Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak this evening on this year’s UNFPA State of World Population report 2008, which focuses on the relationship between human rights, culture and gender, and is entitled Reaching common ground: culture, gender and human rights. Culture is, after all, a fundamental part of people’s lives, and it needs to be integrated into development policy and programming if those policies and programs are to work. And in this year, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is also important to recognise that human rights reflect universal values. Responding to that complexity, the report calls for culturally sensitive approaches to development, essential to achieve advances in human rights in general and, in particular, in women’s rights.

Despite many international agreements that seek to raise the status of women throughout the world—for example, the Millennium Development Goals—gender inequality is widespread and deeply rooted in many cultures. Of the world’s one billion poorest people, three-fifths are women and girls. Of the 960 million adults in the world who cannot read, two-thirds are women. Seventy per cent of the 130 million children who are out of school are girls. With notable exceptions, such as Rwanda and the Nordic countries, women are conspicuously absent from parliaments, making up, on average, only 16 per cent of parliamentarians worldwide. Across the world, women typically earn less than men, both because they are concentrated in low-paying jobs and because they are paid less for the same work. Although women spend about 70 per cent of their unpaid time caring for family members, that contribution to the global economy remains invisible.

Up to half of all adult women have experienced violence at the hands of their intimate partners. I acknowledge Senator Lundy’s remarks this evening in relation to White Ribbon Day—timely in the context of this discussion as well. Systematic sexual violence against women has characterised almost all recent armed conflicts and is used as a tool of terror and ethnic cleansing. In sub-Saharan Africa, 57 per cent of those living with HIV are women, and young women aged 15 to 24 years are at least three times more likely to be infected than men of the same age. Each year, half a million women die and 10 to 15 million suffer chronic disability from preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth. This is not an attractive picture of the state of women in 2008 across the world. Cultural norms and traditions can perpetuate these conditions, and advances in gender equality that challenge these norms have never come without cultural struggle.

This year’s UNFPA report advocates integrating work towards human rights and gender equality with cultural sensitivity and encourages change from within. The report examines how development policies should negotiate culture in the context of: building support for human rights, including through developing local cultural legitimacy for universal human rights norms; promoting gender equality and empowering women, including combating harmful practices such as child marriage, female genital mutilation and domestic violence; and encouraging reproductive health and reproductive rights. Addressing fertility can lead to lower poverty through improving health care, increasing education and improving access to reproductive health and family planning services. There is also the very complex relationship between poverty, inequality and population, including the impact of unequal development and migration, as well as increased threats to gender equality and reproductive health in conflict situations, particularly including rape as a weapon of war.

Importantly, this report calls for ‘cultural fluency’—familiarity with how cultures work and how to work with them—in order to combat harmful practices and to promote human rights. The foundation of all this work is that international human rights norms are universal. Working from this foundation, the UNFPA report examines how these universal norms can most effectively be recognised and accepted in local cultures so as to promote the rights of women and ultimately improve the quality of life for all people. I encourage senators to obtain a copy of the report. It makes compelling, disturbing and, I think, very important reading.

On 10 December, the world will remember the extraordinary accomplishment 60 years earlier when, after two years of negotiations, the United National General Assembly unanimously adopted, with eight abstentions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since that day, 10 December has been celebrated annually worldwide as Human Rights Day, a day to reflect on the triumph in 1948, when diverse and conflicting political regimes, religious systems and cultural traditions came together to agree on the universal human rights that lie at the heart of all our societies.

It is important to remember what the declaration says. Article 1 of the declaration reads:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

The declaration also states:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude …

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

All are equal before the law …

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion …

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression …

Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country …

Since these words were written 60 years ago, there have been significant advancements and achievements in the field of human rights, but I know, as we listen to each of those articles, we can all think of threats and challenges to their universality. The universal human rights as expressed in the declaration have become more than simple aspirational goals or fine ideals. They are, indeed, the framework within which countries and communities across the world shape their societies and measure the quality of their leaders. The declaration, its provisions and its spirit are just as important today as they were 60 years ago, as flagrant human rights violations and horrific abuse continue in all the corners of the globe. We, as custodians of our nation’s freedoms, must remain vigilant against these abuses, lest the achievement of six decades ago fades to a memory.

For Australia, this anniversary has its own special significance: Australia was one of just eight countries given responsibility for drafting the declaration in 1948, and Australia’s then Minister for External Affairs, Dr Evatt, was the President of the UN General Assembly and chaired the session at which the declaration was adopted. Since then, Australia has maintained an important role in the promotion and the development of human rights domestically and internationally.

In recent years, as an example within the parliament, I had the honour of chairing for some time the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. I saw clear examples of Australia’s engagement in that regard, including our role at the then UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, which I visited on one occasion. I saw the support of Australia for sponsored visitors by AusAID from the Pacific to enable their attendance and their engagement in the commission’s process.

I noted our funding for the National Committee on Human Rights Education, which provided practical education on human rights to government officials, community workers, the media and others and I participated in our bilateral human rights dialogues with China and Vietnam. I observed up close and practically the value of the technical cooperation programs instituted by the then Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission under the dialogues in those countries, and I saw our support for human rights programs and initiatives through our international aid program, which of course continue under the current government, and I am pleased to note that commitment.

The Human Rights Subcommittee has looked into a very diverse range of areas over the years and, in its relatively short life as a subcommittee of the joint committee, has played an important role in this parliament’s awareness of, engagement in the observation of, and—in some small way, one would hope—protection of human rights in this country and more broadly. Under its current chairmanship, the committee continues to actively follow human rights developments around the world. I note, in passing, the role in this parliament of the parliamentary group of Amnesty International in observing and protecting human rights in circumstances that are sometimes open to great debate and discussion, both within the group and more broadly. But that is the most important part. That is the best example of freedom of expression and opinion which is preserved in the universal declaration. I commend those sorts of discussions to the chamber.

I encourage all senators to mark the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have nothing more precious.