Listening: Anglican girls ask Communion to raise every community's awareness of their concerns
Episcopal News Service. March 5, 2007 [030507-03]
K. Jeanne Person, Associate rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in New York City
A group of Anglican girl delegates to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women 2007 (UNCSW) issued a statement March 3 asking the Anglican Communion to "raise every community's awareness" about women's and girls' issues and to "continue to touch the lives of the unfortunate ones in the world."
The Anglican girls, aged 13 to 18, are part of an Anglican delegation to the annual gathering of UNCSW, from February 26 to March 9, at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The gathering has brought member nations and thousands of women and girls from around the world to create policies for "ending all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child."
In a formal statement to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), the Anglican girl delegates urged the Anglican Communion to work "at the village level" to improve the lives of girls. The statement asked specific action on the part of the Communion, namely, "(i) providing mentoring and networking to girls, (ii) advocating and promoting the 13/31 resolution, (iii) educating girls as well as boys on equal gender rights, and (iv) continuing to work with deprived women and children."
The ACC 13/31 resolution, passed at the 13th meeting of the ACC in 2005, calls upon the ACC's Standing Committee to identify ways to achieve an equal number of men and women – lay and ordained – at all levels of decision-making within the Anglican Communion. The resolution also includes a request for the establishment of gender desks in every province.
The Anglican girl delegates, who come from the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, India, and Kenya, are representing the global Anglican Communion in the effort at UNCSW to improve the lives of girls. They are joining many other girl delegates from around the world in addressing girls' issues.
In their statement, the Anglican girls note that, at UNCSW, they have learned about child trafficking and its connection to sexual exploitation, prostitution and pornography; gender inequality in education and job opportunity; the higher percentage of girls than boys ages 15 to 25 who live with HIV/AIDS; the violence girls suffer in regions of armed conflict; and the gender bias in media that undermines girls' and women's empowerment.
"Apart from making new friends from different countries, the participation has very much widened our perspectives," the girls write in their statement.
Better education, the girls affirm, is critical for liberating women and girls to understand their rights with respect to their bodies, their voices, and their opportunities. Furthermore, they write, "poverty and lack of knowledge go hand in hand with each other."
For the first time in the history of the United Nations, individuals under the age of 18 have participated in formal meetings. This UNCSW meeting is also the first time that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations has opened for discussions about women's or girls' issues. The Council assists the U.N. General Assembly in promoting international economic and social cooperation and development.
The Anglican delegation of more than 80 women and the teenage girls, from 34 countries of the worldwide Anglican Communion, has been the largest non-governmental representation at UNCSW. The effort to bring Anglican women and girls from all provinces of the Anglican Communion to UNCSW is that of the Office of the Anglican Observer at the United Nations and Anglican Women's Empowerment (AWE), an international grassroots movement founded in 2003 to promote gender equality and to use the power of women to promote a humane agenda worldwide.
The girl delegates are Chantelle Douglas (Australia), Chan Nga Ki (Hong Kong), Faith Nenkai Meitiaki (Kenya), Deepti Steffi (India), Caroline Christie (United States), Delores-Mai Macauley (United States), Kaimana Mauai (United States), and Anne Wenk (United States).
On behalf of all the Anglican girl delegates, Chan Nga Ki presented their statement to the full Anglican delegation at a celebratory dinner on March 3 hosted by the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the parish of St. Andrew's in Harlem. Delighted by their work, the Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam, Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of New York and a representative of the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Consultative Council, exclaimed, "Watch out world. The girls are in the house!"