12th March 2000

Transparency in the UN

NEW YORK- The late Bernard Soysa, one of the most accomplished speakers of his generation, had the rare gift of skillfully turning a time worn cliche into a sharp witted truism.

"People who live in glass houses," he once told parliament, "should not remove their clothes." Never mind the stones.

The "glass house" by New York's East River, one of the strongest critics of discrimination against women, figuratively exposed itself last week by admitting that it does not necessarily practice in its backyard what it preaches in its corridors of power.

As hundreds of women from all over the world gathered to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8, the UN Secretariat took a hard close look at its own self and did not like what it saw.

The General Assembly adopted a resolution in December 1998 urging the Secretariat to achieve the goal of 50:50 gender parity by the year 2000.

But as of last week, women accounted for only 36.8 percent of the overall Secretariat staff while those holding high ranking, policy making jobs stood at only 28.4 percent, compared with 71.6 percent by men.

Although there have been attempts, over the last few years, to hire and promote women in the UN system, the goal of 50:50 is still a long way off and perhaps in the realm of political fantasy. The situation is worse in UN peacekeeping operations which is run almost exclusively by men.

Secretary General Kofi Annan, rightly or wrongly, is blaming the 188 member states for the current state of affairs. "We are redoubling our efforts to recruit more qualified women in peacekeeping operations, both in the field and at headquarters," he told delegates and representatives of women's groups last week.

"I appeal to member states to include qualified women in the (military) contingents they send us, and to nominate qualified women candidates for UN posts at all levels," he said. Perhaps he has a valid point.

The UN member states, who also pontificate on gender parity and gender mainstreaming, are even worse in putting their own houses in order.

As of last week, there were only 11 out of 188 UN ambassadors and permanent representatives who were women. The UN diplomatic community, despite the lip service it pays to the cause of elevating the status of women globally, is dominated by males.

Sri Lanka is no exception: it has never had a woman Permanent Representative nor a Deputy Permanent Representative, even though the Inter Parliamentary Union has singled out Sri Lanka as perhaps the only country where both the President and the Prime Minister are women.

Nearly 30 years ago, a former UN staffer Shirley Hazzard wrote a book on the UN titled "People in Glass Houses". Annan says Hazzard was right in her choice of title. "We do live in a glass house, and it could hardly be otherwise. In the sense that we are, and should be, open to scrutiny and offering transparency at all times; and since we are not without sin, none of us can afford to throw stones."

But that does not mean, he said, that "any of us need to live under a glass ceiling. I urge you all not to impose limits on yourselves," he added.

Annan also quoted a former US First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who once remarked: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

Meanwhile, the first International Women's Day of the 21st century was devoted to a theme that brought together two key objectives of the UN: world peace and equal rights for men and women.

"The UN Charter tells us that our Organisation was created to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday. "But it also proclaims the equal rights of men and women", he asserted.

"We must live up to both challenges," he said, pointing out that women are better equipped than men to prevent conflicts or resolve them.

Annan said that when society collapses, women play a critical role in ensuring that life goes on. And when ethnic tensions cause or exacerbate conflict, women tend to build bridges rather than walls.

Annan also said that women bear more than their fair share of burdens during conflicts from rape and displacement to the denial of the right to food and medicines.

Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said it is important that women play a central role in the resolution of conflicts.

Peace negotiation and post conflict reconstruction, she said, must involve women, both as representatives of the state and also as members of civil society.

Women's groups, she said, can be powerful advocates for peace. For example, the women of Guatemala and El Salvador are now in the midst of natural reconstruction activities following internal conflicts that plagued Central America in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the Horn of Africa, Eritrean women have participated in worldwide demonstrations to bring the ongoing war with Ethiopia to an end.

Robinson said that in the Eritrean capital of Asmara a couple of months ago, there was a demonstration by women of all ages. Grandmothers as old as 70 participated alongside their grand daughters in solidarity, she said.