Young Women Continue to Struggle to Achieve Equality

Ms.Wenny Kusuma was sharing history of Human Rights to young women at the 1st Feminist talk organized by Young Women Leadership Network.”Date: 07 March, 2015Photo by: Open InstituteOpen Institute​ ៖ ​Ms. Wenny Kusuma, UN Women Representative, Cambodia Country Office said that women’s rights are human rights, and yet women continue to struggle to achieve equality, for instance in terms of equal wages or safe work, rights to education, and participation in politics.  The statement was made in the First Feminist Talk organized by Young Women Leadership Network on March 7th, 2015, which was hosted by the Open Institute. 

The main objective of the meeting was to launch the YWLN Feminist Talk for 2015 and to discuss a potential message to advocate.  The 104th International Women’s Day was also discussed and celebrated. Among those who attended the meeting were representatives from UN Women, members of Young Women Leadership Network (YWLN), Young Women and Girls Living with HIV (YW/GLHIV), Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender persons (LBTs), Youth Resource Development Program (YRDP), Cambodian Young Women Empowerment Network (CYWEN), C-Caudu, Business Tech team and students from different universities. 

At the meeting, Ms. Wenny Kusuma discussed Human Rights and CEDAW.  She explained that human rights are actually quite young, finding their beginnings in 1948.  International Women’s Day recognizes the struggle of women around the world to achieve equality.  Women’s rights are human rights, and yet women continue to struggle to achieve equality, for instance in terms of equal wages or safe work, rights to education, and participation in politics.  She also discussed the differences between gender and sex (sex referring to biological differences, and gender referring to social constructs).  Our beliefs of what is feminine and what is masculine are damaging to both sexes, and we need to reevaluate our biases and assumptions in order to move towards a more egalitarian society.          

The discussion also centered on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is an international instrument or a bill of rights that protects women from all forms of violence and discrimination.  It is important for women to understand their rights and their freedoms, so that they can better recognize when these rights are being denied.  Women need to be educated about their rights so they can better voice their concerns, gain confidence and self-esteem, and challenge discrimination and inequality.

The young women at the meeting raised ten key areas of issue that are potential messages to advocate in 2015.  They are as follows:   

      o Women in politics and decision-making  

      o Women and health care

      o Women in the economic sector

      o Women’s safety and security 

      o Indigenous women, women with disabilities (marginalized women)

      o Domestic violence and discrimination against women, sexual harassment, discrimination against LGBT. 

      o Gender bias/norms in education sector

      o State of violence against women and land right activists

      o Women and migration/trafficking

      o Women and social media

Participants were voting for priority topic for YWLN in 2015  at the 1st Feminist talk organized by Young Women Leadership NetworkDate: 07 March, 2015Photo by: Open Institute

YWLN will continue to discuss these issues to develop a message for advocacy in 2015.  Specifically, they will discuss strategies that can be implemented to increase women’s voice in decision-making at both a national and an international level.

Feminist talks such as this are held monthly and organized by Young Women Leadership Network.

Since the ratification of CEDAW, a number of major national laws and policies have been developed and implemented to secure and protect the rights of women. These include the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women 2009-2013, NSDP 2014-2018, and Neary Rattanak IV (2014-2018). In addition, gender has been mainstreamed into key strategic plans, including the five year national strategic plan of the National League of Communes/Sangkat http://www.nlcs.org.kh/Page/KH/About_us/Strategy_plan/Strategy_plan_7.html)ectoral  and the National Multisectoral Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS III.  The National Youth Policy provides that among its goals is to “promote gender equity and gender equality for both young males and females and the creation of opportunities to empower young females”. It further identified as one of its strategies the promotion of female youth “to take leadership roles and exercise their rights in decision making in their family, community and society.”

However, access to voice and participation is particularly constrained among marginalized groups, including young women, young Lesbian, Bisexuals and Transsexuals (LBTs) and young women and girls living with HIV (YWGLWHIV).  The voice of youth is rarely incorporated into planning processes and young people are rarely called upon to participate in village meetings, they can therefore often feel ignored. Youths, especially female, have more opportunities to participate in the community but they often have difficulties to be heard on community affairs and in meetings like commune meetings where community development plans are discussed and public dialogue.

In its 2013 Concluding Observations on the combined 4th and 5th report of the Royal Government of Cambodia, the CEDAW Committee expressed concerns, amongst others, for the underrepresentation of women in public life; discrimination against pregnant mothers living with HIV; the need for prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV; and new HIV infection among vulnerable populations (CEDAW/C/KHM/CO4-5, para 29&para36). 

Women’s rights are human rights, and YWLN along with Open Institute and its other partners hope to assist young women from various sectors of Cambodia in finding their voice and challenging inequality and discrimination. 

Ms. Toy Monireth lead discussion on priority message in 2015 issue at the 1st Feminist talk organized by Young Women Leadership Network. Date: 07 March, 2015Photo by: Open Institute  

Ms.Wenny Kusuma  was sharing women’ Human Rights and women empowerment related issues at the 1st Feminist talk organized by Young Women Leadership Network. Date: 07 March, 2015Photo by: Open Institute