WUNRN
GENDER
& TRADE COALITION Thu 3/14/2019 3:35 AM
" What have free trade agreements have done for women so far; who has
benefitted"?
Quel que soit le domaine considéré, la mondialisation fait
couler beaucoup d'encre à l'échelle de la planète. Pour les uns il s'agit d'un
phénomène salutaire, et pour les autres un processus plein de déviance. Dans
cette dernière catégorie, le renforcement des inégalités socio-économiques
observées tant à l'échelon national qu'international représente entre autres un
effet compromettant.
Mais rares sont les analyses et observations sur le rapport
entre mondialisation des rapports
commerciaux et les inégalités basées sur le genre hommes-femmes. L'article
suivant est de nature à réparer cette lacune. Il s'agit d'une déclaration de
nombreuses organisations regroupées au sein du collectif WUNRN.
Voici l’intégralité de la déclaration en langue anglaise:
We,
women’s rights organizations, movements and allies committed to advancing
women’s human rights, come together to form the Gender and Trade Coalition in
the firm belief that a feminist alliance on trade justice is required to
address the pernicious impact of trade rules on women’s human rights and to
produce informed policy responses addressing the structural causes of gendered
human rights violations.
We
welcome the increasing recognition from governments and institutions that trade
and investment rules create gendered consequences. We are concerned, however,
that common policy responses are simply designed to increase the numbers and
role of women involved in the free flow of capital, resources, and labour. This
approach positions women as instruments of trade growth, failing to address any
adverse discriminatory and exploitative consequences of the global, rules based
neoliberal order on women’s human rights. This is regardless of the significant
role women play as producers, consumers, traders, workers, and principal
providers of unpaid care.
The movements and organizations we represent recognize that the policies of austerity–trade liberalization; finance, investment and labor deregulation; privatization of public goods and services; and the constraints on public policy making and service delivery–produce devastating human rights outcomes for many of the world’s women.
We believe the guiding principles of the global economic order upon which trade and investment rules are built are fundamentally destructive for the advancement of women’s human rights. We recognize that neoliberalism, austerity, and trickle-down economics has failed around the world, yet the rules of this model are being cemented and deepened through trade and investment rules. We believe that the existential crises facing humanity–climate change, mass displacements and migration, obscene inequality and growing authoritarian, patriarchal governance–are linked to the global economic rules that have shaped the past forty years.
Trade rules constructed around principles of competition rather than solidarity, growth rather than human and sustainable development, consumption rather than conservation, individualism rather than public good, and market governance rather than participatory democracy cannot be the basis of a trade agenda that advances women’s human rights.
We
believe that economic cooperation and multilateralism based on equitable, fair,
sustainable, and gender-responsive principles can play a significant part in
advancing women’s human rights. Global cooperation–rooted in principles of
transparency, democracy and participation–that ensures capital contributes to
the public goods and services necessary for the fulfillment of human rights is
necessary. Global cooperation that redresses harm resulting from global trade
supply chains is essential.
We believe that trade policies must affirm the primacy of governments’ human rights obligations under the UN Charter and international treaties and customary laws. Should trade policies diminish state capacity to meet human rights obligations, including the right to development, they must be modified.
We
believe trade rules must not increase protections for multi-national
corporations who are exerting a gigantic influence on trade policy making,
avoiding taxes and accountability and exploiting labor, natural resources and
personal data for their own profit maximization. Trade rules must increase
accountability of corporations who commit grave human rights violations, rather
than provide corporations with unique recourse when judicial systems hold them
accountable.
We
believe trade policies should meet sustainable development needs of all
countries, especially developing and Least-Developed countries, and the people
including the women within these countries. Therefore trade policies must
ensure the widest possible access to essential medicines, technologies and data
and information, rather than restrict access. Trade policies should promote the
sharing of seeds, resources and knowledge rather than penalizing solidarity.
Trade rules should expand and not limit governments’ capacities for broad-based
and decent job creation based on living wages, especially for women. Trade
rules should support governments to develop pro-poor policies and access to
food including through the provision of food subsidies, public stockholdings
and through providing preferential support to local, especially small-scale,
women producers.
We believe powerful vested interests should be prevented from influencing trade policies or providing financial support to political parties where they stand to benefit from the outcomes of trade negotiations.
Instead trade policies should be developed democratically and facilitate informed participation in decision and consent processes by representative organizations of those most potentially impacted, such as women farmers, women workers, and Indigenous women.
We
form this coalition to increase consciousness, capacity, research, and advocacy
for trade and investment policies that facilitate a more equitable, socially
just and sustainable global society in which all human rights and fundamental
freedoms are actively promoted and can be fully enjoyed by all women.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire