UN initiative to stem gender-based violence urges Canada for funds – National | 24CA News
A United Nations initiative aimed toward eliminating gender-based violence is asking Canada to place up money to assist stem a backsliding in girls’s rights, regardless that the Liberals are chopping again on overseas assist.
“Women’s rights and violence against women and girls is not a side issue,” mentioned Nahla Valji, the UN’s senior gender adviser, a place Canada pushed to have created on the company’s headquarters in New York.
Valji, who grew up in Burnaby, B.C., is on Parliament Hill this week asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to assist cease an erosion of ladies’s rights globally.
She’s following up on a letter from UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, who requested Trudeau to assist fund what’s referred to as the Spotlight Initiative.
The undertaking launched in 2017 with the European Union pledging 500 million euros, or roughly $740 million, for tasks that work to curb gender-based violence and to present girls a seat on the desk in post-conflict negotiations.
Spotlight Initiative works in two dozen of the world’s poorest international locations, serving to native teams launch tasks that present girls with employment whereas removing violence.
For instance, a undertaking in Liberia labored with elders and feminist teams within the West African nation to assist implement a nationwide ban on feminine circumcision, also referred to as feminine genital mutilation. Spotlight Initiative additionally offered coaching in order that individuals who used to do that observe may as a substitute discover jobs in agriculture.
Yet Valji’s request comes at a time when many international locations are seeing drastic shifts.
Afghanistan’s Taliban regime has banned girls from colleges, gangs in Haiti are weaponizing sexual violence of their turf wars. The stage of femicide in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala is on par with international locations in battle settings, she factors out.
“In the midst of multiple crises globally, and a proliferation of violence against women and girls, we’ve actually been able to prove a model of success,” Valji mentioned.
Valji’s workplace wouldn’t share the letter, however mentioned it “invites Canada to be a partner in scaling up the investment” by the tip of 2023, and mentioned the letter didn’t specify an quantity.
She’s leaning on the Liberals’ rhetoric about placing girls on the centre of their diplomatic efforts, equivalent to by means of a feminist assist coverage.
“Canada has always been a leader on the international stage, going back to Lester B. Pearson through to today, in terms of multilateralism,” she mentioned.
“Canada throughout history has walked the talk, in terms of the values of the (UN) charter.”
The authorities says it’s assessing the request. But on the identical time, federal cutbacks have the event sector making ready to reduce packages.
The Liberals insist a 15 per cent drop in funding for overseas assist isn’t truly a minimize as a result of it’s greater than their pre-pandemic spending.
Trudeau confronted questions on that final week on the Global Citizen Now occasion in New York City. He confused that an uptick in humanitarian crises means Canada will spend extra on reactive help _ even when proactive spending on growth tasks is again across the identical stage earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, Valji mentioned Canada is among the many finest international locations on this planet for attempting to sort out gender-based violence, partially by means of admitting to its personal issues at residence.
“This role of leadership that they play on the international stage has also been one of self-reflection about the fact that there is no single country in the world that has achieved gender equality,” she mentioned.
She famous that Canada’s ambassador for Women, Peace and Security, Jacqueline O’Neill, is tasked with not simply advocating for girls overseas but additionally seeing what Canada can study from how different international locations are making positive factors for girls.
“In Canada, this has been a role that has had an impact across departments in bringing together a coherence across departments and ministries,” Valji mentioned.
“This is not just something for which we have to be focused on ‘out there.”’
At final week’s occasion in New York City, O’Neill mentioned the backlash to girls’s rights most likely stems from progress, with girls upending gender norms based mostly on patriarchal values, and gaining a voice in governance.
“Autocrats, authoritarians, populists: they’re scared of being held accountable by their own people. And that includes strong women who are urging them to share power, to be less corrupt, to be more transparent,” O’Neill mentioned.
Valji mentioned that stress will be felt even within the halls of the United Nations.
“If violence is happening in a particular context, against one group of people, we have a Security Council, we have international laws and policies. And yet, when it happens to half the world’s population that happens to be women and girls, we couch it in terms of the personal and the cultural, and literally throw pennies at it.”
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