Human Rights central to campaigning for women’s equality in Scotland

Women’s rights are human rights. As an organisation advocating for equal access to power, decision-making, and resources in Scotland, a human rights based approach is a critical tool. Whereas equality approaches seek to reduce differences in outcomes between people with different characteristics, human rights are intrinsic. They provide us with basic standards for lived experience which must be met for all people. A human rights-based approach to gender equality means we strive for women’s autonomy and empowerment as ends in themselves, rather than the means by which economic performance or population statistics can be improved. It means that women’s access to representation, our ability to participate fully in public life, our freedom from discrimination and protection in law are seen as essential, not just important. The phrase ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’ will perhaps always be associated most strongly with the speech given by Hillary Clinton at the UN conference in 1995 which led to the creation of the Beijing Platform for Action on women’s equality. It seems an obvious and even clichéd sentiment now, but it was only two years before the Beijing conference that women’s rights had even been affirmed as human rights. The UN Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993 was the first to formally acknowledge the link between human rights and gender equality, ranging from maternal healthcare through to labour-market discrimination, violence against women to literacy rates. These are all policy areas on which women’s organisations continue to campaign today. As a policy and advocacy organisation working for women’s equality in Scotland, Engender is able to use the international obligations which the UK and Scottish governments have committed to, to highlight these rights. The Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) all provide vital frameworks against which we can chart Scotland and the UK’s progress towards women’s equality. A Human Rights Based Approach means ensuring participation, accountability, non-discrimination, empowerment and legality, and these are all ideals which you can see running through today’s campaigns for women’s rights in Scotland. The Women 5050 campaign for equal representation, the work of Close the Gap on employment practices, and the growing movement for abortion rights, campaigning for women’s equality in Scotland has human rights at its heart. Engender is proud to work with organisations in Scotland seeking to promote equality and the realisations of human rights for all of Scotland’s people.