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Opening Address: Women's Electoral Lobby Annual Conference, 1999

Sex Discrimination

Opening Address

By Susan Halliday, Sex Discrimination
Commissioner to the Women's Electoral Lobby Annual Conference, 1999

Human rights occupy
a central position in international law and international relations, but
we often forget that this is a recent development. International human
rights law is only 50 years old.

As Chris Sidoti the
Human Rights Commissioner and my colleague at the Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission commented in Hanoi in 1997:

"People
should not have to wait centuries for the development of an effective
international system to protect human rights and ensure justice. Human
Rights law is now in good shape. The next challenge is to develop effective
mechanisms for its implementation and enforcement."1

In countries that
lack effective implementation and enforcement of human rights there are
some truly remarkable women and men defending the rights of others.

Christina Carrascalao
is one such woman. Christina is sheltering 126 refugees at her father's
home in Dili, East Timor - she expects to be killed by militia groups,
she also expects them to kill those she is currently protecting.

The 126 refugees
are living under a makeshift shelter in the backyard, many more are hiding
in bushland on the city outskirts.

"I had phone
calls two days ago telling me to please get out of my house", she says.
"We've heard they're going to attack my house because they know I'm here
by myself. (Friends) have asked me to evacuate myself but there's no use.
I have 126 people needing me here, in my house."2

Christina is 19 years
old; educated at St John's College in Darwin.

What can I say? It
is rarely I am lost for words, yet on this occasion I really do not have
the language to talk about the extent of Christina's plight, strength
and courage in the face of such a shocking reality.

In Australia we have
the freedom to promote the human rights of women and while there are many
woman who suffer in many different ways in this country, at this point
in time I see little that mirror's Christina's circumstance.

Nevertheless I am
firmly of the view that as women we have much to offer those around us
when we ourselves are focused and strong.

The Sex Discrimination
Act (which is effectively my job description) makes sex discrimination
against the law, and gives effect to Australia's international obligations
under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW) and parts of International Labour Organisation Convention
156.

Australia signed
CEDAW in July 1980.

However, the act
of signing a convention does not automatically make it law within Australia,
it must be incorporated into domestic law via our parliamentary process
- which is what we did through the introduction of the federal Sex Disc
Act.

But we need to ask
ourselves, what good are rights when we cannot require others to respect
them, or enforce them.

It is important here
to emphasise what rights actually are. Rights are not merely privileges
granted by the elected government of the day. They are a fundamental part
of being alive. They belong to us as human beings because we were born
and they are essential for our survival.

CEDAW states that
women have the right:

  • to be protected
    from trafficking and forced prostitution
  • to vote in public
    elections
  • to participate
    in government
  • to work and be
    free to choose their profession
  • to be equal with
    men before the law
  • to freely choose
    a spouse and enter a marriage
  • to freely participate
    in all aspects of social/cultural life

These aren't privileges,
granted and taken away according to the political sentiment; they're rights
that belong to all women.

Yet in Afghanistan
how easily such rights were removed.

The government of
Afghanistan signed CEDAW in August 1980. The country then suffered a devastating
civil war.

Today, the Taliban
effectively govern the country. Reports indicate that they have imposed
extremely repressive laws, effectively excluding women from all public
life. Women and girls are restricted to their homes, banned from working
and banned from education or leaving their homes unaccompanied by a male
relative. Women are beaten, tortured and detained for breaking these laws.

I do not take a position
on who is the valid government of Afghanistan. What I am saying, is that
all governments have a fundamental obligation to adhere to the human rights
of women, particularly those that are signatories to CEDAW. This also
applies to those governments that support the policies of the Taliban
through the supply of weapons and/or political support.

Perhaps a less extreme
case - yet one that I find disturbing is the recent judicial ruling in
Rome, that a woman cannot be raped if she is wearing jeans. The reason
being that she would have had to assist the alleged rapist in removing
her jeans and therefore the sex would have had to have been consensual.
It was also noted that, since there is nothing worse for a woman than
to be raped, the sex must have been consensual as no woman would have
allowed herself to be raped - OK so my preference here would be death?

Italy too is a signatory
to CEDAW. However, it has a history of rape protection laws that many
question. Until as recently as two years ago, a defendant could avoid
punishment for a charge of rape by marrying the victim (to remove the
shame on her family) or by proving that she had had other sexual experiences.

While new rape laws
enacted in 1996 could have done away with such attitudes, only 10 of the
420 judges on the Italian Supreme Court, are women. The male judges who
made this ruling can have no understanding of how a victim thinks, how
paralysing the fear of rape can be, or any idea of the coercion that may
lead to submission without real consent.

The human rights
in CEDAW set out to prevent such outcomes, on this occasion failed to
do so.

Gender equality and
women's rights are a continuing site of struggle, as this news item from
Zimbabwe reminds us:

Zimbabwe: Supreme
Court Revokes Women's Rights

In "a stunning reversal
of fortune for Zimbabwean women in particular and African women in general",
Zimbabwe's Supreme Court last month stripped women of almost all the rights
they have gained in the past 20 years. In a 5-0 decision, the court "overruled
or challenged almost every law relating to women's rights in Zimbabwe"
by ruling that Vennia Magaya could not inherit her father's estate, even
though Zimbabwean laws and international treaties "clearly backed her
claim". The court gave the estate to her half-brother.

The court's decision
cited the deep-roots of patriarchy in Africa. The judges said the "nature
of African society" relegates women to a lesser status, especially in
the home. A woman should not be considered an adult within the family,
according to the court, but only as a "junior male".

Justice Simbarashe
Muchechetere said the 1982 Majority Age Act which said that women over
18 could not be treated as minors, had been interpreted "too widely" and
had given women "rights they never had under customary law".

Noted Zimbabwean
legal scholar Welshman Ncube: "Basically, there's nothing left of the
gains women's rights have made in the past 20 years. It's a full-bench
decision by the Supreme Court. There is no appeal. They meant to settle
this question once and for all."3

In a number of countries
the birth of a girl-child still equates to misfortune, that's assuming
she is allowed to live.

And that it was only
very recently that rape was officially recognised as a war crime.

An image that plagues
me is that as a result of the 1994 Rwandan massacres a Ugandan farmer
hired to fish out bodies floating down Lake Victoria, retrieved a woman
who had five small children tied to her body - one to each limb and one
to her back - no other wounds - they had been thrown in to drown.

There is an important
message here - and the message is that while women have had an extensive
set of human rights documented, their enforcement can be weak and fickle.

While the Taliban
are unlikely to ever rule Australia - we have witnessed over recent years
Australian politicians calling for the abolition of laws that prevent
an employer from discriminating on the basis of gender in recruitment.

More recently, the
Queensland Young Liberals made public their intention to debate whether
women breastfeeding in non-designated public areas should be given on
the spot fines.

Both of these policies
are blatant breaches of CEDAW.

Then there was an
interesting letter in the Canberra Times late last year:

Feminism to blame
for child abuse

The Australian Institute
of Health and Welfare announced 31,707 cases of child abuse - a 6% increase.

Arnold Jago of Mildura
wrote

"should
we be surprised? In a society where parents can legally have their unborn
baby killed, its no surprise when born children get treated in a brutal
fashion too. Our feminist pro-abortion brigade are the ones to thank for
the bashed child epidemic."

Sexual harassment
is alive and well

And then of course
there's the regular stream of complaints that cross my desk, blatant,
raw and revolting; animals are treated better than some of the young woman
who formalise complaints under the Sex Discrimination Act.

A sexual harassment
free workplace is a right - not a privilege.

Many of the victims
of sexual harassment are young woman as you will note if you read through
Harsh Realities, the publication I launched on International Women's Day
this year.

Working with our
youth

By choice I often
take the opportunity to work with young woman - the majority of whom it
seems are still of the view that they will be supported later in life
by someone else - my career mapping exercises with young girls also demonstrate
that most conclude their mental career maps at age 35, unlike their male
counterparts.

As yet they do not
think of themselves as viable independent economic units - this will have
repercussions for many future generations.

I often ask myself
what it is I can do for these girls.

I have decided to
celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act with a Year
9 opportunity to compile a written piece about the Act. At the Commission,
the Race Discrimination Commissioner and I are also starting to work on
curriculum material and a video covering sex / race issues for senior
students.

I talk to parents
and educators - some of the parents scare me - many of them my age - some
older, others younger - but generally conservative. While they recognise
many young women will support themselves few are willing to take on board
it may be their daughters. Especially fathers. Others make it clear that
if they had their choice their daughter would not end up like me.

Women more so today
than ever before pursue progress as individuals rather than in groups.
We must recognise and respect their choice.

I am inspired and
encouraged the remarkable words of young Australian girls featured in
Girls Talk4 - this is a true insight to our future generations
of young women.

  • 14 year old said

    some men still
    take advantage of women in awful ways ....women have to understand that
    it is not their fault.

  • 16 year old said

    Choices have
    to become less about gender rules or the set of genitals you have
    and much more about individual need and desires.

  • 12 year old said

    In computer
    games its always the boyfriend who has to rescue his girlfriend from
    the baddies - this makes it look like women are weak and always need
    men to save them...

I believe this young
girl's point was nothing other than I can save myself thank you very much!

Another young woman
wrote:

"The feminine hygiene
ads on TV and in Dolly hid the real issues of menstruation behind flowery
pink packaging and girls frolicking on the beach....these images had nothing
to do with our periods....I remember lying on the bed in pain, clutching
a hot water-bottle and thinking I was trapped. I was going to be menstruating
for a quarter of every year until I was 45 or so and there was nothing
I could do about it."

We live in conservative
times

I reflect on a recent
article by Emma McDonald discussing Marion Sawer's perception of the political
landscape and the Angry White Man - I agree that anti-feminism sentiment
has hit mainstream politics - in fact I think that's a very polite way
of describing what's happened.

We must be strategic
how we manage this within Australia and globally.

The national pregnancy
inquiry, granted by the federal Attorney-General in August last year was
the first to be granted to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
under the Coalition Government.

The pregnancy inquiry
aims to look at the reasons why people are confused about pregnancy and
work legislative requirements, the level of discrimination and how best
to increase awareness and compliance with the Sex Discrimination Act.

My effort is well
spent on education campaigns that publicise breaches of women's human
rights and the Sex Discrimination Act. While I work quietly with those
pushing the boundaries - these people will continue on, with or without
me.

In the current climate
my time is best spent rounding up those who have little understanding
of the first principles of equality, challenging those who are ignorant
of human rights and exposing those who don't care. For now, appropriate
strategies are 'Consolidation' and 'education'.

Endnotes

1 Chris
Sidoti "Introducing human rights law" Hanoi, Vietnam, 2 May 1997.

2 Paul Toohey "Teen Samaritan sees death in long grass"
The Australian, 10-11 April 1999.

3 Houston Chronicle "Zimbabwe: Supreme Court revokes women's
rights"
, 14 April 1999.

4 Compiled and edited by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, Finch Publishing,
Sydney, 1998.

Last
updated 1 December 2001