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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><FONT
size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A related Comment on HRR 122.<BR><BR>A
RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH TO THE MDGS.<BR>Yifat Susskind*<BR>(excerpts)<BR><BR>1.
The MDGs do create opportunities for advancing women's human rights, but<BR>only
if we are able to participate effectively in the process of realizing the
goals.<BR><BR><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>2. The MDG's progress
is measured by a set of technocratic "targets" and "indicators" that are limited
in scope, contradictory in<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>approach, and more concerned with statistical change than with<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>creating the structural change that is
crucial to improving the lives<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>of women and their families
worldwide.<BR><BR><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>3. Take Goal 3,
for example (promoting gender equality and empowering women): its "target" is to
eliminate gender disparity in education. Yet it will take much more than girls'
education to combat the deeply entrenched violence, discrimination, stereotypes,
laws, and customs that generate grave violations of women's human rights in
every country of the world. The indicators intended to measure progress towards
this goal are equally problematic. They include:<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>a) the ratio of girls to boys at all
levels of schooling (with no regard for the quality or content of education and
without addressing the social forces that keep girls out of school);<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>b) the proportion of seats held by women
in national parliament (without regard for the more crucial question of whether
these women respect human rights);<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>c) the share of women in non-agricultural
sectors of the workforce (without recognition of the need for decent wages,
working conditions, and public services such as day care, health care, clean
water, and transportation that ease the time burden of women who are<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>expected to work outside the home and
fulfill their responsibilities within the family).<BR><BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>4. As we can see, the MDGs call for
change, but not for creating the conditions to make real change possible. To
address the root causes of the problems that the goals are supposed to rectify,
we need to grapple with precisely those phenomena that the MDGs take for
granted! These include policies that have increased poverty and inequality
around the world (such as free-trade agreements, wage freezes, and hostility to
worker organizing) and subordinated human rights to "national security" as
defined by the Bush Administration.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>In fact, at a moment when the rights of both women and men have
been<BR><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>badly eroded by such
policies, we can see clearly the limitations of pursuing gender "equality." To
whom should women be equal? Should women in
<st1:country-region><st1:place>Colombia</st1:place></st1:country-region> demand
"equality" with male co-workers who are being killed for union organizing?
Should Rwandan women who are HIV- positive seek "equality" with Rwandan men who
are denied high-priced AIDS medications? The real goal is not equality, but
justice; and one<BR><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>of the best
ways we have of ensuring justice is the fulfillment of human rights.<BR><BR>5.
But the MDGs fail to even mention sexual and reproductive rights, women's labor
and property rights, or one of the most fundamental obstacles to ensuring these
rights, namely, violence against women.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>6. Women's human rights advocates have pointed out that sexual and
reproductive rights are central to achieving at least four of the MDGs: women's
equality and empowerment (Goal 3); reducing child mortality (Goal 4); improving
maternal health (Goal 5); and combating HIV/AIDS (Goal 6). Moreover, since human
rights are indivisible, empowering women is crucial to realizing all of the
goals. Conversely, none of the goals can be<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>realized without ensuring that
goal.<BR><BR>7. In fact, the MDGs infuse neoliberal priorities into development
policy using the language of human rights. They seek to "eradicate extreme
poverty and hunger" (Goal 1),<BR>but rely on the discredited notion that
economic growth at the national level (GNP) can eliminate poverty; and they
assume that privatization of services is a strategy-for rather than an
obstacle-to economic development. At the heart of the MDGs beats a fundamental
contradiction: poor countries are expected to meet the MDGs by implementing the
very neoliberal economic policies that have, in large measure, caused the crises
that the goals are intended to address. These policies include cutting
government spending,<BR>privatizing basic services, liberalizing trade, and
producing goods primarily for export.<BR><BR>8. The income-based measurement of
poverty (1USD/day)obscures the experience of millions of people, for whom
poverty is not primarily a function of income, but of their alienation from
sustainable patterns of consumption and production. In indigenous
communities, for example, human rights (namely, governments' recognition of
collective indigenous rights over land, natural resources, and traditional
knowledge) are key to fighting poverty.<BR><BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>9. But the MDGs do not recognize that
poverty is a function of human rights violations (such as the right to an
adequate standard of living, the right to freedom from discrimination, and the
right to development). Indeed, the MDGs posit housing, health care, and access
to food and water not as non-negotiable and universal rights, but as<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>"needs" to be met. By extension, the poor
are not seen as autonomous subjects demanding that governments meet their legal
obligations, but as a passive "target group" of policymaking. Sustainable
development --which depends on broad civic participation, social justice, and a
fundamental shift in the balance of power-- is sidelined by this<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>failure of the MDGs to operate within a
human rights framework.<BR><BR>10. Human rights standards are a useful yardstick
for evaluating the MDGs. They reveal that the MDGs are not a spontaneous
expression of governmental goodwill. Rather, the MDGs constitute pre-existing
international obligations, some dating back more than 50
years.<BR><BR>11.Ultimately, for the goals to be a tool for advancing women's
human rights, they must be treated not as a technical process, but as a
political process. We need to push for a rights-based approach to the MDGs that
goes beyond improving statistical indicators to addressing root causes of human
rights violations.<BR><BR></FONT><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>* Yifat
Susskind is associate director of Madre. This article first<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>appeared on Madre's website at </FONT><A
href="http://www.madre.org/articles/int/mdgcritique.html"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">www.madre.org/articles/int/mdgcritique.html</FONT></A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>