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NCW has an international dimension through our active membership of the International Council of Women (ICW), to which we affiliated in 1897.
ICW has over 70 member countries worldwide, listed below, ranging from the developed
countries of the west to some of the least developed societies in
the world. It has long-standing consultative status with the United Nations.
NCW in Britain was accorded UN special consultative status in 2000, and participates in annual meetings of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York.
Indira Patel OBE is the NCW representative on this committee.
The
ICW agenda has grown from basic humanitarian issues to include
some of the most serious contemporary issues of concern - climate
change; the need to involve women in peacekeeping and mediation in
countries riven by civil wars; the need for action against acute
poverty that deprives women and girls of even the most basic
health care and education; the need for recognition of human
rights, and for protection against the many forms of exploitation
from trafficking to child labour.
The current theme for 2006-2009 is the Challenge of Gender
Equality. This includes the removal of discrimination from all
aspects of women’s lives, such as parity, women in
decision-making, health, education, violence, and trafficking.
The ICWGB Committee, which usually meets three times a
year in London, works within
NCW to coordinate links with ICW, and to
direct NCW international policy within the international agenda for improvements in women's lives through the United Nations
and the
European Centre of the International Council of Women
(ECICW).
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Membership of the ICWGB Committee
is open to all NCW members who wish to follow international
activities, including the International Council of Women, the
United Nations, and Europe.
NCWGB delegation to the ICW Triennial Conference in Kiev
with Anamah Tan, ICW President
The
ICW Triennial Conference took place in Kiev
from 5 to 10
September 2006 with the theme of Challenging Gender Equality. Two resolutions were proposed by the ICWGB Committee.
One on the effects of natural disasters is based on the NCWGB
(2005) resolution. The other, based on the ICWGB (2004) resolution
on the role of men and boys in work towards gender equality, was presented by the ICW Standing Committee
on the Status of Women, of
which Grace Wedekind remains ICW co-ordinator.
[MORE]
The
recent meetings of the ICWGB Committee have covered a wide agenda
of ICW matters of current concern. Speakers have included Alison Harvey, Chair
of ECPAT, on trafficking in children; Valerie Evans CBE on the
World Summit on the Information Society (Tunis meeting), and the
EU Conference on women and development in jobs held in Birmingham;
Indira Patel OBE on the UN Commission on the Status of Women; and
Afua Twum-Danso from Akina Mama wa Afrika, which is Swahili for
'solidarity among African women'.
Sarah
Williams of Anti-slavery International spoke about
present-day slavery at a meeting in June 2007. [MORE]
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