CEDAW training seminar, 7 – 9 December 2007, Taipei

ICW update for NCW (Taiwan)

Ladies and gentlemen,

Distinguished members of the audience,

Before I start, I wish to thank Betty Chang, President of the National Council of Women of Taiwan, Marisa Chen, Vice-President of NCW (Taiwan), and Linda Liu, President of the YWCA (Taiwan) for their kind words. Thank you very much also to the Foundation for Women’s Rights Promotion and Development for their sponsorship of this event.

I am very honoured to have been invited to participate in this training seminar for CEDAW, or the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. I am very glad that there has been such interest in CEDAW here in Taiwan. I am fully aware of the problems Taiwan has been facing with regard to membership in the United Nations, but am greatly heartened by the efforts which have been made to make CEDAW relevant to Taiwan. Having worked over the last few decades with women and spent almost three years as a CEDAW Committee member, I have seen how CEDAW has worked in states which have ratified the treaty, and feel strongly that even though Taiwan is presently unable to have its ratification accepted by the United Nations, CEDAW can be a very useful and important document for a wide range of interests in Taiwan, be they government organizations, non-governmental organizations or ordinary men and women.

I am here in two capacities – both as a CEDAW Committee member andalso as President of the International Council of Women (ICW). As much discussion on CEDAW will be taking place over these two days, I would like to take the chance to speak now as ICW President and update you all on what ICW’s plans for next year.In the 17 years since its inception, NCW (Taiwan) has always been a stalwart supporter of ICW. ICW is only as strong as its affiliates, and it is affiliates such as NCW (Taiwan) which are ICW’s lifeblood.

ECM and APRC II

We had a very fruitful general assembly last year in Kiev, Ukraine. We had two board meetings at the ICW headquarters in Paris, and much of our time during the second board meeting, which was held in early November, was spent planning for the upcoming Executive Committee Meeting (ECM) and Asia-Pacific Regional Council II (APRC II) seminar. I am very happy to let you all know that from 21 to 24 October this year, the 12th Regional Council of the Americas was held in Bogotá, Colombia. Our vice-president Cosima Schenk attended as my representative, and was pleased to bring back a glowing report on the proceedings. The NCs in Latin America face numerous challenges – strident poverty is a major challenge for most of them, and reaching out to the many diverse groups within their communities made the task that much harder. However, the 12th Regional Council provided a much-needed impetus for the NCs to revive their work, and also afforded members an excellent chance to meet and forge ties. This was a major event for ICW this year, and I hope that what we achieved there can be sustained in the years to come.

Next year, the ECM will be held from 4 to 7 April in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the Asia-Pacific Regional Council II seminar will be one day earlier, on 3 April. You should all have received the necessary forms and information about both events; if not please do contact our General Secretary Radosveta Bruzaud at . We have a very exciting programme lined up for participants. We have planned workshops on the theme for next year’s Commission on the Status of Women, which is ‘Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women’, alongside seminars on climate change – a very pressing issue for all of us –and the UN gender architecture. The APRC II is no less packed. It takes on the ICW triennium theme ‘The challenge of achieving gender equality’ and the sub-theme ‘Taking action on trafficking and violence against women and girls’. There will be workshops and a panel discussion on eliminating trafficking and violence against women, which will bring together various experts on the topic.

These two events will be a great opportunity for NCW (Taiwan) to meet with other ICW members, and I hope that many of you here will be encouraged to participate. If you register early by15 January 2008, you will be eligible for the discounted fee of 250 euros. After 15 January, the fee will be 300 euros. NCW (Taiwan) is an important NCW in the Asia-Pacific region, and I also hope that it can take a more pro-active stance in ICW. Coming together with many other NCs at the ECM and APRC IIwill give you insight into how other NCs work, and I am sure they will have a lot to learn from you too.

Fund-raising and financial matters

On a more sombre note, I would like to bring to your attention ICW’s difficult financial situation. As president of ICW, I have been amazed and humbled by the fact that ICW has been able to do so much with so little. While ICW seeks to be an inclusive body and gather as many NCs as possible under its banner, finances have long been a challenge. WE have 65 NCs, with a number paying reduced affiliation fees as they cannot afford the full rate. ICW survives virtually exclusively on these fees and the goodwill of its members, many of whom bear the expenses incurred to participate in ICW activities. We are fully cognizant of the fact that many NCs which cannot pay are unable to do so because they themselves are in dire financial straits, and that the affiliation fees are an additional burden upon their flagging finances. ICW tries to help by accepting reduced affiliation fees from NCs which have problems with payment, as affiliation provides a crucial link for NCs to other groups.

In 2006, Kyung-wha Kang of South Korea was appointed as the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights. NCW (Korea) presented her with US$10,000 as an award for being Woman of the Year. I then approached Ms Kang personally, together with the president of NCW (Korea), to ask if she would consider donating to ICW. Ms Kang very generously granted ICW her US$10,000 award. This is just an example of how ICW needs to be pro-active in going forward to secure funding.

I would like to make an appeal to all the NCW (Taiwan) members here to put your heads together to see if you could all possibly come up with some ideas to raise funds for ICW. These funds would not only go towards supporting our secretariat in Paris, but also towards the various international development projects that ICW has initiated to help women and girls. In Macedonia, ICW has contributed to a computer skills development programme for unemployed young women. These young women are trained in groups of 18. After the first group has been taught the skills, they then pass it on it friends and colleagues voluntarily. The project has been a great success, and I am proud to announce that it will be completed on schedule by 15 December this year.ICW had also contributed to a water tank in BeamaVillage in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. However, the village was unfortunately washed away in the recent severe flooding in the province. The water tank contributed significantly the life of the village while it stood, and we are planning to continue funding the project when the villagers overcome the current crisis.

Another area which NCW (Taiwan) could look into would be increasing its number of individual ICW members. I am proud to let you know that Taiwan currently has 27 life members – it has the largest number of them compared to the other NCs. There are three tiers of membership: Patron Life membership (3,000 euros), Life membership (2,000 euros) and Triennium membership(400 euros a year for three years). I hope that some of you here will be suitably inspired to consider taking up one of these options and in the process keep the ICW flag flying.

In a relatively short time, NCW (Taiwan) has upheld the spirit of ICW, bringing a diverse range of groups under its umbrella and fostering goodwill between them. I hope that NCW (Taiwan) will be able to do the same for its sister NCs. I thank you all.

Anamah Tan

President, International Council of Women

Member, United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

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