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Thursday, March 07, 2002
The Green Party urges
ratification of the U.N. Convention on women's rights and passage of the
Fair Pay Act.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green
Party candidates and leaders, marking International Women's Day, March
8, called on the Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the U.N. more than
two decades ago.
"The situation of women in places like Afghanistan proves how
urgent it is for the U.S. to endorse the Convention," said Starlene
Rankin, a member of Chicago Women In Black and Green candidate for the
Chicago School Council. "It's the only comprehensive international
treaty guaranteeing women's human rights and the prevention of
discrimination against women. Women worldwide believe that only when
they are full and equal participants in governance will we be able to
truly manage the problems of the world."
In late 2001, Greens pushed for involvement of the Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) in the formation of a
post-Taliban democratic government; several Green activists, including
International Committee co-chair Annie Goeke, are members of the
international peace network Women in Black. Medea Benjamin of the
California Greens led a delegation of women from Global Exchange on a
fact-finding trip, meeting women in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in late
November, 2001.
Greens also urge Congress to recognize equal rights for women in the
U.S. by passing the Fair Pay Act.
"Full-time women workers earn 73% of what full-time working men
earn," said Anne-Bernadette Weiner, a member of the Illinois Green
Party Executive Committee, Campus Greens organizer, and women's rights
activist. "It's time to enact Federal Fair Pay
legislation."
"The U.S. pay gap exists because women and people of color are
still segregated into a few low-paying occupations," said Weiner,
noting that more than half of all women workers hold sales, clerical,
and service jobs. "The more an occupation is dominated by women or
minorities, the greater the wage gap; the less it pays, the lower Social
Security benefits are reckoned. That's why so many older women retire
impoverished."
The Green Party of the United States also supports the establishment of
a living wage, making child care universal, and enacting universal
health care through a national health insurance plan. 60% of minimum
wage workers are women; millions of working and poor women and their
families have been denied health coverage and reproductive choice
because of insurance company and HMO bureaucracy.
"Greens support affirmative action for women," added Gloria
Mattera, Green candidate for New York City Council in District 39
(Brooklyn) in 2001. "We favor family-friendly work policies such as
flex time, job sharing, on-site child care, provision of benefits to
domestic partners, including same-sex couples, passage of the national
Employee Non-Discrimination Act outlawing job bias based on sexuality,
and measures against sexual harassment and other workplace abuses.
Unlike Democrats and Republicans, the Green Party endorses all of these
policies in its platform."
"Feminism -- the notion that women deserve full civil rights,
equality, and freedom -- is one of the key values of the Green
Party," noted Dr. Jonathan Farley, Green candidate for U.S.
Congress in Tennessee.
Green political leaders around the world include Wangari Maathai
(Kenya), Ingrid Betancourt (Colombia), Dominque Voynet (former
Environmental Minister of France ), Satoko Watanabe (Japan), Jeanette
Fitzsimons (New Zealand), Natalia Escudero (Mexico), Lotta Hedstrom
(Member of the Swedish Parliament); Medea Benjamin, Carol Miller, and
2000 Vice Presidential candidate Winona LaDuke in the U.S.; and the late
Petra Kelly, founder of the first Green Party, in Germany. Three of the
six members of the Steering Committee of the Green Party of the United
States (Anita Rios, Nathalie Paravicini, and Jo Chamberlain) are women,
and the annual slates of U.S. Green candidates include a large
percentage of women.
More Information:
The Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan http://www.rawa.org
Women in Black http://www.igc.org/balkans/wib/
Global Exchange http://www.globalexchange.org
Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com
Dean Myerson, Political Coordinator, 202-319-7191, GPHQ--at--gp.org
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