Making the Connection: Building on the Synergies Between Women’s and Children’s Rights

At a side event during the Commission on the Status of Women, UNFPA and UNICEF launched ‘Women’s and Children’s Rights: Making the Connection’, an advocacy booklet that explores how two strong treaties can complement each other in protecting the human rights of these two groups, with a focus on the rights of adolescent girls, child marriage, HIV and maternal mortality.

NEW YORK — Though the rights of children and mothers are inextricably linked, in our compartmentalized world, the rights of women and those of children have often been promoted in isolation from one another.
Separate international treaties and monitoring mechanisms have been created to protect the rights of the two groups, and specialized UN agencies, government ministries and non-governmental organizations focus on either women or children, but not usually both.

This can lead to tension between competing agencies and mandates, according to speakers at the CSW side event, who included Nafis Sadik, a former Executive Director of UNFPA, who now serves as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General and Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific; Stephen Lewis, Co-Director, AIDS-Free World; Marta Santos Pais, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children; and Fabiola, a 17-year-old youth advocate from Cameroon.

Rights of mothers often ‘take a backseat’ to rights of children

“Around children, you can gather all the energy and focus of the world,” said Mr. Lewis, contrasting the whole-hearted support for children to the “inherent misogyny with which the world deals with the vulnerability of women.

“The rights of women continue to take a backseat to the rights of children, specifically when it comes to addressing the AIDS problem,” Mr. Lewis said, according to UNICEF. “The emphasis in HIV/AIDS prevention is always on the life of the child. Women are seen as subsidiary. The focus should be equal on both child and mother.”

Ms. Sadik agreed that too often in the UN, two parallel processes compete for resources and attention. Yet there is great potential to work together to maximize impacts, she said, at the event, which brought together international leaders, policy makers and advocates, “We have to work together to find linkages, not just at the global level, but all the way down to the villages.”

On specific challenges that hinder collaboration, Dr. Sadik said UNICEF and UNFPA needed to work harder to instil women with a greater knowledge of their rights earlier in their lives. “Beginning with adolescents is already too late,” Ms. Sadik said. “You can’t empower women after the fact. You need to start with the child.”

Adolescent girls are a bridge

A key entry point, she noted, is adolescent girls. “Empowerment of women has to begin with girls.”
As if to back up that point, Fabiola spoke eloquently about what she has seen in her home village. “Both the girl and boy have the right to be taken care of, but when it comes to education the girl is left behind. She may be forced into early marriage. Once married, she will be deprived of an education. Then, she has little say in how many children she might have. And she may die in childbirth.”

Education is the key, she said, because for a girl, “Educating herself is educating her family and her life to come.”
Ms. Pais pointed out that violence against women and children can be an important entry point to talking about protecting their shared rights. “It is the best opportunity to get exposure to the greatest inequalities, and to bring to the fore the consequences of unequal status,” she said.

Prior to the discussion, the panel got off to a rousing start with an example of the expressive energy of empowered young girls as Fabiola and a friend sang about their own experiences. “Every time I think about my rights, I feel good, good, good,” went the refrain.