2100301_Third_CSW - Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations

Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations

New York

Permanent Mission address: 150 East 42 Street, Level 33, New York, New York 10017 - Telephone: 1 212 351 6600 - Fax: 1 212 351 6610

Statement by the Hon. Naomi Fiame Mata'afa, the Samoan Minister for Women, Community and Social Development to the 54th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum, delivered on 1 March 2010.

(as delivered)

Chairperson, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen;

I am honored to address the 54th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum. We express our congratulations to you on your election as Chair of this historic meeting.

Chairperson

We reaffirm our commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action, and the outcome of the Twenty Third Special Session of the General Assembly and acknowledge the importance of the link between the Beijing Platform, the Millennium Development Goals and our own Pacific regional and national gender commitments.

We also take this opportunity to thank the Division on the Advancement of Women for convening this global review of the Beijing Platform. Pacific island countries make up half of the Asia Pacific region and we strongly support the outcomes of the Asia Pacific regional review.

Chairperson

The Pacific region is hugely diverse – in land forms, human and physical resources, customary ways, contact experience and the degree and nature of transition to new social, political and economic systems.

The collective population of the Pacific Islands is currently estimated to be around 10 million, although this figure is greater as census data for some are over a decade old. Individual nation populations vary from 1,600 (the tiny island of Niue) to 6.0 million (Papua New Guinea). In the Pacific, whole nations are threatened by climate change. Recent natural disasters, such as the deadly September 2009 earthquake and consequent tsunami experienced by Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga have also been extremely damaging for people and their environments. Pacific women and their families, largely in rural areas, feel the greatest effects of these events.

Chairperson

A Pacific regional review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform is currently being carried out by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The review shows that there is much to be done to address fully the 12 critical areas of concern. For instance one of the main challenges is the absence of national gender equality policies, or serious weaknesses in their implementation. Many Pacific countries have not endorsed such policies, which are needed to ensure national coordination at the highest level and to ensure that gender equality policies are implemented in all areas. While many Pacific countries are yet to endorse such a policy, we applaud Solomon Islands for recently endorsing a national policy on Gender Equality and Women’s Development for 2010-2015.

This policy aims to advance gender equality and enhance women’s development ensuring the active contribution and meaningful participation of both Solomon Islands women and men in all spheres, and at all levels, of development and decision making.

Pacific countries are semi subsistence economies and women represent the majority of subsistence farmers. Whilst there have been various attempts by Pacific governments and NGO’s to address the issue of women and poverty over the last fifteen years the most notable progress has been made in providing women with access to savings and credit mechanisms and institutions. In Samoa for example, microfinance schemes targets women who are unemployed or not able to access credit from banks and continue to provide support for their income generating activities and small family businesses.

These schemes are further supported by business training to facilitate sustainable income, thus generating development for women in rural villages. However there is still work to be done in targeting microfinance projects towards the many women in urban areas of the Pacific who continue to experience dire poverty.

Significant gains have been made in areas such as education and health. The launching Samoa’s free primary education scheme in January was a milestone towards achieving the MDGs and other international commitments, particularly for the girl children. Gender parity has been achieved in a number of Pacific countries such as Tonga and Palau in both access to education and health services. However, we acknowledge that the quality of educational experiences is difficult to assess. Many governments also recognize the importance of improving women’s access to quality health care, with most countries implementing programmes or strategies aimed at reducing maternal mortality rates such as safe-motherhood programmes, nursing and midwifery services and increased awareness on screening for breast and cervical cancer.

Collection of data in the Pacific region is inconsistent making it difficult to analyse progress in many areas of concern under the Beijing Platform. However, on the region is improving gender statistics and indicators focusing on strengthening the capacity of national statistics offices to collect and analyse data. This will ensure accurate reporting and subsequent work planning.

Chairperson

Violence against women is a major concern in the Pacific region. Recent research in Solomon Islands has revealed that as many as two thirds of women experience physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner. Such violence is widely culturally tolerated. Solomon Islands and Kiribati have recently finalized national surveys on domestic violence and are in the process of finalizing National Action Plans to eliminate it. I am pleased to report that a number of Pacific countries have also adopted “no drop” policies and continue to work in collaboration with NGOs and faith based organizations to combat this violation of women’s human rights. As a region we applaud their efforts and hope to learn from their experiences. While domestic violence legislation is absent and urgently needed in most of our Pacific countries, we applaud Vanuatu for recently enacting such legislation. Several other countries are also taking positive steps toward legislative measures.

At the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns, Australia, this year, Pacific leaders committed to eradicate sexual and gender-based violence and to ensure that all individuals have equal protection and access to justice. Leaders reaffirmed support for ongoing action to raise awareness of the seriousness of the problem and its impact on the Pacific, supported efforts to address such violence and to establish the issue firmly on the political agendas of Forum members.

Of the 16 Pacific Island Forum countries, three are yet to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Australia ratified CEDAW’s Optional Protocol in 2008.

Other thematic areas of work reflected in CEDAW and the Beijing Platform, including the advancement of women’s participation in public life and strengthening gender indicators, also continue to gain momentum in the Pacific.

The Pacific ranks the lowest in the world in terms of gender balanced Parliaments. 95.8 per cent of seats are held by men but only 4.2 per cent of seats are held by women on average, excluding Australia and New Zealand. More remains to be done and Pacific leaders are committed to this end. Several governments including Solomon Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea are actively investigating options for increasing the numbers of women in Parliament through the use of Temporary Special Measures.

Efforts towards mainstreaming gender across the whole of government have been sporadic in our region. We are pleased to report that Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Cook Islands have recently assessed gender mainstreaming capacity and will be implementing strategies to enhance institutional capacity. We hope that the efforts and achievements of these countries will provide models for similar work throughout the region in the coming years.

Our Pacific statement would not be complete without a mention on our most critical issue – that of climate change. We urgently call for meaningful participation of women and men from all sectors in national and global climate policies, strengthening a commitment to prioritize the most vulnerable, and strengthening gender-sensitive approaches to increasing access for women to existing mitigation and adaptation funds.Chairperson,

We warmly welcome the firm decision to strengthen the United Nations institutional arrangements to promote gender equality through the creation of a composite gender equality entity and we urge prompt action in establishing this new entity.

We also acknowledge that progress to date is partly attributable to the strong and effective networking between women’s departments, regional and UN organisations and civil society organisations. We urge member states to consider meaningful mechanisms to ensure the effective participation of civil society organizations in this new entity.

Finally, we call for all member states and the UN family, not only to reaffirm their commitment to the Beijing Platform but to put both the systems and budgets in place to allow its realization, and to discuss openly the challenges we all face.

Thank you.