U.S. Policies Adversely Affect Women Globally and Domestically, Says U.S. Human Rights Ntw

On International Women's Day, U.S. Policies Adversely Affect Women Globally and Domestically, Says U.S. Human Rights Network

3/8/2005 2:58:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Ajamu Baraka of the U.S. Human Rights Network, 404-588-9761

WASHINGTON, March 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following statement, “On International Women's Day, U.S. Policies Adversely Affect Women Globally and Domestically” was released today by the U.S. Human Rights Network:

While governments around the world are increasingly supporting women's rights, the U.S. government is restricting those rights globally and domestically. This position is out of step with international recognition that women's rights are human rights, and with the fact that the majority of Americans support women's human rights. As the world marks International Women's Day, the U.S. government continues to let a narrow, ultra-conservative ideology undermine the human rights of women.

Last week at the Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York, the U.S. unsuccessfully attempted to undermine the Beijing Platform for Action by claiming that the Platform does not "create any new international human rights," or "include the right to abortion." But according to Leila Hessini, member of the U.S. Human Rights Network and Senior Policy Advisor at the reproductive rights organization Ipas, "a women's right to terminate a pregnancy exists through interpretation and application of internationally recognized women's human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights conventions -– including the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women -– as well as national constitutions and laws around the world, including in the United States."

Another strategy of the U.S. has been to stress national sovereignty, while hypocritically imposing its ideological mandate on the rest of the world. "When it comes to its foreign policy, the U.S. is very quick to use the rights of women as a justification for military action -– and just as quick to forget about its obligations to women once it has achieved its military objectives," said Radhika Balakrishnan, a member of the U.S. Human Rights Network's Coordinating Committee.

In Afghanistan, where the U.S. cynically used the rights of women as one of the justifications for going to war with the Taliban, women have been abandoned at the first possible opportunity. The resulting lawlessness has left women at even greater risk of abduction, sexual violence and intimidation. Rape, forced marriage and the trafficking of women and children are rife. The U.S.-backed government has failed to provide security, and its pledges to protect women's rights have proved to be empty promises. In some regions, women feel that the insecurity and the risk of sexual violence are greater than under Taliban rule.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the U.S. government's commitment to women's rights is no less problematic. The U.S. ranks 60th out of 139 countries -– well behind Rwanda, Cuba, Vietnam, Tunisia, Pakistan and South Africa and Uzbekistan -– when it comes to the representation of women in government. While the United States spends more on health care per person than any industrialized country, on average our health –- measured by indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and quality of care –- is worse than any other industrialized country. Racial and ethnic minorities experience a greater burden of illness, injury, disability and mortality than white Americans, and in some cases this gap is growing. African-American and Latina women are respectively four times and 1.7 times more likely to die in pregnancy or in childbirth than white Americans, and American Indians and Alaska Natives have an infant mortality rate that is close to double that of whites.

The Human Rights Network, a grouping of more than 160 U.S.-based human rights organizations, demands that the U.S. take seriously its obligations to women at home and around the world. The first step in addressing these obligations is to end the exportation of its anti-woman ideology through U.S. development assistance, trade and foreign policies. Instead of undermining global efforts, the U.S. needs to join international consensus and ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which has been ratified or acceded to by 179 countries around the world, but not the U.S. Moreover the U.S. needs to ensure that adequate public resources are directed toward ensuring the full realization of women's human rights.

---

For further information please contact Ajamu Baraka at 404-588-9761 or visit http://www.ushrnetwork.org.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

-0-

/© 2005 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/