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by Jocelyn Tengatenga
The imperative to act on gender equality and development is an integral part of the mission of God. God’s mission and vision for humanity is one of peace, prosperity and justice. We believe that because women and men are made equally in the image of God they are equal players and equal beneficiaries in God’s bounty. This is the new life as God intended it to be, a life of equality which is spelt out in Galatians 3:28, “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female for all are one in Christ Jesus”. It is therefore a calling on each one of us as women to be involved in the fight for liberation from all forms of oppression and marginalization. We can only do that if we are united and collectively speak out. As women of faith we have been silent for a long time and now is the time to raise our voices together and join hands in working towards a better tomorrow. As Mercy Amba Oduyoye said,
“As a woman who feels the weight of sexism I cannot go again and again to the stories of the exodus, exile and to other biblical motifs in which the “least” are recognized and affirmed, are saved or held up as beloved by God or at least are empowered to gnaw at the fundaments of the structures of injustice until these fundaments cave in on themselves.”
Read the rest of Josie’s speech here.
Ecumenical Women delegates to Commission on the Status of Women were given the opportunity to translate Ecumenical Women’s input into the agreed conclusion into prayers of confession, petition and thanksgiving during morning worship on Thursday, February 28th.
This document contains excerpts from the draft of the agreed-upon conclusions. Ecumenical Women suggested additions and changes to the draft agreed upon conclusions, followed by prompting questions. Then three short sentence prayers were created from the thought around those agreed-upon additions: a prayer of confession, a prayer of petition and a prayer of thanksgiving.
We hope you might pray these prayers with a deep and committed heart for the sake of the disproportionate number of women suffering abject poverty. On Monday, governments began to determine the language needed within the agreed-upon Conclusions. By augmenting the agreed-upon conclusions in such a way as Ecumenical Women have desired, it is just possible that we will begin to rebuild an economic system which has at its core a desire for more resources for development, more decisions for development, and less injustice in the financial mechanisms, in the hands of those who are unable to access them under the current mechanisms: the poor.
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 4 (IPS) - When women activists lash out against gender discrimination, one of their longstanding complaints is also directed at the U.N. Secretariat, where senior level posts are still largely a virtual monopoly of men. Despite a 1997 General Assembly resolution calling for 50:50 gender parity in decision-making jobs by 2000, the elusive goal is long past that deadline. A coalition of some 600 women’s groups and non- governmental organisations (NGOs) is now complaining that the pervasive gender discrimination in the U.N. system may also be responsible for the lack of an executive director at a key body dealing with women’s issues: the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
Since its former executive director Noeleen Heyzer was appointed executive secretary of the Bangkok-based U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacifi c (ESCAP) last September, UNIFEM has remained headless, but functions under an acting executive director, Joanne Sandler. ”We need an appointment now”, says Ana Agostino, coordinator of the Feminist Task Force of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), who points out that the six-month-long delay is unacceptable. She said that women’s groups were expecting an announcement during the current two-week session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which concludes Friday. But there are no indications it will happen.
