Speech by Sabina Higgins to the Soroptimist International 50th Annual Join North South Conference
Bloomfield House Hotel, Mullingar, Saturday, 21st May, 2016
I am delighted to be here this evening and thank you all for welcoming me so generously. I would like to thank Sarah McCormack for inviting me to come and speak to you on this happy occasion - the 50th Anniversary of Soroptimist International North South Conference – Congratulations. Congratulations too to SI Mullingar District on its 25th birthday and greetings to Rhona Kelly its founder.
It is a pleasure for me to meet your International President Yvonne Simpson from New Zealand, your Federation President Margaret Embsly and Alice Champman from Northern Ireland.
It is only recently that I have come to more fully understand what a wonderful organisation Soroptimist is. First founded out of a passionate desire of women to help and co-operate with other women. Soroptimist International have moved on its concerns in line with the needs of the women and girls of their time. Now their inspired development has led them to be right in position to meet the needs and challenges that are facing women at this time in history.
The fact that they have such a developed comprehensive view of the problems of women and girls, and that their concern is both local and global means, that they can make a great contribution and have great influence on policy and practice.
It is a joy to become aware of the work of SI. Of your mission to make gender equality a reality, and to have every woman and girl have access to Education, to Economic Empowerment, and live life free of violence.
The breath of your advocacy is admirable, including as it does, Education, Learning and Human Rights, Social Development, Sustainable Development, Finance for Development, Physical and Mental Heath, end Violence Against Women and Environment.
As members of a globally connected world we, all of us, now have a great responsibility to engage with the failures, challenges and possibilities of a global community on a fragile planet. Global leaders are calling for urgent reflection on the principles that have guided, and continue to guide, our policies at home and abroad.
Violent conflicts and expanding empires have enslaved and exploited people and plundered their resources and played their part in leaving us, as their legacy the suffering world we know today. Two world wars in the 20th century – brought the world to disaster and despair. The recognition of the disintegration that had taken place and the need, that if a fragile peace was to be maintained, that a mammoth reconstruction action must be taken. There was resolution that never again would there be war. This lead to the great wisdom of the founding of the United Nations and the Breton Woods Institutions: of the Marshal Plan for Europe, and the founding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and the Charter for Human Rights being agreed. This gave the hope that with cooperation a better world would be realised.
In the former empires, boundaries were redrawn. Some countries regained their boundaries and new countries emerged. New power divisions emerged too with new conflicts and new alliances. After liberation, many countries achieved independence but were left struggling economically with odious debt that left them without real independence. Conflict, drought and climate change brought civil war.
A modernisation theory in economics, that was not built on global justice or a level playing field, has not helped many countries in the South. Unfair trade and tied development aid in many cases has left many countries impoverished without the means or the benefits of the technologies that would be suitable for their sustainable development, a form of development that would help in building the country’s food and agriculture capacity and help provide the infrastructure of water, and sanitation, energy, education and communication that might underpin sustainable development.
As the reality of climate change and human induced earth warming can no longer be denied the world leaders have recognised that the escalation of its effects are being manifested in ever greater floods, more frequent droughts and desertification which effects the poorest and the least responsible for global warming. It is acknowledged that there is a crisis for the planet. There is a recognition that the economic models that encouraged short term gratification to the detriment of the future must not continue to be tolerated. The fight to combat climate change has to be reconciled to the right to development claimed by developing countries. The narrow theory of interests that has motivated the policies of so many of our nations, and that are at the root of so much inequality, and conflict must change. Unfair trade, tied development aid, and demands that are impossible for debt repayment must change.
When we look at the problems that SI has been engaged in around the world in Africa, Central America and India, when we also look at the areas of conflict in the world including the Middle East and Syria we might often be prone to despair.
800 million people suffer acute hunger and twice that number malnutrition and 60 million displaced people struggle on our Earth.
But that great goodness in humanity that gave us the UN and the Human Rights Charter has had the foresight to work tirelessly to bring hope, and a possible agenda for halting a trajectory of destruction (of 4 degrees) and formulate a plan of action.
Last year two great historic global events took place that put in place one universal agenda for all the countries of the world. In New York at the United Nations 200 countries of the world came together and signed their commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals and in November in Paris at the Climate Change conference 196 countries adopted the first ever universal, legally binding climate deal. In Paris it was acknowledged that climate change was a reality that it was a challenge facing the world and required new ideas and new thinking.
The survival of the planet depends on the implementation of the agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Climate Change Justice agendas.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are a set of goals to end hunger, poverty, protect the planet, empower women and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets, 169 in total, to be achieved over the next 15 years.
Indeed if we are to achieve any of our global goals, we must seek to define new models that are accountable, transparent, and rooted in democratic participation. As global citizens we all must play our role in becoming informed participants willing and able to engage in discourse on the creation of such models; courageous citizens prepared to challenge, to question and to explore better alternatives.
In that pursuit of a better world we must place, right at the centre of our vision, the full implementation of human rights. We remain confronted, across the world, with dramatic situations of conflict which create unspeakable and unacceptable levels of human suffering and injustice.
Much in that overall narrative pertains to an overwhelming and persistent global injustice against women.
Oxfam Ireland has stated that gender inequality lies at the heart of the gap between the richest and poorest people in the world. Across the globe, women earn less money than men and own less property. In Africa, for instance, while women represent half of the agricultural workforce, they own only 25% of the land, leaving them highly dependent, at risk of losing their livelihood, and vulnerable to poverty, abuse and levels of violence which are up to five times that of developed economies.
Gender-based violence is very much a global issue. The scale of the problem in many countries around the world remains daunting, whether it takes the form of domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, sexual violence during armed conflicts, forced marriages, trafficking women, forced prostitution – the list is sadly very long, and female genital mutilation sadly remains a problem. Gender Violence is a worldwide problem and is particularly detrimental to a country that has a macho culture. On my visits abroad with the President is where I realised what a detrimental effect it has on the lives and the development of people and their economy.
Where there is extreme inequality and extreme poverty there is sexual violence.
But I also saw the great impact brought by advanced legislation. Where women are made aware that it is illegal and they can seek help, that is of course if they know where help is available.
During our visit to Africa, we were deeply moved by the experience of women and young men we encountered in places such as the Diepsloot township in Pretoria where violence of all kinds is in sad need of remedy. We were introduced to a number of projects funded by Irish Aid which focus on protecting women from domestic and sexual violence. Many of these projects involved education initiatives aimed at young people and at men. The UN HeforShe campaign will hopefully bring results.
Last year the President was visited by the UN Director of UN Women Mlambo-Ngcuka and agreed to become a Champion of the HeforShe campaign, a United National global movement which seeks to bring one half of humanity together in support of the other half of humanity, engaging institutions and organisations which are in a position to influence important changes within communities where women are most vulnerable to gender inequality and discrimination.
We have come a long way in Ireland, to being able to address publicly, as matter of collective concern, the issues of domestic violence, sexual abuse and sexual violence, these are recognised for what they are – that is crimes of the gravest sort. Yet the number of incidents recorded across Ireland attests to the persistence of these crimes. It is so good to know of the work done by SI in mentoring women in refuges.
It is a time to remember the principle of participative citizenship that lies at the heart of democracy and to remind ourselves that our fragile planet, like our State, is a shared responsibility which must be built on principles and policies which recognise the common welfare.
I would like to finish by commending all of you on your great spirit of community and your determination to lend a voice to those in our society and in our world who are vulnerable, disadvantaged and marginalised. It is citizens like youselves who lay the important foundations from which a true and deep democracy of active, knowledgeable, participatory citizens can grow and flourish. I thank you for your generous engagement and spirit of active participation, and I wish you every success as you continue with our important work.
May the courage and the great achievements of the women of Soroptimist International continue to be an inspiration for all in your future actions.