001 Substantive Equality for Women: Connecting Human Rights and Public Policy—Panel I

UNRISD Podcasts

In this podcast human rights and policy specialists quit their silos and dialogue productively across disciplines in the first panel of the research-advocacy-policy workshop Substantive Equality for Women: Connecting Human Rights and Public Policy organized by UNRISD, UNWomen and OHCHR on 15 June 2015. In order to achieve substantive gender equality, human rights have to inform public policy. The speakers in the panel argue in favour of overcoming gender stereotypes in laws, policies and institutions and identifying the obligations the duty bearers of human rights have to dismantle them. The speakers argue that culture, which is often accused of being the key obstacle preventing women’s human rights from being included in public policy, should in fact be recognized as a set of rules and norms in continuous evolution and change, and not as a something given and natural. Gender norms and roles are the core of culture everywhere, but focusing exclusively on culture detracts attention from the root causes of gender inequality. Gender neutrality in public policy has to be challenged in order to recognize the specific needs of policy beneficiaries. Women’s political participation goes behind formal representation and passes also through political mobilization. Hence, women’s human rights defenders must be supported as a way to achieve substantive equality. Finally, public policy should not reproduce the unequal division of labour within the household. One way to achieve this is to include human rights into public policy. This panel took place during the research-advocacy-policy workshop Substantive Equality for Women: Connecting Human Rights and Public Policy organized by UNRISD, UNWomen and OHCHR on 15 June 2015. Inspired by the UN Women Report on the Progress of the World’s Women Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights, the workshop connected the normative content of human rights to policy design and implementation, integrating gender equality considerations more strongly into the work on economic and social rights, and ensuring that issues like employment, macroeconomic policy and social protection are given greater prominence in work on women’s rights. The workshop was an opportunity for a dialogue between members of human rights bodies, OHCHR staff and policy analysts to creatively explore how collaboration between specialists and across silos can be enhanced to advance women’s economic and social rights within the UN system and beyond. For more information on the workshop go to http://goo.gl/5gytjY