the major festering problems.

The pendulum has swung too far and yet many within the feminist movement are pushing the parameters!

[Utley]

What is the UN's success rate so far? They have been up to bat over a thousand times and have yet to get a hit.

They should stick to what they do best - indolent bureaucrats siphoning UN funds into their own private bank accounts.

They should be ashamed to preach about "women's rights" on a UN paid junket to a third world nation (did they fly coach?). What is the status of women's rights in their home countries? Any from the middle east where we all know that women's rights is the hallmark of their respective societies?

[techboy]

One would think that under Thailand's present circumstances this would be the last thing that Thai's would be worrying about , when you look around and get away from the wealthy and the top end of town, the peasants at the coal face either Male or Female don't have much to look forward to , to put it mildly ,they are slaves to the establishment , until this changes and more equality with better education and political influence ,Thailand will always be Amazing Thailand.

Indeed. Turn it into a Thai bashing issue. Try taking a look at South and Central America.

[MrBrad]

How about trying to do more than one thing at a time? Respect women as equals, but also work on good (or at least better) education, decent wages, and clean running water. Starting now would be none too soon.

Alright, I know, nothing is going to change in any of these areas.

[kikoman]

One needs only look at the PM of Thailand under attack in this male dominated country, as being a puppet for her male brother and not capable of making decision at all, the male directed attacks on her competence as an political office holder has moved Thailand back into the stone age of gender equality!

Cheers

[techboy]

"Governments can do this but they're not doing enough. Political change is the key issue." I am not so sure. Political key eh? The word "religion" was practically buried. Not so easy to work in that venue and I do not foresee millions of women taking off their hijabs and waving them around like freedom flags. Okay I am stating the obvious but this makes much of it look more like a lot of political grandstanding.

[ginjag]

One needs only look at the PM of Thailand under attack in this male dominated country, as being a puppet for her male brother and not capable of making decision at all, the male directed attacks on her competence as an political office holder has moved Thailand back into the stone age of gender equality!

Cheers

Don't you think you are being over the top ??

The lady in question is the PM, male or female is nothing to do with the ability to govern, the track record is all I go on. Your feminist rant is on topic but because she is the C/pm--defense minister, chairperson of the rice program and has to take the can for mistakes, it is being the PM that's the problem --nothing to do with being female.

Remember our Maggie she was voted in mostly because she was to be the first female PM of UK.

She was snuffed out of her job NOT because she was female it was because she became a dictator in many ways. She got out of favour.

[techboy]

Whilst women need more protection and rights in Thailand,... for God's sake don't let the feminist NWO UN nutjobs take hold.

Rights for women and feminism has just gone way too far in the west and is one of the major festering problems.

The pendulum has swung too far and yet many within the feminist movement are pushing the parameters!

"Rights for women and feminism has just gone way to far in the west and is one of the major festering problems." Rights for women is not a "festering problem." Gross way to put it. In any case you are missing the real "festering" source of the problem.

http://i.imgur.com/QNPnRHY.jpg

[bigbamboo]

One needs only look at the PM of Thailand under attack in this male dominated country, as being a puppet for her male brother and not capable of making decision at all, the male directed attacks on her competence as an political office holder has moved Thailand back into the stone age of gender equality!

Cheers

Don't you think you are being over the top ??

The lady in question is the PM, male or female is nothing to do with the ability to govern, the track record is all I go on. Your feminist rant is on topic but because she is the C/pm--defense minister, chairperson of the rice program and has to take the can for mistakes, it is being the PM that's the problem --nothing to do with being female.

Remember our Maggie she was voted in mostly because she was to be the first female PM of UK.

She was snuffed out of her job NOT because she was female it was because she became a dictator in many ways. She got out of favour.

I think Kikoman is getting caught in his own web of confusion again.

Yingluck is not under attack because she is female but because she is a puppet. If it was Oak he would get the same grief for the same reason, nothing to do with sexism.

Lady Penelope never had this problem.... but then she at least seemed to know what she was doing.

[Dap]

Whilst women need more protection and rights in Thailand,... for God's sake don't let the feminist NWO UN nutjobs take hold.

Rights for women and feminism has just gone way too far in the west and is one of the major festering problems.

The pendulum has swung too far and yet many within the feminist movement are pushing the parameters!

Obviously, NOT far enough to make any major changes.

More power to em and keep up the good work especially

against your particular thought process.

[falangadang]

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Whilst women need more protection and rights in Thailand,... for God's sake don't let the feminist NWO UN nutjobs take hold.

Rights for women and feminism has just gone way too far in the west and is one of the major festering problems.

The pendulum has swung too far and yet many within the feminist movement are pushing the parameters!

"Rights for women and feminism has just gone way to far in the west and is one of the major festering problems." Rights for women is not a "festering problem." Gross way to put it. In any case you are missing the real "festering" source of the problem.

http://i.imgur.com/QNPnRHY.jpg

A typical response from a feminist sympathizer with eyes wide shut! You're evidently a part of the global problem that has done much to split families, disempower fathers and remove their rights as head of the family. I could go on and on but I won't as you evidently don't have the intellect or experience to respond in any kind of meaningful and relevant manner!

Whilst women need more protection and rights in Thailand,... for God's sake don't let the feminist NWO UN nutjobs take hold.

Rights for women and feminism has just gone way too far in the west and is one of the major festering problems.

The pendulum has swung too far and yet many within the feminist movement are pushing the parameters!

Obviously, NOT far enough to make any major changes.

More power to em and keep up the good work especially

against your particular thought process.

Yeah,.. that's right,.. give them all the power they want and then watch them whinge and push for more and more until the very fabric of family and social balance has been destroyed and until the scales of balance have been tipped so heavily in their direction that eventually nobody will be able to recall there ever being a time when things were balanced and where fairness, ethics, morals and family values were considered to be pillars of virtue.

Apart from the family law and family court issues that this kind of movement points to (its all about legal power and power in the courts) which have gone way beyond what could be considered fair and justifiable, there are many other factors that point to the dangers of radical feminism,- much of which is coming now from women themselves who have stepped back just far enough to see the implications of unchecked and unbridled power when it's excericed out of fear of losing that power and out of the unwillingness for the main power brokers to give up one iota of control!

I personally lost my family in the mid 1990's at the hands of feminist lawyers and a female gender dominated family court system in Australia where the objective of the government is to wield its abusive power to break down the family unit and to control families through welfare dependency and nanny state rule.

That was a system in which women were granted $millions per year for legal aid, counseling, cordoned off private lounges and meeting rooms,... and yet the males got $50,000 per annum (nation wide) and no rights to legal aid. I could go on and on but please don't try to come back and justify that as being fair and balanced because you simply can not!

Feminism is the cancer and it has failed. Failed to produce anything but misery for families on the whole and failed to produce happiness for the women that advocated it and pursued it because they discovered that whilst it had given them job equality, the right to credit for cars and houses, holidays and luxuries (unheard of 40 years ago), it has also alienated them from themselves and trapped them into debt and into a society where marriage and commitment is not longer a surety that young women can look forward to in their youth of 20 -30,... and even then divorce rates are at all time highs and not coming down anytime soon.

Like I said in my original post,... yes Thai women need to have more support and to not have to endure the subjugation and violence that many of them have to endure BUT for crying out loud keep the UN and it's FemiNazi legal mercenaries the hell out as they are hell bent on family derision and their NWO objectives and they couldn't really give a damn about any of the carnage that they create along the way!