[APWW-Meet] ECOSOC expressing serious concerns regarding Iran's candidacy

[Mavic Cabrera Balleza <maviccabreraballeza@gmail.com>]

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An announcement list of the Asia Pacific Women Watch network
working for the advancement of the status of women.
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Dear APWW colleagues,

Please see the letter {below} to ECOSOC expressing serious concerns
regarding Iran's candidacy for a seat in the UN  Commission on the
Status of Women.

Please send your names, organizational affiliation and country  to Sanam
Anderlini <sanambna@yahoo.com>, Executive Director of the International
Civil Society Action Network if you agree to be a signatory.
Additionally, you can send it to your government representatives
--especially the country missions to the UN, Foreign Affairs Ministries
and national machinery on women if you have direct contact with them.

The CSW elections will take place on Wednesday (April 28th) so please
respond immediately.

Many thanks and kind regards,

Mavic

--
Mavic Cabrera-Balleza
International Coordinator
Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, a program partner of the
International Civil society Action Network
Tel: 1 212 729 1062
www.gnwp.org


Dear ECOSOC Members

On Wednesday April 28 2010, voting will take place for membership to the
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).=20

The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is a key contender.  On the basis of
Iran's track record and systemic discrimination against women, today we
are writing to ask that you block their ascension to the CSW.=20

The CSW is a critical UN entity. It is the only body dedicated
exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. It is the
principal global policy-making body, and its mandate is to evaluate
progress identify challenges, set global standards and formulate
concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women
worldwide.

The Iranian government by contrast has taken every conceivable step to
deter women's progress and institute a regressive regime against gender
equality. In the past year it has arrested and jailed mothers of
peaceful civil rights protesters. It has charged women who were seeking
equality in the social sphere - as wives, daughters and mothers - with
threatening national security, subjected many to hours of harrowing
interrogation.  It has arrested members of the Mourning Mothers group
who gather weekly in silent protest and seek justice for the arrests,
disappearances and death of their children.   Women civil rights
activists have reported rape and torture in prison.

The government of President Ahmadinejad has also initiated a systematic
regime of oppression against women in every sphere.  In universities
where women have represented over 50 percent of the student body, the
government is now banning women from key areas of study.  Childcare
centers are being shut down to hamper women's ability to work outside
their homes. Healthcare and reproductive care services provided to men
and women that assisted them in family planning are being withdrawn. All
women's publications that addressed issues of gender equality have been
shut down. This government is erasing generations of struggle for basic
rights and human dignity.

This is not a government that supports equality. It has shunned the
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
and continues to treat women as second-class citizens. Women are barred
from serving as judges or running for the office. They are denied basic
identity documents such as a passport without their husband or father's
permission.  They have half the value or legal rights of men.

Even on the most minor issues, such as the equal right to selecting
their clothing, the Iranian government stands against its own female
citizens.  Chastity Guards" and the "Morality Police" patrol the city
streets to monitor women's garb and detain those deemed to violate the
strict dress code.

If this government wins a seat at the CSW, it will be a denigration of
the very principles for which the CSW stands.  Iran must earn its place
by providing Iranian women their basic human rights.

We therefore appeal to members of ECOSOC - especially the Asian block -
to vote against Iran's bid to join the CSW.


Yours truly


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