Drum beats tell a story and so it was at the Spring Council of the West London United Nations Association on 11th March in Ealing. The new committee wanted to raise some poignant and controversial issues affecting the welfare of women in the UK and worldwide and decided to kick off their meeting to the evocative beat of drums. The main issue was crimes against women, a topical subject to coincide with March’s campaign against domestic violence. After an address from the Mayor of Ealing, Baroness Scotland gave an overview via a video link of the Home Office’s strategy to curtail domestic violence in the UK. She spoke passionately against honour killings and forced marriages. She also highlighted recent changes in legislation which previously allowed families in the UK to send young children to go abroad to undergo Female Genital Mutilation. Margaret Sesay, a development consultant, spoke of her work to educate women in her native Sierra Leone.

The United Nations Association, together with a voluntary organisation called Working Partners and UNICEF had recently sent fourteen computers to a women’s centre set up by Ms Sesay. Discussion against Female Genital Mutilation is outlawed in Sierra Leone and Ms Sesay has to act with diplomacy and tact to build trust among the women so that in future their daughters would not have to undergo such an appalling practice. Juliet Coleman, president of UNIFEM, spoke of the need to get more female children into education worldwide. She also addressed the disparity in land ownership in the world, as women own only 3% of land.

Prevailing trade practices also discriminate against women, said Katherine Ronderos, a fundraising officer for UNA-UK. Changes, however, are occurring and it is now becoming the norm for international projects and aid programmes to conduct a gender-impact audit. Such an exercise would examine to what extent proposals discriminated against women, failed to take into account the knowledge, commitment and skills that women had to offer, and to reward them commensurately.

Nick Thorne, the UK Permanent Representative to the UN, in explaining the role of the World Trade Organisation, said that the body had little relevance to less developed countries. It was, he said, a purely mercantile organization, had no agenda for aiding developing countries, and was committed simply to the world of business. Sadly, it has neither an environmental nor a gender-sensitive conscience. Carrying out gender audits were not on its agenda, he said. The WTO, established in 1995, is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.

Roger Hallam, UNA, Enfield and Barnetts 

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