CNI to participate in UN policy making on the girl–child

The Church of North India (CNI) is preparing to take part in the 51st United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW), an annual meeting that brings together thousands of women from around the world to promote gender equality and empowerment of women.

Ms. Zanobia Mal has been appointed as the Anglican delegate from India to take part in the UNCSW gathering, February 26 through March 9, 2007, at the United Nations headquarters, New York, USA.

The theme of this year's meeting is "the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child."

More than 60 Anglican women and girls, from 31 nations in both the developing and the developed worlds, will participate as members of the largest non–governmental delegation to UNCSW.

As a delegate, Zanobia will attend plenary sessions at the UN, as well as parallel educational and cultural events, engage in round–table conversations with other delegates, and select a particular area of focus, such as education, health, prostitution, trafficking, or violence.

"I am indebted to the Anglican Women's Empowerment (AWE) and Church of North India (CNI) who have made me a part of the UNCSW 07. Having the sensitivity to the status of girls in my State, Country and the world over, I am eager to share those concerns and to learn more," she said.

In preparation for UNCSW, Zanobia is reading reports, background papers, opening statements, and documents such as The Convention on the Rights of the Child, as the member states of UNCSW. "These have enlightened and helped me personally over the last four months," she said.

With the other delegates, she is beginning to reveal what she is learning about the millions of girls who continue to live in poverty, are denied education as boys, and are often the subject of physical and sexual abuse. In the Anglican Consultative Council's official statement to UNCSW, the delegates wrote about many and diverse forms of discrimination and violence against girls throughout the Anglican Communion and affirm the Anglican Church's concern for women and girls.

"We are steadfast in our commitment to change the current and unacceptable picture where girls live in the margins of our societies uncertain of how safe they are to grow into the women God has created them to be," the statement said. "In every instance the role for the Church, and especially for its women's groups, is to advocate for access to education and training, to provide educational opportunities, to change the culture to one of inclusion of women and girls in decision–making roles, to work for a new and just society which takes care of its children, both girls and boys, as the heart of its future."

That the Anglican delegation is the largest non–governmental presence at UNCSW also manifests the Anglican Communion's commitment to a better future for women and girls.

While Zanobia's work as a delegate to UNCSW will be sobering, it will also be inspiring and empowering as she hopes to witness the UNCSW creating new policies for member states that benefit girls.

Just as the UNCSW begins, the Anglican women and girl delegates will be welcomed and commissioned at a special event on February 24, at Trinity Church on Wall Street entitled Girls Claiming the Future: Hopes and Challenges. At this event, the international Anglican women delegates will interview the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Hellen Wangusa, the newly appointed Anglican Observer to the United Nations, and Rimah Salah, deputy executive director of UNICEF, an international non–profit organization that serves and advocates for children.

The United Nations has, meanwhile, said that the presence of the Anglican women, and other non–governmental delegations, will help to bring to fruition UNCSW's good ideas.

"UNCSW policies are great," said Carolyn Hannan, director of the Division for the Advancement of Women at the United Nations. "But it is hard to implement policies due to the difficulty in changing attitudes."

Hannan told members of Anglican Women's Empowerment, an international grassroots movement that is sponsoring the Anglican participation in UNCSW, that the United Nations is grateful for the Anglican delegates, because they can help transform stereotypes and practices "on the ground."

Upon her return from the meeting, Zanobia plans to resume her position as coordinator for Work with the Women and Children of the Diocese of Chandigarh, Ludhiana and reach out to 26 Dioceses of Church of North India through its Synod with information and cooperation.

"I look forward to sharing everything that I would be learning and experiencing, with the women of Church of North enabling to empower them to fight for their rights in establishing their identity in church as well society at large," she said.