“The Right to Participate in the CSW, the Case of Iran”, UN CSW New York, 29 February 2012

More on the issue of the right to attend CSW - from the women in Iran

The panelists defended the every women’s rights to engage in the international dialogue and concluded on what the international community can do to support everyone’s right to participate at the CSW.

After screening the very impressive video, ABSENT VOICES, participants stood up to support the Iranian women’s right to participate in the CSW

The UN Women’s official statement to the event, delivered by Ms Lopa Banerjee at the closing of the event, "The UN women stands for the right of civil society to attend without fear of favor.CSW is an open space where women can come freely from all over the world and they should have that possibility in any country. No women should face a problem for attending CSW."

Here are some words were extracted from the great dialogue in the event. You can watch the entire event in the former posts too.

Susanah Sirkin, Physician for Human Rights, opened up the session with these comments, “This session is about the right to participate in the broadest sense and specifically the case of Iran. We are thinking about women of civil societies from all over the world and specifically women from Iran, obviously they are not here with us in this room but they are not silent and our goal in this gathering is to bring their plights, courage, concerns and their voices to the world. The right to participate in global conversation of inequality, poverty, development, human rights, peace and security, absolutely require adherent to the fundamental principles of the United Nation to foster conversations and dialogue among governments and civil societies all over the world. As Michelle Bachelet, Head of UN Women mentioned, engagement with civil societies is fundamental to progress at all levels and no country can prevent their own people from global conversations today and that is what we are doing today. About the right to participate and women conditions in Iran we as civil societies and UN member states have to see what we can do to make sure that people can never be prevented or prosecuted for participation in this situation.”

Daniela Colombo, president of Italian Association for Women in Development, gave a brief history of the situation, “ When 3 panelists from CSW 2011 went back to Iran, one of them, Maryam Bahreman, got arrested on charges of attending CSW. There was also Faranak Farid that participated in 2010. She was arrested in a rally on environmental issues but was questioned and charged for attending CSW.” 

On the situation of Iranian women attendance in CSW 2012, Daniela explained, “This year many women were ready to participate but after discussing the situation, they decided not to come because not only for their safety and security, but also when they get arrested all their works in the field will be stopped.”

On issue of participation in general and not to participate Charlotte Bunch said, “ I first want to thank the women of Iran and solute them on bringing the issue before us. Action of this video and talking about the situation they have faced, is an example of their exemplary leadership that women of Iran have. Unfortunately by not being here we do not get to learn about as much and I think one of the important things of their participation in the last few years was that we began to learn what an amazing movement of women does exist within Iran. That is how all CSW, world conferences and all different venues have been able over the last few decades to learn about movements and to build on that strength. I think this absence is a great loss, but their decision to raise issue this way is a very important step and we should take it beyond this room. This is not a new issue and is not only about Iran. We have seen other examples, in 1995 for women participation in world conference and women in China with Chinese government with visas and other issues, we have issues with USA not issuing visas to come to these meetings. I think this is another way of denial of right to participate. On this particular situation we should raise the issue with UN Women, office of High commissioner of human rights to see how we protect better the right of every women as well as men to participate in civil societies which today is such a vital part of discussion on human rights. That is the big question and is a fundamental human right. We should look into ways in which we can raise this issue here so that we really do get to benefit from women of Iran for their absence to make a larger presence for all women.”

Marina Durano, economist feminist from DAWN commented on the question, “How do you see the absence of women or denial of participation effect the issues that you have worked on?” as follows:
“What is really important to me is that often times those concern with economic policies or policy makers do not value participation. They say or act that implies that you do not really need democracy in order to be developed; you can always generate economic growth, case of singapour or china. They are not very democratic but quick examples of success. This shows that failure of appreciation of that participation, deliberation; public reasoning are constituencies of development. Today with absence of Iranian women, we would not be able to hear their thought, and use what development could be or would be like for rural women in general so that their own contribution from their experience. Where that could have enhanced the life of other women in other developed countries.”

On situation of Iranian women, Jose Luise Diaz from Amnesty International explained,” Situation of women’s right in Iran is a matter of the general human right situation in Iran. It is nothing new. We have documented in the latest report on Iran last week that the situation is worsening in Iran.”
“The absence of women’s rights activists is a manifestation of the authorities to silence the voices and keep the information about backward happenings from reaching to the international community. Their absence here must be seen not only as their specific circumstances, but also to serve as a very powerful example to {spare action } to reprehend the situation in Iran and also throughout the world. There is a concern that other governments will learn from that and will use that. We should not underestimate the corrosive effect that this instance could have on the broader women activism movements and human rights activist and all kind of manifestations on civil societies, but there are things that can be done.”

Analia Penchaszadeh from AWID said, “The concern over the situation in Iran is that the women right activist becomes more isolated, they are shut out from spaces like CSW and other spaces. It makes it very difficult to support them and engage with them, at the same time it is so important to support them and engage with them so that they do not feel isolated and feel alone in their struggle. Knowing that they are not here, we cannot replace them but we need to make their voices heard.”

In respond to “What can we do?” the panelists and participants in eh event comments as follows:
1. What we are doing now is very important broadcasting, getting their message out,
2. Do campaign and advocacy via social media,
3. A UN resolution from the general assembly would be great
4. Report from special rapporteur of the human right defenders to the office of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights
5. Ask UN Women office to build it into civil society plan and programs ways of addressing the right to participate at CSW,
6. We can ask this to be on the agenda at UN Women and the Geneva convention
7. Ask UN Women to take up the issue with the secretary general
8. Ask the UN General Secretary to do speak up on the importance of safeguarding the participation of civil societies in this conference,
9. Any government that has representative in CSW should be called to question if indeed government is not fully participated in the commission goal, and
10. Has to call UN Women to make a statement about CSW to engage in mechanism around clarifying guarantees that already exist