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UN Women: In pursuit of women's effective political participation around the globe
- 1 de fev. de 2023
- 4 min de leitura
By Lara Pontes Juvencio Pena
Created in 2010 as an entity part of the United Nations, UN Women emerged to deal in a particular way with issues involving the human rights of women worldwide, leading to measures to strengthen the role of women in their living spaces, expanding and instrumentalizing ways fulfillment and stabilization of gender equality and women's empowerment. As the successor unit of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), UN Women acts through partnerships and international commitments taken by UN Member States, acting not only as a propagator of ideas and ideals taken by the entity, but also as a supporter of local and regional feminist movements, helping the intensity and reach of feminist voices, of black, indigenous, youth, domestic and rural workers [1]. In other words, UN Women intends to develop spaces to reach women's influence, autonomy and decision-making power, taking into account their heterogeneous experiences.
The entity has as its base program six areas of conduction: Leadership and political participation of women; economic empowerment; ending violence against women and girls; peace, security and humanitarian emergencies; governance and planning; global and regional standards [1]. It also works in specific health areas to encourage programs and health education for women, such as those related to the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS, among other diseases that are widespread and affect women in certain regions due to provisions that are more likely to be widely unequal balance between genders, information vulnerability and stigma tension [2]. The UN Women acts in different modes of articulation that encompass potentially effective measures to carry out real reforms in the conditions structured for women under different levels of inequality.
Acting in broad scopes that lead to the application of egalitarian measures in all areas of women's reach in the world, UN Women is concerned with everything from the search for a balance of economic resources to levels of care and promotion of the capacities of women in areas of conflict. , these spaces being demonstrably susceptible to generally specific oppression against women, such as sexual violence. As one of the priority competences of UN Women, strengthening the voice of women in search of their effective political participation is a key factor for the implementation of "parity democracy" - UN Women's basic political model that implies the strengthening of decision-making made possible by women, aiming at substantive gender equality relations as a pillar element of the inclusive and equal State [3].
The effective political participation of women around the globe appears, therefore, as one of the global goals (goals postulated in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on gender equality) not only of the UN's formal competences and institutional links with women , but also for encouraging the empowerment of informal relationships that each woman builds in the various areas of her life. In this way, UN Women aims to strengthen fully active women's agencies at the public level, thus influencing specific leaders and movements that deal with the development of sound policies or even the progression of specific legislation in different spheres of action. of women with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds [4]. With regional offices in countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe [1], UN Women seeks to end actions that undermine the dignity, agency and rights of women through methods that directly relate to these women, encouraging and strengthening them to be active protagonists of their own struggles and achievements.
Thus, UN Women develops direct partnership relationships with indigenous movements, such as the implementation of the Voz das Mulheres Indígenas project in Brazil, a project carried out with indigenous women, based on five axes: 1) violation of the rights of indigenous women (including the violence against women and girls); 2) political empowerment; 3) land rights and recovery processes; 4) right to health, education and security and 5) traditions and intergenerational dialogues [5]. We note, therefore, the presence of two axes that relate to indigenous women within their own specificities: axis 3 (the right to land and processes of taking it) and axis 5 (traditions and intergenerational dialogues). We underline the importance of achievements like these, taken by UN Women, which take into account the socio-cultural contexts of each woman, as we live in realities endowed with rich diversities, and respect for these is essential to the development of better associations at a global level.
Important relationships are also established with the black women's movement (such as through support for the Black Women's March against Racism and Violence and for Good Living, as well as through the implementation of the Black Women's Network of the Americas and the Caribbean, as well as of the Black Women Towards a Planet 50-50 in 2030 agenda, among others) from which agendas involving not only the fight against sexism, but also against racism are consolidated, encouraging the full political participation of black women, strengthening modes of representation and articulations at regional and global levels, as well as the production and reproduction of knowledge in black feminisms. In addition to partnerships with indigenous and black movements, UN Women also associates with movements and carries out programs in favor of rural women, youth and part of the LGBT movement [4].
In this way, we perceive that UN Women thinks about the broad political participation of women worldwide, with attention to their respective specificities, in search of a common purpose for all women, regardless of the territory where they were born and where they live: the factual equality of rights for men. and women.
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