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The missing link: using the dynamics of human rights advocacy to enhance gender equality in education for girls and women in situations of extreme poverty

Authors	Type	Stream	Full Paper
Angela Melchiorre	Open call	Poverty	en

Aim

This paper identifies the dynamics of human rights advocacy as the missing link in discourses about gender equality in education. Its aim is to suggest using a variety of human rights tactics to enhance other strategies. It does so by adopting a fuller human rights approach (not only a women/children’s right angle) and a conceptual framework for action at the substantive, structural and societal level.

Under international human rights law, education must be available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable (4As) for all. Quite differently from the political commitments put forward in the Education For All and in the Millennium Development Goals, this legal framework allows to:

• identify obligations, duty-bearers and rights-holders;
• recognise obstacles, denials and violations;
• articulate strategies that respond to universal obligations while providing for specialist interventions where the right to education is more at risk.

One such situation of risk is that of girls and women living in situations of extreme poverty. According to recent estimates, “some 72 million children, 57 per cent of whom are girls…are out of school” and “774 million adults, 64 per cent of whom are women, still lack basic literacy skills”.[1] The majority of these girls and women belong to the most marginalized groups, often trapped in the spiral of extreme poverty. For them, education is neither available nor accessible, let alone acceptable or adaptable. Denied the right to education because of their sex and economic and social status or because of the persistence of patriarchal systems or – even more dramatically – because of the intersection of all these reasons, they are led into domestic work, early marriage and child bearing, which in turn result in increased impoverishment. This gendered impact of extreme poverty on girls and women’s education demands strategies that address gender, poverty and education issues in a holistic way.

Confining girls’ right to education to women/children’s rights only, misses the opportunity to look at the issue of intersectionalities from the point of view of broader human rights principles (non-discrimination, participation, accountability, etc.) that could be equally important and sometimes even more effective in overcoming resistance, especially in those societies where women and children’s rights are frowned upon. Adding this broader human rights approach, and adopting/adapting the dynamics of human rights advocacy, would offer added value by opening up alternatives.

Participants/Partnerships

The paper is based on the work of the Right to Education Project, an unprecedented collaborative initiative between ActionAid International (AA), Amnesty International (AI) and the Global Campaign for Education (GCE). It builds on each partner’s expertise both in terms of substance (education and gender for AA and GCE; poverty and dignity for AI; rights-based approaches for AA and AI) and in terms of strategies (coalition work for GCE; capacity-building for AA; and international lobbying for AI), thus demonstrating a wide-ranging potential for partnerships and synergy.

Methodology

Drawing upon international human rights provisions and examples from Africa, Latin America and Europe, the paper:

1. looks at the application of the 4As to the right to education of girls and women living in extreme poverty, highlighting obstacles and denials or violations of such a right;
2. includes this analysis within the traditional conceptual framework of human rights obligations (respect, protect and fulfil);
3. suggests operational measures that also draw upon the PANEL model of a rights-based approach (Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination, Empowerment, Legality);
4. illustrates how the dynamics of human rights advocacy influence substance, structure and society.

Limitations

The paper is not based on a specific research project, but directly draws upon the conceptual framework of international human rights law and indirectly examines the practical field work of the partners involved. In this sense, it does not follow traditional research methodologies. The focus on the law is also a limitation in itself for those not familiar with it. However, these limitations are tackled upfront and actually presented as added value for other approaches.

Findings

The paper shows that a broader rights-based approach extends the array of opportunities for those activists, policy-makers and educationalists who are looking for more effective means of influence to affect change. Overall, the paper offers:

1. insights into alternative/additional ways to use international human rights law to support advocacy and policy strategies for the advancement of gender equality in education for women and girls in extreme poverty;
2. a replicable model of application that is flexible to adapt to different contexts but strongly embedded in universal human rights norms and principles;
3. illustrations of actions and partnerships for advocacy.

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[1] UN Human Rights Council, The right to education, Resolution 8/4, 18 June 2008, preambular paragraph 5.