PPSEAWA and CSW
PPSEAWA International participates in the annual session of
the UN Commission on the Status of Women and the NGO CSW Forum. PPSEAWA has been involved with the Commission since its inception. Jessie Mary Grey Street (1889-1970), an Australian diplomat and member of PPSEAWA Australia, served as the First Vice Chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women in 1946.
The sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women was held from 11 to 22 March 2024.
The priority theme was “Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective,” especially access to social protection systems and to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality.
Highlights from PPSEAWA-sponsored events during CSW68
11 March 2024. NGO CSW Parallel Event - “Transformational Leadership: Systems to Address Polycrisis and Structural Challenges to Women’s Crisis” (in-person event)
Co-organizers: BPW International and PPSEAWA International.
Presented innovative strategies and a human rights-based approach to address economic gender gaps, focusing on how financial inclusion and entrepreneurship, transformational education, equitable workplace and social norms can accelerate progress towards gender equality.
13 March 2024. NGO CSW Parallel Event - “Advancing Women’s Dignity and Strength through Empowerment Economically” (virtual event)
Organizer: PPSEAWA International Program Development Committee
Women’s economic empowerment serves to promote employment, economic growth and productively as well bring poverty alleviation, hygiene and sanitation. PPSEAWA panelists include:
- Helen Yang (Taiwan), moderator
- Akari Yamada (USA), “Lessons from PPSEAWA Programs on Women’s Socio-Economic Empowerment”
- Mondhiya Bhangsbha (Thailand), “How to Advance Women’s Economic Empowerment in Asia”
- Mandy Chen (Taiwan), “Empowering Women, Bridging the Gap, with PPSEAWA Taiwan”. The gender-poverty nexus is a global challenge: Gender pays gap, Unpaid care work, Limited Access to education, Discrimination. Taiwan’s proportion of female legislators was 42% as of the end of 2021. Taiwan would rank 25th worldwide and 1st in Asia. Taiwan’s challenges: 1. Female-headed household increased; Single-mother household has increased in the past 20 years; 2. single-mother household children poverty rate is 3 time higher than the others. 3. Growth rate of elderly women is higher than elderly men. More elderly women require economic support from their partner, children, and government. 4. Women are more likely to leave the workplace mid-career. Unpaid care work such as childcare, housework, household elderly care; is the main reason for not returning to work force. 5. Female gender proportion is still lower in these sectors: legal representatives, directors of public companies, scientific technology industries. PPSEAWA Taiwan has been working on: APSIS (Asia Pacific Social Innovation Summit), PPSEAWA Taiwan Youth Training Program, Seminars and Workshops, International Day of Girls, and GIA (Gender Impact Accelerator).
- Amy Banker (USA), “PPSEAWA’s United Nations Work”
14 March 2024. UN Side Event - “Universal Health Coverage for Women and Girls to Ameliorate the Major Burdens of Global Disease, Poverty, and Strengthen Financing to Act on Solutions” (virtual event)
Co-sponsored by Permanent Mission of Thailand to the United Nations; International Council of Women (ICW-CIF); Communications Coordination Committee for the United Nations (CCCUN); Pan Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association International (PPSEAWA- INTL)
Speakers discussed current developments in a variety of areas including:
- H.E. Vathayudh Vichankaiyakij, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Thailand to the United Nations. Thailand had been devoted large fund in promoting the health and well being of female population especially through the challenge of the pandemic 2020-2022, Mobile devices and applications have been widely used for communication and virtual health care. There are volunteers in the rural areas help people with the information and importance of the vaccines.
- Alicia Buenrostro, Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations. Telemedicine and virtual health care have been helpful and used especially in the rural areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health care services have also been provided through self-help applications. As to achieving the gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in the digital age, we must place stronger emphasize the use of technology is a powerful platform that teaches us how to cope with stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental conditions. All stakeholders involved in this matter must try to design online with the gender perspective that avoid gender bias and combat stereotypes about metal wellness support. It’s also important to safeguard personal data and privacy.
- Ms. Surabhi Joshi -Technical Officer of the World Health Organization Digital Health and Innovations Dept. ICTs and health are strongly interconnected. There are gaps in connectivity and internet access that continue to persist in rural areas. 1. Promote global collaboration and advance the transfer of knowledge on digital health. 2. Advance the implementation of national digital health. 3. Strengthen governance for digital health at global, regional, and national levels. 4. Advocate people-centered health systems that are enable by digital health.
- Dr. Gita Mishra - Professor and Deputy Head, Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research Centre, School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Australia. “How the collaborative and expanded use of telehealth can support research to inform more equitable health policy and practice for all women and girls.” There are some challenges of developing health research studies; Low- and middle-income countries have limited resources, limited time in addressing health needs. Prioritize building cost-effective basic health services nationwide, typically with the focus on maternal and child health. Case study in Australia - The challenges are: Large geographic scale with many regional and remote areas. Health and wellbeing of First Nations People, especially women and girls living o country in remote communities. Growing population from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) backgrounds. Australia has more than a decade of interest and development in Telemedicine: Mainly focused on service delivery in regional and remote communities. Acceleration in the shift during Covid pandemic. Uptake by everyone, including those living in cities. Digital health has driven integration of systems for patient data, including GP visits, hospital data.
- Bill Jeffery, BA, LLB - Executive Director and General Legal Counsel, Centre for Health Science and Law (CHSL) , Editor of Food for Life Report, Ottawa, Canada. “Curating Information for self-care when governments don’t enforce laws to inoculate among companies sometimes are reckless and self-serving.” The greatest women’s health inequities are due to socioeconomic disadvantage and prevention through healthy water systems, and sanitation. Also differences in life expectancy between countries are often also observed between communities with countries.
17 March 2024. NGO CSW Parallel Event - “Disrupting Harm/Building Empowerment of Marginalized Women and Youth (virtual event)”
Co-organizers: PPSEAWA International and BPW International
Women and youth who are marginalized due to gender, ethnicity, and migration status are especially vulnerable. PPSEAWA engages in practices that prevent abuse/exploitation, alleviate stigmatization and isolation, and build up strength and resilience within communities. PPSEAWA supports programs that enable access to quality education, financial and health care services, and skills-training with the aim of self-determination and self-representation.
Ellen Hansen, Deputy Director, Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). She presented a two-year diploma programme to train young women from poor families and remote communities in rugged, mountainous provinces of Afghanistan to be midwives.
“We must invest in community empowerment and gender equality, we must support refugee advisory groups, we must advocate for flexible fundings to women led organizations.” “The journey towards empowerment and dismantling the harm is ongoing. It requires support and collaborative partnership across the spectrum of NGOs, governments, and international bodies.” “By joining forces, we can amplify our impact. Advocating for policies and programs cater to the unique needs of refugees and stateless people and other forced to be replaced. Together, let us continue to stride for our future for every individual, particularly maginized women and youth can thrive in a world of equality, dignity, and opportunity.” - Ellen Hansen
The first part of the program included two refugee experiences:
- Hafsar Tameesuddin, Co-Secretary General of Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) and one of the co-founders of Rohingya Women Collaborative Network, spoke about life on the move from Myanmar to a refugee camp in Malaysia to life in New Zealand.
- Bahar Jaberi, an administrative manager at Portland State
University, spoke about life after leaving Iran for permanent resettlement in the USA.
The second part of the program presented their practices for building capacity through education and livelihood programs from the perspectives of Fiji, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, and the United States:
- Akari Yamada, moderator. “We will be talking about practices that prevent abuse and exploitation; alleviate stigmatization and isolation; build up strength and resilience within local communities from the ground up. PPSEAWA supports programs that enable access to quality education, financial and health care services, and skills training - all with the aim of self-determination and self representation.”
- Yman Huang Vien (USA): co-founder of the Chinese Mutual Aid Association (CMAA). Yman shared her story as a refugee escaped from Vietnam to Malaysia, then to USA. Her father had a vision of helping other refugees and immigrants from Indochina in the local community by forming a non-for-profit organization provide services: employment, senior in-home service, ESL, family literacy, youth, advocacy & small bus development center.
- Brittocia Franklin (Malaysia), Executive Director of Global Shepherds Malaysia. “Resilience in the midst of crisis – Finding Hope for Violence Survivors.” Brittocia shared a story of a livelihood project in Keningau, Sabah during the pandemic and continue to present. The approach was: In appreciating the uniqueness of each person and their circumstance; Being open to shift and transform the working with vulnerable communities on community base programming. The learning from this project was on creating safe space of women and children and reaching out to each individual in the community.
- Dr Janie Liew-Tsonis (Malaysia), Executive Director of Good Shepherd Services. “Case Study: Building resilience and opportunities for alternative livelihoods for ethnic minority communities in Kiulu, Sabah.”
- Verenaisi Kamikamica and Sera Ravesi Johnston (Fiji). PPSEAWA Fiji and the Matainiyavu Women’s Club built a community bakery to provide much needed income to young women and single mothers who have lost their income stream from lack of tourism due to the COVID pandemic. The women’s cooperative bakery caters to the villagers and school children in six villages. The bakery is located in the middle center of the six villages which help with the supply of bread. The villagers benefit from the nearby bakery and without traveling to the other town for bread supply. Women were trained and worked in the bakery every morning to provide bread for lunch for two schools.
- Rozina Ramzan Ali Khuwaja (Pakistan), Project Director in the All Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA). “Youth Empowerment
through financial inclusion and Digital Literacy.” - Ms. Lantip Dvadasin (Thailand), Chairman, Advancing the Status of Women Committee PPSEAWA Thailand and President of YWCA
Bangkok. “Young Women Empowerment in cooperation with the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of Bangkok.”
What are six recommendations to improve the livelihood of women arising from the panels?
- We need targeted and sustainable investment by governments
and civil society organizations in women-led economic endeavors; - Women’s access to land and agricultural knowledge contributes to
adaptation and mitigation of climate change; - Youth and senior women need lifelong learning, so ensuring
access to quality education is vital, especially knowledge of digital,
financial, and climate literacy; - Women and youth in all their diversity deserve safe spaces where
they can network and benefit from financial mentoring; - Removing social and cultural barriers to women’s work is just as
important – safe routes to work, workplaces free of violence,
support for household and care work, and access to financial
services through technology like mobile platforms; - Lastly, we must ensure women and girls are equipped with the
right mindset and skills, so they are empowered to harness
economic opportunities.
18 March 2024. NGO CSW Parallel Event - “Breaking Barriers: Transforming Institutions for Gender-Responsive Change”
Co-organizers: BPW International and PPSEAWA International
This session delved into the role of institutions in advancing gender equality, with a focus on dismantling barriers that hinder progress. Panelists discussed the importance of institutional reform, policy advocacy, and the integration of gender perspectives in decision-making processes.
