DEMANDS AS AMENDED

This document was amended by the delegates during the International Preparatory Meeting of 16-18 October, 1998. To consult the final version click here:
Advocacy Guide to Women's World Demands

If you were at the meeting and proposed one or more admendments to the demands presented by the Writing Committee, please let us know if there are any discrepancies between the following text and your amendments. The International Liaison Committee will be responsible for reviewing these demands to verify their consistency with the language employed during the plenary session.

1. That all States adopt a legal framework and strategies aimed at eliminating poverty.

States must implement national anti-poverty policies, programs, action plans and projects including specific measures to eliminate women's poverty and to ensure their economic and social independence through the exercise of their right to:

• education;
• employment, with statutory protection for work in the home and in the informal sectors of the economy;
• pay equity and equality at the national and international levels;
• association and unionization;
• property and control of safe water;
• decent housing;
• health care and social protection;
• culture;
• life-long income security;
• natural and economic resources (credit, property, vocational training, technologies);
• full citizenship, including in particular recognition of civil identity and access to relevant documents (identity card).
• minimum social wage

States must guarantee, as a fundamental right, the production and distribution of food to ensure food security for their populations.

States must develop incentives to promote the sharing of family responsibilities (education and care of children and domestic tasks) and provide concrete support to families such as daycare adapted to parents' work schedules, community kitchens, programmes to assist children with their schoolwork, etc.

States must promote women's access to decision-making positions.

States must ratify and observe the labour standards of the International Labour Office (ILO). They must enforce observance of national labour standards in free trade zones.

States and international organizations should take measures to counter and prevent corruption.

All acts, pieces of legislation, regulations and positions taken by governments will be assessed in the light of indicators such as the human poverty index (HPI), introduced in the Human Development Report 1997; the human development index (HDI), put forth by the United Nations Development Program; the gender-related development index (including an indicator on the representation of women in positions of power) discussed in the Human Development Report 1995, and Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization particularly as it concerns Indigenous and tribal peoples' rights.

2. The urgent implementation of measures such as:

• the Tobin tax:

- revenue from the tax would be paid into a special fund;

- earmarked for social development;

- managed democratically by the international community as a whole;

- according to criteria respecting fundamental human rights and democracy;

- with equal representation of women and men;

- to which women (who represent 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty) would have preferred access.

• investment of 0.7% of the rich countries' Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in aid for developing countries;
• adequate financing and democratization of United Nations programs that are essential to defend women's and children's fundamental rights, UNIFEM (UN women's program), UNDP (United Nations Development Porgram) and UNICEF (program for children for example);
• an end to structural adjustment programs;
• an end to cutbacks in social budgets and public services;
• rejection of the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).

3. Cancellation of the debt of all Third World countries, taking into account the principles of responsibility, transparency of information and accountability.

We demand the immediate cancellation of the debt of the 53 poorest countries on the planet, in support of the objectives of the Jubilee 2000 campaign.

In the longer term, we demand cancellation of the debt of all Third World countries and the setting up of a mechanism to monitor debt write-off, ensuring that this money is employed to eliminate poverty and further the well-being of people most affected by structural adjustment programs, the majority of whom are women and girls.

4. The implementation of the 20/20 formula between donor countries and the recipients of international aid. In this scheme, 20% of the sum contributed by the donor country must be allocated to social development and 20% of the receiving government's spending must be used for social programs.

5. A non-monolithic world political organization, with authority over the economy and egalitarian and democratic representation of all countries on earth and equal representation of women and men. This organization must have real decision-making power and authority to act in order to implement a world economic system that is fair, participatory and where solidarity plays a key role. The following measures must be instituted immediately:

• A World Council for Economic and Financial Security, which would be in charge of redefining the rules for a new international financial system based on the fair and equitable distribution of the planet's wealth. It would also focus on the increase of the well-being, based on social justice, of the world population, particularly women, who make up over half that population. Gender parity should be observed in the composition of the Council's membership. Membership should also be comprised of representatives of the civil society, for example NGO's, unions, etc.) and should reflect parity of representation between countries from the North and South.
• Any ratification of trade conventions and agreements should be subordinated to individual and collective fundamental human rights. Trade should be subordinated to human rights, not the other way around.
• The elimination of tax havens.
• The end of banking secrecy.
• Redistribution of wealth by the seven richest countries.
• A protocol to ensure application of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

6. That the embargoes and blockades -- principally affecting women and children -- imposed by the major powers on many countries, be lifted.

1. That governments claiming to be defenders of human rights condemn any authority -political, religious, economic or cultural - that controls women and girls, and denounce any regime that violates their fundamental rights.

2. That States recognize, in their statutes and actions, that all forms of violence against women are violations of fundamental human rights and cannot be justified by any custom, religion, cultural practice or political power. Therefore, all states must recognize a woman's right to determine her own destiny, and to exercise control over her body and reproductive function.

3. That States implement action plans, effective policies and programs equipped with adequate financial and other means to end all forms of violence against women.

These action plans must include the following elements in particular: prevention; public education; punishment; "treatment" for attackers; research and statistics on all forms of violence against women; assistance and protection for victims; campaigns against pornography, procuring, and sexual assault, including child rape; non-sexist education; easier access to the criminal justice system; and training programs for judges and police.

4. That the United Nations bring extraordinary pressure to bear on member states to ratify without reservation and implement the conventions and covenants relating to the rights of women and children, in particular, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Cairo and Vienna Declarations, and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

That States harmonize their national laws with these international human rights instruments.

5. That, as soon as possible, protocols be adopted (and implementation mechanisms be established):

• to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women;
• to the Convention on the Rights of the Child;

These protocols will enable individuals and groups to bring complaints against their governments. They are a means to apply international pressure on governments to force them to implement the rights set out in these covenants and conventions. Provision must be made for appropriate sanctions against non-compliant States.

6. That there be a revision of the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, so that the two resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly (1996) concerning trafficking in women and girls and violence against migrant women are implemented.

7. That States recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and conform in particular to the provisions defining rape and sexual abuse as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

8. That all States adopt and implement disarmament policies with respect to conventional, nuclear, and biological weapons. That all countries ratify the Convention Against Land Mines.

9. That the right to asylum for women victims of sexist discrimination and persecution and sexual violence be adopted as soon possible.

THE NEXT TWO DEMANDS WERE SUPPORTED BY THE MAJORITY OF WOMEN PRESENT AT THE MEETING ON THE CONDITION OF A COUNTRY-BY-COUNTRY ADOPTION PROCESS. SOME DELEGATES WERE NOT IN A POSITION TO BE ABLE COMMIT TO PUBLICLY DEFENDING THESE DEMANDS IN THEIR COUNTRY. THEY REMAIN AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE WORLD MARCH OF WOMEN IN THE YEAR 2000. OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS NAMES OF ADOPTING COUNTRIES WILL BE ADDED.

10. That, based on the principle of equality of all persons, the United Nations and States of the international community recognize formally that a person's sexual orientation should not bar them from the full exercise of the rights set out in the following international instruments: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

11. That the right to asylum for victims of discrimination and persecution based on sexual orientation be adopted as soon as possible.

NEW DEMANDS

Some of these new demands have already been integrated into the preceding text. The International Liaison Committee will be charged with seeing to the overall coherence and readability of the demands as a whole.

1. An end to the process of homogenization of culture and the commodification of women in media to suit the needs of the market.
2. That the States make provisions to ensure women's equal participation in decision-making political bodies.
3. That States take all possible steps to end patriarchal values and sensitize the society towards democratization of the family structure.
4. That we reaffirm our commitment to peace and the protection of democratic and independent functioning of nation states.

   That the U.N.:

5. End all forms of intervention, aggression and military occupation.
6. Assure the right of refugees to return to their homeland.
7. Pressure governments to respect human rights and resolve conflicts.