WFUWO plays active role during 48th Session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (03/21/04)

WFUWO plays active role during 48th Session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women

by Marta Kichorowska-Kebalo

UNITED NATIONS - The 48th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was under way in New York City on March 1-12. This year's CSW is devoted to the double theme of "Women's Equal Participation in Conflict Prevention, Management and Conflict Resolution" and "The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality."

The World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations (WFUWO), which has consultative status to the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), participated in the session. Because the WFUWO watches the work of the CSW Commission closely, WFUWO President Marika Szkambara and her assistant, Anne Szepetyk, traveled to New York from Toronto to participate in the conference and to meet with WFUWO's United Nations representation, whose coordinator is Nadia Shmigel. This year the WFUWO's U.N. representation co-sponsored a panel discussion focusing on the link between gender issues and the continuing spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as one of the many side events offered as part of the programmed conference schedule.

The panel titled "Getting the Message: Evolving Responsibility of Men and Boys in HIV-AIDS Prevention" was sponsored by three NGOs with consultative status to ECOSOC or DPI at the U.N.: the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations, World Information Transfer and the NGO Committee on Health and Communications.

Dr. Christine Durbak, the founder and chair of World Information Transfer, welcomed those attending the session - an audience of approximately 50 listeners that filled to capacity the room in the Church Center at 777 U.N. Plaza on Monday, March 1.

Dr. Durbak introduced the leadership of the sponsor NGOs and in her opening remarks established the connection between the panel's topic and the themes of CSW 2004, emphasizing the dual need for research and for multi-directed outreach programs, including media involvement in propagation of the growing awareness of the shared responsibility both men and women must take in controlling the spread of the epidemic.

The panel moderator was Dr. Edward Emery, a psychoanalyst of the department of psychology, Harvard Medical School, who is a U.N. representative for Dr. Durbak's WIT and also senior partner of the NGO Ethical Futures. At last year's UN/DPI/NGO conference (September 9, 2003), Dr. Emery spoke in another panel organized by WFUWO (cosponsored by WFUWO, the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the National Council of Women and World Information Transfer). During that panel, titled "AIDS on Two Continents: Europe and Africa," Dr. Emery shared his observations of AIDS in Ukraine - the East European epicenter of the epidemic. In his opening remarks this year Dr. Emery addressed the issue of images of masculinity commonly promoted in the media and spoke of the psychological sources of machismo and its consequences, relating these directly to the virulence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He introduced the distinguished panel of invited speakers, each of whose work addresses the needs of men and boys through projects that are valuable in the fight with AIDS because they promote a new, emergent masculinity that is characterized by caring and responsible partnering.

The panel of speakers included: Bertil Lindblad, deputy director, UNAIDS New York; Carl Breeveld, founder of Man Mit Man, an NGO from Surinam; Prof. Jill Lewis, professor of literature and gender studies, Hampshire College, and HIV/AIDS educator, project leader of Living for Tomorrow Program and author of "Gendering Prevention Practice"; Miriam Zoll of Zollgroup New York, author and chief global researcher, Joint U.N. Agency (UNAIDS-UNFPA-UNIFEM) publication on gender and HIV/AIDS.

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