By: Gisèle Pageau
The last two days have been spent on trying to get the world trade union's position into the hands of like-minded countries and put pressure on other countries such as the Holy See who is desperately trying to put women back a few centuries. As the Canadian Bishop stated during a CBC interview, "Women's issues are secondary and take a lot of time to address." Secondary is not what women want and certainly how many more millenniums does the Vatican need to "get with it."
On Tuesday, we circulated the trade union priorities widely, we know there are about 150 copies out there in people's hands. They were also distributed to the North American European NGO caucus by email. Ann Hawkins from the Ontario Catholic Teachers Federation, Vicky Smallman, CLC, Marcelle Perron from the QFL and I planted ourselves outside the conference room where the informals were taking place, and we handed the statement to everyone going into the room.
Somehow a pile of documents found their way to the info table at the back of a couple of conference rooms where negotiations were taking place.
What we know is that as of Tuesday, 19 articles were signed off and including one paragraph on education that the trade union movement was pushing. The debate on the definitions of violence continues and there are some concerns regarding this issue. The biggest issue of reproductive rights will likely come up today.
The labour delegation is down from about 85 to less than 10 now making it a bit more challenging. However the sisters are working very hard and continue to meet every day for briefings. The Chair of UNCSW57 has been pushing the countries very hard to come to agreed conclusions and the next two days will tell whether her skills as a Chair and the willingness of non-progressive countries to come around will pay off.
Stay tuned....
Delegates from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) will be participating in the labour delegation to the United Nations' 57th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW57), starting on March 4th 2013. Read all the updates