The Women’s Human Rights Camapign 1998

The Women’s Human Rights Campaign Ireland 1998 On the Occasion of the 42nd meeting of UN Commission on the Status of Women (New York, March 3-15, 1998) Overview: Issues and Recommendations 1. Monitoring and Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA):
Despite a commitment from the Irish Government to consult with NGOs in the drafting of the first official report to the UN CSW on implementation of the Beijing PFA, no effort was made by the Irish Government to hear the views of NGOs. To date, there are no indications that the Irish Government intends to take seriously its obligations under the PFA . To mark the 42nd Session of the UN CSW and International Women’s Day (March 8th), we ask that in 1998 the Irish Government:
· Work in consultation with NGOs to develop a national Plan of Action to implement the Beijing PFA
· Establish and ensure adequate resources for effective mechanisms to regularly and systematically monitor and review implementation of the PFA

The National Traveller Women’s Forum calls on the government to:

· Make available to Traveller and other minority ethnic groups and women's organisations the resources necessary for them to play a full and ongoing part in developing national strategies for the implementation of the PFA

2. CEDAW:

· Take immediate action to remove all existing reservations and actively implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
· Establish transparent and comprehensive procedures for completing the Government’s periodic reports to the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, including extensive consultations with NGOs concerned with women’s human rights.
· Ensure that all national laws comply with CEDAW and take immediate measures to advance the adoption of comprehensive equality legislation
· Support the adoption of a strong Optional Protocol to CEDAW (Women’s Convention). Continue the Irish Government’s support of the Optional Protocol to CEDAW. In the context of the UN CSW meeting, the Government should support a strong and progressive Optional Protocol which contains: authorization for CEDAW (Treaty Monitoring Committee) to receive complaints from individuals, as well as, from groups and organizations; an inquiry procedure that enables CEDAW to initiate investigations of serious or systematic violations; and the general principle that the protocol should not be used to exclude certain rights from scrutiny for discrimination on the premise that certain rights are not justiciable.

3. Violence Against Women
Women’s Aid and the Women’s Human Rights Campaign recommends that:

· Government departments assess the resources needed to implement the Report of the Task Force on Violence Against Women and include these estimates in the yearly budget proposals to the Department of Finance.
· Increased resources be allocated to the voluntary and community sector which has been running front line services for women subjected to violence for many years.
· Time and geographic location targets must be set for the establishment of new services and the implementation of prevention measures.
· Relevant voluntary and community groups and organisations must be resourced to enable them to participate fully on the national, regional and local Task Forces on violence against women
· The best models of good practice in responding to violence against women both nationally and internationally must be examined by the Task Force with a view to drawing up a criteria for both voluntary and statutory agencies who wish to access resources through the Task Force initiative
· The Task Force must take a lead role nationally, regionally and locally in promoting best practice.
· The factors that influence conviction rates and the criminal justice response to men who are violent toward wives and partners must be examined. The regionalisation of the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault unit should be effected so that Garda policy can be adequately monitored and supported and consistently applied.
· Comprehensive education and training for police, prosecutors and judges on the dynamics of violence against women is essential.

The National Traveller Women’s Forum urges the Government to:
· Support the particular initiatives of Traveller Women's Groups in addressing violence against Traveller women and the inclusion of a Traveller women's dimension in more general reports.

Regarding prostitution in Ireland, we call for:

· The immediate decriminalisation of prostitution with mandatory training for all Gardai and a clearly identified policy based on the protection of women in prostitution from violence and abuse.

Addressing trafficking in women is also covered in this section of the PFA (Strategic Objective D.3)

The Government needs to take proactive measures to protect and assist women who are displaced. This includes women refugees and asylum seekers and women who have been trafficked for any purpose, including women trafficked for purposes of prostitution.

In keeping with Para. 130 (d) of the PFA: In particular, we call on the Irish Government to:

· Work to ensure that the human rights of all displaced women—refugees, asylum seekers and trafficked women-are taken into consideration
· Initiate and fund research on trafficked women and their needs in collaboration with appropriate NGOs
· Ensure that health care and social work staff be given training in the delivery of advice and assistance to trafficked women
· Ensure access by trafficked women to interpreters as necessary.

4. Women in conflict situations
In keeping with Paragraph 145 (c-e), we ask that the Irish Government:

· Actively seek the effective prosecution of sexual violation in the context of the ICTFY; and
· Advocate for the inclusion of all forms of gender-based violence in the remit of the International Criminal Court and that all staff of the ICC Witness Protection Unit receive gender-sensitivity training. (Please see the report Women and Armed Conflict produced by WIDE in preparation for the CSW meeting.)

Recognising that conflict situations increase the number of women refugees and asylum seekers, we call upon the Government to:

· Seek full implementation of the 1996 Refugee Act ensuring its full application to women including taking concrete steps to institutionalise the recognition of gender-based persecution as grounds for asylum claims.
· Ensure that fair procedures are observed at point of entry including providing access to interpreters at the border, and the proper training of immigration officers.
· Female asylum seekers should be interviewed by female officials who have undergone gender-sensitivity training.
· To avoid undue economic, psychological, and emotional suffering decisions on refugee status and family reunification must be taken within a shorter period than the current 2-3 years.
· Ensure that all displaced women, including refugee women, have supported access to education and training including inter alia the provision of childcare.
· Support a government-funded resettlement programme to reduce the hardship of seeking housing.
· Actively involve refugee women and NGOs representing them in planning and implementing the policies and services affecting them

5. Women’s Human Rights

· Establish effective collaboration with the Human Rights Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs to ensure that it integrates gender perspectives and women’s human rights throughout their work and to generally share expertise towards more effective monitoring and implementation of Irelands’ commitments to women’s human rights. Specifically, work to ensure the inclusion of women's human rights concerns and gender perspectives in all Government reporting to UN human rights bodies.
· Support the immediate ratification and implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the Convention Against Torture with full attention to gender-specific concerns under each instrument.
· Support steps to involve NGOs in the development and execution of a national plan of action to implement the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
· Support the establishment of a national independent human rights commission as recommended in the Report of the Constitutional Review Group
· Take steps to ensure the full integration of gender and women's human rights concerns in all activities and programmes to mark the 50th Anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
· The Government and the UN must demonstrate that they give a real priority to promoting and protecting women’s human rights. The relevant international human rights treaties should be ratified and implemented by all governments, without limiting reservations including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention Against Torture
·To bring Ireland in line with international human rights standards, the Government must take urgent action to put in place in Ireland Anti-Discrimination/Equal Status Legislation
·Governments must act to protect women from gender-based violence, whether occurring in public or private life, including taking effective steps to uphold the provisions of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.
· Recruitment, training and accountability of all police, prison and armed forces personnel should ensure effective protection of women’s human rights.
· The protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls should be given high priority in bilateral and multilateral development assistance projects.
· The UN must prioritise and integrate fully it’s work on women’s rights and human rights. All members of UN human rights bodies must have a sound knowledge of international human rights standards and be able to apply them in a gender-sensitive manner.

6. The Girl Child
We call upon the Irish Government to:

· promote policies and strategies in development assistance programmes that would reduce gender bias in education. This would include inter alia:
· gender awareness campaigns to sensitise parents, and the wider community to the importance of educating girls
· gender awareness training for teachers
· an increase in the number of female teachers particularly in rural areas
· measures to remove gender stereotypes from textbooks.
· Through the Development Assistance Programme provide support for awareness raising /legal rights programmes which are endeavouring to eliminate harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, child/early marriage, and abduction of young girls for marriage.
· The particular needs of young Traveller women and girls need to be recognized and included in the forthcoming Education and Youth Bills and adequate resources need to be made available to appropriately meet their needs.

Submission to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform On the Occasion of the 42nd Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women Submitted by Amnesty International as part of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998
Women in the Frontline, Amnesty International’s first major report on human rights violations against women, was published in March 1991. The struggle to end such violations continues.

The 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1998 offers a golden opportunity to remind the world of the Declaration’s commitment to the equal rights of women and men. This commitment has been repeated time and again by the world’s governments - first in 1945 in the UN Charter, and subsequently in four key international human rights treaties deriving from the UDHR. Yet the truth is that until recently, the noble sentiment was neglected or forgotten. Only in 1993, at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, after much lobbying by women’s and human rights organisations, did the UN substantiate its commitment to women’s rights. It affirmed that the human rights of women are "an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights" and urged "the full and equal enjoyment by women of all human rights and that this be a priority for Governments and the United Nations". Two years later, the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing adopted strong and detailed recommendations for the promotion and protection of women’s human rights. These pledges provide a platform for action, one of which, "reaffirms that all human rights - civil, cultural, economic, political and social, including the right to development -are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated." (Beijing Platform for Action, Human Rights of Women Article 213.)

The UN and all governments now need to turn the rhetoric into a reality for women. They should integrate a gender-sensitive perspective into the analysis and application of all existing and forthcoming human rights standards and mechanisms. They should also work systematically to implement the promises they have made.

Amnesty International recommends:

· That Governments and the UN must demonstrate that they give a real priority to promoting and protecting women’s human rights. The relevant international human rights treaties should be ratified and implemented by all governments, without limiting reservations.
· Governments must act to protect women from gender - based violence, whether occurring in public or private life, including taking effective steps to uphold the provisions of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.
· Recruitment, training and accountability of all police, prison and armed forces personnel should ensure effective protection of women’s human rights.
· The protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls should be given high priority in bilateral and multilateral development assistance projects.
· The UN must prioritise and integrate fully it’s work on women’s rights and human rights. All members of UN human rights bodies must have a sound knowledge of international human rights standards and must be able to apply them with a gender perspective. A gender balance needs to be quickly established on expert human rights bodies. Gender inclusive language should become standard within the UN. Amnesty International highlights:

Elsa Constanza Alvarado and Mario Calderon Killed for defending human rights and the environment

Daw San San Nwe-Imprisoned A journalist and writer in Myanmar who has been persecuted, threatened, silenced.

Letiticia Moctezuma Vargas A teacher and community activist in Mexico She and her daughters have been threatened and beaten for objecting to a government sponsored project which will destroy their community environment

Nadezhda Chaykova -Killed a journalist in the Chechen Republic for her efforts to expose corruption at the highest levels

Mirjana Galo - Attacked a human rights activist in Pula , Croatia attacked , bombed and threatened at her Centre.

Ngawang Sangdrol -Imprisoned a Buddhist nun who has been sentenced for her beliefs that Tibet should be independent of China. Dita Indah Sari Imprisoned arrested in Indonesia for five years after taking part

Submission to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the Occasion of the 42nd meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women Submitted by Banulacht as part of The Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998

To mark the 42nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, New York, 2nd -13th March 1998, Banulacht, as a member of the 1998 "Women’s Human Rights Campaign’’ calls on the Irish Government to fulfill its responsibilities in relation to the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (PFA), and to remove all existing reservations and actively implement the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women(CEDAW).

As a development Organisation working for women’s human rights and gender equality, Banulacht regrets the inactivity of the Irish Government over its commitment to involve NDGOs in the implementation process of the PFA and the lack of consultation in the production of the First Report on Implementation of the Platform for Action, December 1996. Furthermore, Banulacht wishes to draw attention to the fact that the Gender Equality Monitoring Committee set up to monitor the implementation of the Second Commission on the Status of Women and the Beijing Platform/CEDAW has no representation from the NDGO sector (ie, the development sector ). This is regrettable in the light of the PFA chapter 5, Institutional Arrangements, paragraphs 297 and 298.
Banulacht calls on the government to take urgent action on the following issues in relation to women’s human rights:

Chapter 5. Institutional Arrangements
Para. 211 " the universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question."
Para. 220 " every person should be entitled to participate in, contribute to and enjoy cultural, economic political and social development. In many cases women and girls suffer discrimination in the allocation of economic and social resources. This violates their economic, social and political rights"

Recommendations :

· All development co-operation policy and programmes should use every opportunity to promote the full exercise of the internationally agreed and recognized human rights of women, economic, social, cultural and political in the countries where Ireland has development assistance programmes.
· The ratification of (or the lifting of reservations ) on CEDAW and the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action should be encouraged in policy dialogue with partner governments in relation to aid.
· women’s rights should be explicitly mentioned in all trade and co-operation agreements.
· Impact assessment studies on the effects on women of these agreements should be carried out.
· All trade policy reviews should include a gender audit.

Para 226 " The factors that cause the flight of refugee women, other displaced
women, in need of international protection, and internally displaced women may be different from those affecting men. These women continue to be vulnerable to abuses of the human rights during and after their flight".

Recommendations:

Banulacht urges the government to:

· do everything in its power to ensure access to full enjoyment of economic, social, political and cultural rights for refugee women in Ireland.
· take urgent action to ensure that women refugees (and men) have access to work and/ or meaningful occupations.
· collect gender-disaggregated data
· carry out research on the specific health and education needs of women refugees
· inform women refugees of their rights through appropriate channels
· to provide resources for development education in the formal sector which will focus on the needs of refugee women and children who are recently arrived in Ireland.
· to ensure that national curricula include gender - sensitive studies of refugees which examine their socio -economic, political and cultural rights/needs.
· We call on the government to ensure that all policies/programmes in relation to conflict prevention, emergency responses and post conflict situations are coherent with the EU Gender Resolution.

Chapter Four. Section L. The Girl Child

Para. 216 " Both the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Convention of the Rights of the Child guarantee children’s rights and uphold the principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of gender"
Para. 261 " gender -biased educational processes, including curricula, educational materials, and practices, teachers attitudes and class interaction, reinforce existing classroom inequalities".
Para. 263 " Although the number of educated children has grown in the past 20 years in some countries, boys have proportionately fared much better than girls……….. this can be attributed to such factors as customary attitudes, child labor, early marriages, lack of funds and lack of adequate schooling facilitates

Recommendations:

· promote policies and strategies in development assistance programmes that would reduce gender bias in education. This would include:
· gender awareness campaigns to sensitise parents, and the wider community to the importance of educating girls
· gender awareness training for teachers
· an increase in the number of female teachers particularly in rural areas
· measures to remove gender stereotypes from textbooks.

Through the Development Assistance Programme provide support for awareness raising /legal rights programmes which are endeavouring to eliminate harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, child/early marriage, and abduction of young girls for marriage.

Para 232 " the need to ensure full respect for the human rights of indigenous women…"

Recommendation:
Banulacht urges the government to actively support at the CSW the consideration of a "declaration on the rights of indigenous women for adoption by the General Assembly within the International Decade for Indigenous People". Ireland is well placed to support such a declaration and would be able to draw on the skills and expertise of members of, for example, the Traveller community in Ireland to participate in the negotiating of such a declaration.

Submission to Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the Occasion of the 42nd Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women Submitted by Dublin Aids Alliance as part of The Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998

Trafficking and Women:

Paragraph 130 (d) of the PFA states that the Governments of countries of origin, transit and destination [of trafficked women] should:
"allocate resources to provide comprehensive programs designed to heal and rehabilitate into society victims of trafficking, including through job training, legal assistance and confidential health care, and take measures to cooperate with non-governmental organisations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of victims of trafficking."
Trafficking in women takes place when a woman, through the use or threat of violence or deception, or the misuse of authority by others, is forced to travel or to stay in a country which is not the woman’s country of origin. It includes but is not limited to trafficking for the purposes of prostitution.
There is a serious lack of research into the conditions affecting trafficked women in Ireland. While NGOs are well aware that such women exist, without more detailed information it is impossible to analyze their needs, understand the extent to which trafficking occurs, and the reasons behind it.
Trafficked women should have a voice in Ireland so that they may enjoy basic human rights within our community and in particular have access to basic healthcare for themselves and their children.

Recommendations:
We call on the Irish Government to:

· Initiate and fund research on the needs of trafficked women in collaboration with appropriate NGOs
· Ensure that health care and social work staff be given training in the delivery of advice and assistance to trafficked women,
· Ensure access by trafficked women to interpreters in as necessary.

Submission to Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on Occasion of 42nd Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women

Submitted by Ireland Action for Bosnia as part of The Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY):
The Prosecution of Rape as a war crime
In 1993 reports of the systematic rape of Bosnian Muslim women by Bosnian Serb soldiers helped to create the ICTFY at the Hague. In an historic move the Tribunal declared rape a war crime.
Yet all indications are that those indicted for mass rape may never be called to account for their crimes. The victims are very disillusioned and angry that this whole area has been largely ignored by the international community. Nearly all of the alleged rapists and architects of rape as a war crime remain at large.
Tribunal officials and human rights groups all agree that the biggest problem faced by the Tribunal is the lack of political will to arrest these indicted war criminals. As the former chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal Judge Goldstone stated: "Without intense public pressure the Tribunal would not have been established. If the Tribunal is to succeed continued public pressure is needed now."
In the general climate of impunity victims are naturally very frightened at the prospect of testifying in the Hague. They point to the inadequacy of witness protection programmes, the lack of any witness relocation scheme, and the lack of funding by the international community in this area.
A UN commission of experts concluded in 1992 that at least 20,000 Bosnian Muslim women were sexually assaulted by Serb forces as part of a systematic rape policy and policy of ethnic cleansing. However, victims are finding that the alleged perpetrators are not being indicted by the Tribunal for genocide. They want their experience of rape to be tired as an act of genocide. If rape is not made a major priority, human rights groups argue prosecutors may find themselves without witnesses. Julia Hall of Human Rights Watch who is investigating women’s issues in Bosnia stated: "Women want justice and they have a need for justice. But they do not think they are going to get it."

Recommendation:
The Irish Government has a particular responsibility in this area given that the setting up of the ICTFY was a cornerstone of our policy on Bosnia.
In light of the crucially important recognition of sexual violence in situations of war/conflict as a war crime, and given Para. 142 (b-c) and 145 (c-e) of the PFA wherein Ireland, together with other UN member states and UN bodies, has pledged inter alia to "undertake a full investigation of all acts of violence against women committed during war, including rape, in particular systematic rape…[and to] prosecute all criminals responsible for war crimes against women and provide full redress to women victims"; we ask that the Irish Government to:

· Actively seek the effective prosecution of sexual violation in the context of the ICTFY; and
· Advocate for the inclusion of all forms of gender violence in the remit of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and that all staff of the ICC Witness Protection Unit receive gender-sensitivity training. (Please see the attached briefing Women and Armed Conflict produced by WIDE in preparation for the CSW meeting.)

Submission to Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on Occasion of 42nd Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women

Submitted by the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas as part of The Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998

Roisin McAliskey: No Case to Answer

On June 28th 1996 the IRA launched a mortar attack on a British military base at Osnabruck, Germany causing damage to buildings. No one was injured. The German Federal Police (BKA) believe that a holiday home in Sandhatten, 60 miles from Osnabruck, rented to five persons from June 14th to 28th, was linked to the attack.
With the assistance of local persons, photos-fits of three of the occupants were circulated in the German, British and Irish Media soon afterwards. These were known as ‘Mike’, ‘Mark’ and ‘Beth’.
Within days, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) on foot of extradition requests from Germany named two men whom they wished to detain. No identification of the suspect ‘Beth’ was made.
On November 20th 1996, Roisin McAliskey, daughter of Bernadette McAliskey, was arrested under Emergency Law. Roisin, aged 26 and a sociology graduate was held for interrogation for six days. Despite being pregnant and in ill health, she was interrogated for some eight hours each day. She refused to cooperate with the interrogation. She was not charged with any offense.
Her arrest was not requested by the German authorities, nor was she arrested on suspicion of involvement in the German attack, nor was she interrogated on this matter. She bears no resemblance to the photo-fit of ‘Beth’. Roisin was in Ireland during June 1996 when the 3 persons wanted by the BKA were in Sandhatten. Her employers have stated that she could not have been in Germany at the time and her work record confirms this. Other witnesses also confirm that she was in Ireland at that time.
Despite this, the BKA having been notified by the RUC that Roisin had been arrested by them, issued a warrant for her arrest and requested her extradition. The warrant states that Rosin has been identified as ‘Beth’ and that there is forensic evidence to support this identification.
The forensic evidence is unreliable, based solely on two finger prints found on an isolated moveable fragment of cellophane found in a litter bin outside the rented house and a piece of paper which allegedly contains Roisin’s handwriting but not her finger prints. Furthermore, three German eyewitnesses have stated that Roisin is not ‘Beth.’
The BKA have no evidence on which to base any reasonable suspicion that Roisin might be ‘Beth’ and no reason to suspect her involvement in the Osnabruck bombing. Neither the BKA or the RUC have investigated Roisin’s alibi evidence.
Since her arrest, Roisin McAliskey spent six months in prison in England in such inhuman conditions as warranted an international outcry, and an urgent action appeal by Amnesty International. Three days before the birth of her daughter in May 1997, a High Court decision permitted her to be taken to a hospital. Had this not happened neither she or her daughter might have survived the birth.
Since then Roisin, together with Loinnir her daughter, have been resident in a psychiatric hospital, being treated for the cumulative effect of the trauma of arrest, interrogation, prison, degradation, and cruelty. As well as physically difficult pregnancy, all of these caused the recurrence of the trauma she experienced at the age of nine when an assassination attempt was made on her parents in the family home.
To secure bail, permitting the necessary medical care, her parents and friends have had to raise £193,000. Should Roisin’s health improve sufficiently to leave hospital, the prosecution, on behalf of the BKA, have demanded her return to Holloway prison.
It is more than one year since Roisin’s nightmare began and there is no sign of an end. The magistrate dealing with the case has ordered Roisin’s extradition. In the meantime, Roisin’s lawyers have lodged a submission with the British Home Secretary against the extradition order.
An independent investigation into the facts of the case was conducted by a group of international legal experts led by the former US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, and Ms. Heidi Bache-wiig, a Norwegian human rights lawyer and expert on extradition. They have concluded that ‘there is no factual basis for the arrest, detention, or extradition of Roisin McAliskey.’

We call upon the Irish Government to:

· Protect Roisin McAliskey’s human rights. In light the lack of evidence against Roisin, and the ongoing destructive effects of the case on her health and the well-being of her daughter. We call for the support of the Irish Government in the following: we ask that,

1. The German Government withdraw the extradition request; and
2. The British Government refuse extradition in view of the lack of evidence

Submission to Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on Occasion of 42nd Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Submitted by the Irish Refugee Council in collaboration with The Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998
The Sections of the Beijing Platform for Action of most relevance to refugee women are those on armed conflicts, human rights and violence against women.
At an international level, the prevention of refugee-producing situations is infinitely preferable to any attempted cure. Ireland should be addressing the above issues both in its emergency interventions overseas, and also in its long-term development strategies.
At national level, a welcome development has been the extension in the 1996 Refugee Act of the definition of social group to include those persecuted on the basis of gender. Ireland must also address the following issues:

1. The right to seek asylum is a basic human right. To allow women to avail of this right (in line with the requirements of paragraph 231, Section I, Beijing Platform for Action (PFA)), Ireland must ensure that fair procedures are observed at point of entry. This means providing access to interpreters at the borders, and the proper training of immigration officers. It is often difficult for women to disclose very sensitive information to strangers. Ideally, female asylum seekers should be interviewed by female officials. Women should have the option of being interviewed without the presence of their husbands and children, which now seems to be the practice at asylum interviews, but not at the border. Experience shows that women will be extremely unlikely to reveal sexual abuse, rape and other forms of persecution while family members are present.

2. Decisions on refugee status must be taken within a shorter period, than the current 2-3 years. Delay and uncertainty add to the psychological trauma experienced by refugee women. In the case where status is refused, the fact that the woman might have already spent two or more years in the country and begun to put down tentative roots increases the hardship for her.

3. Where a woman has been granted refugee status, she is entitled to seek family reunification. At present, this process may take up to a year and a half. Speeding up the process through having special staff and clear procedures would do much to reduce the strain on families, particularly where young children are involved. Where a woman has been granted humanitarian permission to remain, she does not have the right to family reunification (although the Minister has the discretion to grant it). This undoubtedly creates major hardship and indeed heartbreak for the families concerned.

4. Paragraph 107q of the PFA addresses mental health and calls for support programmes to be developed for women and girls who have experienced violence or abuse resulting from armed and non-armed conflict. Currently, there is no specialized scheme in place to offer any form of counseling or support to women refugees, with the exception of the Bosnian community, no matter how traumatized they may have been by their experiences.

5. In the area of reproductive health, despite the fact that there has been a high birth-rate amongst refugee women in Ireland, there is no provision for training or for language support for health care staff.

6. Where families have been through strain and members are facing unaccustomed roles (for example, the husband/father no longer being the breadwinner), there is the potential for the frustration and anger to lead to situations of domestic violence. No training or cultural and language support is available to social workers. This must be remedied to come in line with paragraphs 125,126 and 127 of the PFA.

7. No social work support or special educational provision is available for unaccompanied minors. Greater protection is needed to come within the requirements of 107, 108 and 126 inter alia.

8. Paragraphs 83 and 84 calls on governments to enable women, particularly refugee and displaced women to have access to education and training. Paragraph 147 (l) reiterates this point in the context, inter alia, of language training. While women granted refugee or humanitarian status, do have access to state-funded language programmes, to which access is facilitated by the Refugee Agency, in fact many women have had difficulty participating due to the lack of child-care facilities. In Dublin there is no provision for government-funded English language training for asylum-seekers, which means that women may spend years in this country, unable to communicate with anyone. In Ennis, language classes for asylum seekers are state-funded. There is no provision for language support for children of asylum seekers and people with humanitarian status who have been placed in schools.

9. Due to the shortage of housing in Dublin, women and children are spending long periods in unsuitable temporary accommodation. There is no government-funded resettlement programme. It is up to individuals to find their own housing. Given the fact that there is no language training, this task is particularly difficult. Paragraph 149 (f) clearly requires a more comprehensive response from governments so that equal access is ensured to "appropriate and adequate…shelter."

10. The emphasis in the Beijing PFA (Para. 147 (a)) is very much on the active participation of women in designing and running programmes intended for them, rather than making them into passive beneficiaries. Very little consultation takes place in the development of State services, and where there have been refugee initiatives, women have been very much under-represented.

Submission to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the Occasion of the 42^nd Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women
Submitted by the National Traveller Women’s Forum as part of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998

Inclusion of Traveller and Minority Women’s Groups

The Beijing Platform for Action states that,
"Many women face additional barriers to the enjoyment of their language, ethnicity, culture, religion, disability or socio-economic class or because they are indigenous people."

They may also be marginalised by a general lack of knowledge and recognition of their human rights as well as by the obstacles they meet in gaining access to information and redress mechanisms in cases of violations of their human rights. It is in this context that our submission to the UN Commission on the Status of Women is made on behalf of Traveller and Gypsy women. (Strategic Objective Para. 225).
As a Traveller and Gypsy Women’s Organisation, the National Traveller Women’s Forum (NTWF) is concerned that the lack of an explicit Traveller/Gypsy focus in UN Declarations, provisions, and committees can be used to exclude Gypsy and Roam and Travellers from their hoped for outcomes. We call on the Commission on the Status of Women to rectify this in their own deliberations, as fundamental to human rights, and to work towards greater inclusion of Gypsy, Roma and Travellers in all UN deliberations.
The NTWF is concerned that the monitoring instruments set up by the Government to review implementation of the Platform for Action, the associated monitoring of the implementation of the second Commission on the Status of Women recommendations and the National Committee on Violence Against Women have no representation from Traveller women’s groups, particularly in the light of Paragraph 298 of the PFA. The NTWF calls on the government to rectify this situation with regard to PFA Monitoring, the Monitoring Committee for the implementation of the recommendations of the Second Commission on the Status of Women, the National Committee on Violence Against Women, and other relevant committees.

Women’s Human Rights
The NTWF calls on the government to take urgent action to put in place in Ireland Anti-Discrimination Legislation and to ratify immediately the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. These actions are required as a preliminary to monitoring implementation of the Women’s' Human Rights, Objectives and Activities in the PFA for Traveller and other minority ethnic groups of women in Ireland.

"Women (refugees and asylum seekers) continue to be vulnerable to abuses of their human rights during and after their flight" Paragraph 226, PFA.
The NTWF urges the government to take urgent action to ensure full economic, social and cultural rights for refuge and asylum seeking women, in particular, appropriate access to health, education and child-care services are required. Paragraph 83 and 84, and sensitive action research on women’s needs in these and other areas. The needs of Roma, asylum seekers and refugee women need particular consideration.
The NTWF acknowledges the commitment by the government to the setting up of the Committee to Monitor the Implementation of the Task Force on Travellers, and urges a speedy implementation of all the Task Force recommendations. In particular, we refer to the recommendations of Section H on Traveller Women, including the need to outline with regard to each recommendation, its objectives, targets and outcomes for Traveller women and the need to acknowledge that Traveller women are not a homogeneous group. Again, this is preliminary and fundamental to implementation of the PFA Human Rights objectives.

Violence Against Women
The NTWF in its submission to the Irish National Report for Beijing referred to the violence experienced by Traveller women from sedentary society. We urge, in line with Paragraph 113 PFA (b) and (c), Government action through Legislation, Implementation of the Task Force Recommendations, Equality Provisions of the Strategic Management Initiative and National Anti Poverty Strategy, to eliminate this violence.
The NTWF urges the Government to support the particular initiatives of Traveller Women’s' Groups in addressing violence against Traveller women and the inclusion of a Traveller women’s' dimension in more general reports. In particular, we urge involvement of Traveller women’s' organisations in mainstream women's initiatives, Paragraph 124 (g). Mainstreaming, in line with Partnership 2000, should mean partnership, or resourcing of voluntary groups rather than only State Agency control or initiatives.

The Girl Child
The recommendations of the Task Force on Education are relevant to the rights of Traveller girl children. The particular needs of young Traveller women need to be recognized and included in the forthcoming Education and Youth Bills and adequate resources need to be made available to appropriately meet these needs.
The NTWF calls on the government to make available to Traveller and other minority ethnic groups and women's organisations the resources necessary for them to play a full and ongoing part in developing national strategies for the implementation of the PFA and to develop their own programmes (Paragraph 298, PFA) in response to PFA issues. Such resources need to be made available for actions at regional and national as well as local levels.
This Submission is supported by Pavee Point.

Submission to the Department of Justice, Equality, and Law Reform on the Occasion of the 42nd Meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women Submitted by Women’s Aid as part of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign 1998

Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women (Strategic Objective D1)

1) Task Force Report on Violence Against Women.
The formation of a Task Force on Violence Against Women and the outlining of a comprehensive strategy by the Task Force has been a welcome development in Ireland in recent times. The 114 recommendations contained within the Task Force specifically address many of the strategies that were recommended in the Beijing Platform for Action. Women’s Aid welcome the broad approach as outlined in the Task Force Report and in particular it’s emphasis on a cohesive strategy that draws in all relevant actors and it’s identification of the root causes of violence against women in the economic, political, social and cultural inequalities between men and women at all levels of society.
There are however some critical issues that need to be addressed if the Task Force strategy is to become one that truly protects women and children from violence, provides the essential services to women and children and also prevents the occurrence of male violence against women within intimate relationships.

a) Resources:

No budget has been allocated to the implementation of the Task Force report. Without a commitment of resources it is clear that the range of strategies can not be implemented and in fact clear planning and target setting is also impossible without such a resource commitment.

Recommendation: Women’s Aid recommends that various government departments be instructed to assess the resource implications of their plans of action and to include these in the yearly budget proposals to the Department of Finance. It is also necessary that increased resources be allocated to the voluntary and community sector who have been running front line services for women subjected to violence for many years. An assessment of the resource needs of the voluntary and community sector into the next five years should be carried out and also integrated into the relevant Departmental budget proposals. Particular attention should be paid to the experience and needs of women who have been doubly marginalised because of additional societal discriminations such as racism, heterosexism, discrimination on the grounds of disability or age.

b) Time Frame:

At present there is no indication as to the time frame for the implementation of the Task Force or of the location and amount of new services for women and children who are subjected to male violence in the home.

Recommendation: Some assessment of the needs for support and crisis services needs to be done at both a regional and local level and targets set accordingly so that accessibility to the necessary protection and support for women is increased to the maximum levels .Time targets as to the setting up of new services and the implementation of prevention strategies need to be set with an indication of the level of increase needed in services and the locations of such new services.

C) Partnership: Whilst Women’s Aid welcome the recommendation that there should be 50% statutory and 50% voluntary/community representation on the Task Force monitoring structures, we are concerned that the voluntary and community sector will be disadvantaged in their participation because of lack of resources.

Recommendation: That the relevant voluntary and community groups and organisations be resourced to enable them to participate fully on the national, regional and local Task Forces who will have a crucial role to play in informing and monitoring the implementation of the Task Force Report on Violence Against Women.

c) Standards and Good Practice:

Whilst the Task Force recommends a cohesive and comprehensive approach to violence against women, the principles this approach should be informed by and what model of good practice should be employed by all those who have a responsibility to respond to violence against women, have not been defined. This may result in an inconsistent development of services, protection mechanisms and preventative strategies which may not adequately address the prevalence, extent, forms and impacts of male violence against women.

Recommendations: The best models of good practice both nationally and internationally be examined by the Task Force with a view to drawing up a criteria for both voluntary and statutory agencies who wish to access resources through the Task Force initiative and that the Task Force take a lead role both nationally, regionally and locally in promoting best practice in all responses to violence against women.

2) Legal protection for women subjected to male violence.
With the introduction of the 1996 Domestic Violence legislation, the implementation of the Gardai Policy on Domestic Violence and new provisions under the Non-fatal Offenses Against the Persons Act 1997, steps have been taken to address the lack of protection for women and the lack of accountability for men that previously existed within the legal system in Ireland. However a number of crucial issues still remain to be addressed if the civil and criminal justice systems are to be effective in addressing violence against women.

a) Whilst the introduction of new legislation has extended the possibility of protection to those women who are not married to the perpetrator of violence, there are still many women who can not avail of the Domestic Violence legislation because they do not meet the criteria as laid out under the act e.g. do not live with the abuser. The status of the family and family home in this case has superseded the protection of women and children from violence.

b) Accountability for violent men through the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is a crucial mechanism whereby men who are violent and abusive are held accountable by the state for their action. Garda statistics however show that the often the response of the criminal justice system in this matter can be arbitrary thereby providing an inconsistent response to violent men and failing to protect women in many cases. For e.g. in domestic violence incidents reported to the Gardai from May to December 1994, the Carlow/Kilkenny region had 94 incidents reported with 33 persons injured and 33 convictions. In the Donegal region however there were 76 reported incidents with 27 persons injured and only 6 convictions.

Recommendations: The factors that influence conviction rates and the criminal justice response to men who are violent toward wives and partners must be examined. The regionalisation of the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault unit should be regionalised so that he Garda policy can be adequately monitored and supported. Education of the judiciary in the dynamics of violence against women and the serious nature of this crime is essential.

c) Criminal Justice System response to rape. RCC figures also indicate that only 5% of cases for rape that get to court result in convictions. Again, perpetrators of violent crime against women are not being held responsible for their actions.

Strategic Objective D2

Study the causes and consequences of violence against women and the effectiveness of preventative measures.

1) Task Force Report on Violence Against Women.

Women’s Aid welcome the identification of the root causes of violence against women as lying within gender inequality and the identification of a range of strategies to address the root causes and towards the prevention of violence against women. Crucial issues in the implementation of a preventative strategy would be:

a) The linking of public awareness campaigns with the provision of adequate services and protection for women and children who are subjected to male violence.
b) The involvement at all levels of preventative education strategies of those organisations who have been working to combat violence against women so that their expertise and analyses as well as the creative and empowering strategies that they have devised, will be integrated into to any education programme that is developed to address male violence.
c) That programmes for abusers be funded and monitored by the criminal justice system and be part of a response that holds men accountable for their violence and abuse. Models of good practice that hold the safety of women and children as paramount in the implementation of such a programme should be examined and promoted by the Task Force at national, regional and local level.
d) That cultural attitudes to women be addressed at all levels of society through preventive education and training programmes which examine the proscribed role for women as mother and wife and how this effects societies response to women who are abused and to men who violate. In particular the views of women who are not seen to fit inside the proscribed norms e.g. traveller women, disabled women, lesbians, women working in prostitution, refugee and asylum seekers, women with HIV and Aids, older women, and are therefore doubly marginalised, must be examined and integrated in any strategy to address gender inequality as a root cause of violence against women.

Strategic Objective D3
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking.

1) Decriminalisation of Prostitution.

O’Neill (1994:1996) found that women working as prostitutes experienced severe sexual and physical violence overwhelmingly at the hands of clients, pimps and domestic partners. The 1993 Criminal Law (Sexual Offenses) Act has the effect of seriously deterring women from reporting such acts of violence to the Gardai for fear of being prosecuted. This act is in direct contravention of both Article 2(f) of CEDAW and Strategic Objective D3 of the Beijing Platform for Action.
Recommendation: The immediate decriminalisation of prostitution. Mandatory training for all Gardai and a clearly identified policy based on the protection of women in prostitution from violence and abuse. ( Monica, is there a Garda policy on prostitution apart from putting them in jail or fining them a 1,000 pounds?)