Title: Adventist Women Advocate Gender Equality at UN
April 2, 2006 Adventist Press Service (APD) Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief Fax +41-61-261 61 18 APD@stanet.ch http://www.stanet.ch/APD CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland
Adventist Women Advocate Gender Equality at UN
New York, N.Y./USA. Five Adventist women added their voices to thousands of other women in calling for drastic improvements in the lives of women worldwide at the United Nations' 50th Session on the Commission on the Status of Women(CSW) held in New York (USA). The meeting ran until March 10, and was attended by the Adventist delegation from February 27 to March 3.
The CSW membership includes almost 200 national and international non-governmental organization and individuals who promote the status of women internationally by working at local, national and international levels on the issues addressed by the United Nations.
According to Viola Hughes, who led the Adventist delegation and is the church's United Nations liaison specialist, attendees at the conference defined rights violations as occurring whenever women are denied access to property or employment, face violence within their homes, or cannot claim fair representation with their government.
The other four Adventist delegates, all from the United States, were Raquel Arrais, associate director of Women's Ministries (WM) for the Adventist world church; Sheryal Vandenberghe, WM director of the Florida Conference; Shirley
Scott, WM director of the South Central Conference; and Deborah Rapp, WM director of the Carolina Conference.
More than 6,000 women came to the meeting representing non-governmental organizations in countries such as Vietnam, Nigeria, Lebanon, Iraq, Burma, China, and Peru.
Two departments of the General Conference-Women's Ministries and Public Affairs and Religious Liberty-worked together to write a statement addressing the challenges women face around the world. It was first submitted to the Commission on the Status of Women last January. The statement was later modified, and about 1,000 copies were distributed at the Commission. The modified statement outlines the six challenge issues women face globally: illiteracy; poverty; threats to health; workload; abuse; and lack of training, mentoring, and leadership opportunities.
At one of the Commission's workshops, titled "Preparing Girls for Leadership," Arrais spoke about the Adventist church's leadership certification program for women. She said that the meeting provided an opportunity to network with women from all over the world on common issues and also to share with them what the Adventist Church is doing to help women
worldwide.