From the Editor
In a recent statement announcing the formation of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of WomenUN Womenthe UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that this entity will significantly boost UN efforts to promote gender equality, expand opportunity, and tackle discrimination around the globe. While the UN has made significant progress in advancing gender equality, including through landmark agreements such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society, he pointed out.
This remains an unfortunate and unacceptable reality. Discussing the situation within fisheries, participants of the recently-held ICSF workshop titled Recasting the Net: Defining a Gender Agenda for Sustaining Life and Livelihoods in Fishing Communities, underscored the need to address this situation on an urgent basis. The Shared Agenda for Sustaining Life and Livelihoods in Fishing Communities adopted by participants noted that while women are an integral part of small-scale and artisanal fisheries and fishing communities, their work and labour continue to remain invisible. Specific forms of discrimination cut across all aspects of women’s lives.
Participants outlined their dreams of a future where, among other things, aquatic ecosystems are free of pollution, retaining their ability to regenerate living resources, sustain livelihoods and meet food security; fishing communities, including women and children, are able to live their lives in peace and dignity, free of violence, and to enjoy decent living and working conditions; the rights of fishing communities to their coastal lands, as well as the preferential access of small-scale and artisanal fishworkers and indigenous peoples to coastal and inland fisheries resources, are recognized; fishing communities have strong organizations, including producer organizations, enabling them to negotiate from positions of power, and in these organizations, women have central roles in decisionmaking; and basic economic, social, cultural and political rights are guaranteed by the State through a range of instruments, including the provision of social security, education and health facilities and a range of social and infrastructure assets for fishing communities. Action needed at various levels to translate these dreams into reality was spelt out by participants.
Whether the new entity, to be headed by Michelle Bachelet, the former President of Chile, will be able to play a role in translating these dreams into reality, remains to be seen. The formation of UN women, with a mandate to support inter-governmental bodies such as the Commission on the Status of Women in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms, help Member States to implement these standards, forge effective partnerships with civil society, and help the UN system to be accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, is being described as a historic step in accelerating the United Nations Organization’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women.
From the perspective of women of small-scale fishing communities, the issue really is whether the formation of this new entity will strengthen their hands to challenge an inextricably-linked sets of issues that form the basis of the discrimination and violence they and their communities face: inequitable and patriarchal gender relations within and outside the household, as well as models of development predicated on the unsustainable exploitation of resources, the unfettered and unregulated movement of capital, and the privatization of social services and hitherto commonly-held and collectively-used resources.
