1 UN Women Chair: Sophie Barrett Vice-Chair: Sophia Syzmanski -
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UN Women
Chair: Sophie Barrett
Vice-Chair: Sophia Syzmanski
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Table of Contents
3. Letter from Chair
5. Members of Committee
7. Committee Background
10. Topic A: Reproductive Rights
18. Topic B: Access to Education
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Dear Delegates,
Welcome to UN women at LYMUN VII! My name is Sophie Barret, I’m a Sophomore at
LTHS this year and can’t wait to be your chair for this committee. This is my second year of
high school MUN and fourth year of MUN overall. Last year I was lucky enough to co-chair
ECOFIN at LYMUN VI and can't wait to bring that knowledge to this conference. Outside of
MUN I love to play soccer, perform in musicals and plays and compete on speech team. I also
hope to pursue an interest in government and politics in my future career.
In this committee, we will discuss pressing issues to women globally including
reproductive rights and education. Due to the importance of these two topics, I expect all
participants to be fully researched and prepared to debate the issues. In committee, I’m looking
for a delegate that both speaks well and has excellent diplomatic skills in their blocks and papers.
I highly recommend reading over this background guide as long as doing your own research to
be fully informed when writing position papers and speaking in committee. All delegates are
expected to write a position paper prior to the conference and turn it in on the day of to be
eligible for awards. During committee, I will not only be looking for people who speak well and
write resolutions but those who work well with other delegates. Any person who wishes to speak
is highly encouraged as this conference is an opportunity to strengthen your skills in politics,
communication, and overall the expertise that encompasses MUN. My other goals for this
committee are to have every participant speak at least once and to pass some excellent resolution
papers.
I hope this conference is a positive experience for all participants whether they’re
learners or experienced delegates. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions
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prior to the conference you can reach me at [email protected]. Good luck in your
research and preparation, and I’m looking forward to meeting all of you at the conference!
Sincerely,
Sophie Barrett
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Members in Committee: 1. USA
2. Denmark
3. Sweden
4. Canada
5. France
6. United Kingdom
7. Pakistan
8. El Salvador
9. Nicaragua
10. South Korea
11. Egypt
12. India
13. Thailand
14. Italy
15. Mexico
16. Morocco
17. China
18. Japan
19. Russia
20. Germany
21. Nigeria
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22. Brazil
23. Australia
24. Norway
25. Greece
26. Austria
27. Finland
28. Ireland
29. Iceland
30. Hungary
31. Sri Lanka
32. Slovenia
33. Peru
34. Colombia
35. Venezuela
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History of the Committee:
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, more
commonly known as UN Women, was founded in July of 2010 and started functioning in
January of 2011. The job of the body is to discuss and comprehend the challenges that women
face throughout the world while
maintaining the goal of holding the
UN accountable for commitments
to gender equality in all member
nations and increase progress
throughout the world. Although it
was established fairly late for a United Nations committee, it has made much progress and
improved the lives of many women which caused change for countries that had previously had
many stigmas against women. UN Women has encouraged many governments such as El
Salvador and Mexico to place laws to protect women from femicide (sex-based hate crimes),
assisted in limiting the customary violent actions towards women in places such as Pakistan, and
much more to limit gender-based discrimination across the world.
The UN Women headquarters resides in New York, however, the actions of the
committee reach across the globe. The current budget of UN Women is 384.3 million USD with
most of the budget coming from voluntary contributions. This minimal funding is a major step
for this committee since it struggled with funding and representation for many years before it
was fully developed. While their resources are limited, with devotion and creative ideas, the
rights of women can be secured throughout the world.
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This committee also works to help other intergovernmental bodies such as the
Commission on the Status of Women which is a part of ECOSOC in their own missions to
advance global protections for women. Along with working with bodies such as CSW, UN
women has always built off of previously created UN bodies such as Division for the
Advancement of Women and UNIFEM to continue and advance their work.
Overall UN Women works to advocate for the rights of women everywhere. They hope
to quickly advance equality in all aspects of people’s lives. Whether it be safety, education or
healthcare this organization works to help women in every way possible.
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Topic A: Reproductive Rights
History of the Topic:
Reproductive rights cover a wide range of healthcare rights for individuals including
abortion, birth control and contraceptives. The UN didn’t recognize these as human rights until the
year 1968, and even then they mainly focused on family planning with less emphasis on
reproductive health. Women’s reproductive health was brought to the attention of the UN until the
early 80’s in “the Decade of Women”, when women’s rights and issues were put in the spotlight.
In 1994 the Cairo Programme of Action was written, it was the first piece of international
policy defining Reproductive health. The document also gave countries the duty to provide
anything necessary for citizens to meet their reproductive health needs. 179 member states
attended the Cairo conference but lots of nations, especially Islamic and Latin American nations,
held many reservations on the topic.
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A year after the Cairo conference the 1995 World Conference on Women held in Beijing
elaborated on the work of the Cairo Programme. Their platform focused on making women’s
reproductive rights universal human rights and creating equality on the topic between men and
women. Many nations thought that the conference documents were too radical at the time and also
wanted to lessen the impact of the documents language.
Over time there were of course many instances of nations clearly ignoring this universal
right in their country. Most commonly this occurs when countries are attempting to control their
population sizes whether to grow or shrink them. One example of this occurred in Romania starting
in the 1960’s when their government wanted to greatly increase their population. Instead of
encouraging the growth with incentives for citizens overtime they chose to endanger their own
people by making abortions and contraceptives illegal and taxing the childless.
Generally, reproductive rights are legal freedoms
relating to reproductive health, but this varies greatly across
different countries. The World Health Organization defines
reproductive rights as, “the recognition of the basic right of all
couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the
number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the
information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and
reproductive health”. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction
free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”
Current situation regarding abortion:
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Throughout the world they are only 60 countries that currently allow women to have safe
access the abortions. The vast majority of these countries are all in the developed world because
very few developing nations give women access to abortions. Of the 60 countries that allow
abortions many of them have stricter terms as to when these abortions are legal. Many countries
laws state that women can only get an abortion if they are in physical danger or if they are clearly
unable to care for their child if it were born.
The abortion laws are even stricter in some countries
like El Salvador which is a greatly religious nation.
Their country has entirely banned abortion no matter
what and the penalty’s for seeking one out or even for
having a miscarriage, can end women up behind bars.
Similar laws are also in place in countries such as
Nicaragua and Malta. The procedure is almost
entirely banned in the Vatican city due to the religious
beliefs of it’s small population of residents.
Recently there was a large legal battle for and against
abortion in Ireland which is a highly religous country
where seventy-eight percent of the population is Catholic. Before this battle for the right to abortion
the country had some of the strictest abortion laws of any developed country. The Eight
Amendment to their constitution allowed for women to be able to get an abortion if they were in
danger because of their pregancy in any way. This small change was a huge win for pro-choice
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supporters in Ireland, because their society which is greatly based off the Catholic church had for
years worked strongly against abortion and many other
reproductive rights for women.
Currently the USA allows abortion in all states
except rescritions in each one vary vastly. In the last few
years multiple states states have tried to pass strict laws
and restrictions on abortion without success. The most
recent was a ban in Louisiana stating that before doctors can perform an abortion they must recieve
admitting priveleges from a nearby hospital. This specific law was ruled unconstitutional by the
courts by a very small margin showing how conflicted the nation is when it comes to this topic.
Twenty six other countries world wide have also entirely outlawed abortion, many of which
are situated in South America or Africa. Nations such as Angola, Egypt and Haiti have prohibited
the procedure entirely within their nation. While this makes safe abotrions illegal research has
often shown that the overall number of abortions stay the same. These abortions are often unsafe
and done by non professionals, further endangering the womans life.
Reproductive Rights and Religion:
In a large majority of the events where women are denied their reproductive rights religion
is often involved. Throughout the world and especially in Christianity people believe that abortion
is a sin because every living thing is apart of God’s creation from the point of conception. While
there is disagreement about at what point a fetus becomes “alive” many believe that life does begin
at fertilization. These religious beliefs have stopped women from getting safe and legal abortions
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in many countries and even in the Vatican city in Rome where the pope resides. Furthermore,
many Catholics only believe in natural birth control which further limits the options for women.
While other religions do have beliefs on religion none seem to be as strong as the view of
the Catholic church. Islam has one of the firmer stances stating that after 120 days of pregnency
the fetus is alive and therefore should
not be killed, unless the mother is in
severe danger. On the other side of the
spectrum newer branches of Judaism
advocate for safe abortions for all
women, and even Orthodox Jewish
people believe that abortion is okay if it
saves a mother’s life.
Education on the topic:
One of the greatest barriers to women everywhere when it comes to their reproductive
rights is education. In many developing countries women do not get access to the education they
need because of the stigma around the topic in their nation. In Islamic states, they refuse to teach
about menstruation as the topic is considered embarrassing so a topic as extreme as sex is
essentially forbidden. In these places where the education is limited many young women believe
myths they’ve heard without knowing the real facts about contraceptives or their reproductive
rights. Oftentimes, the belief systems that circulate around contraceptives and other means of
reproduction preventatives or their general fairness revolves around religion. Certain religions
such as catholicism, protestantism, and areas where islamic culture and regulations are more
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profound, the use of contraceptives and other means of birth control are prohibited, as stated
earlier. This mistreament towards womens knowledge about this topic can subject them toward
extreme poverty later in life if the possibility of rape or general unsafe sex occurs and they are
unable to provide for the child.
As mentioned earlier, the status of women's poverty can prove to be supreme if the
misinformation about this topic continues. However there is a solution directed towards this. If
more valuable and wealthy nations can supply struggling states with funds to immediately
implement towards education on sex, there will be a lowerage in birth and an increase to their
economy. When women don’t have an obligation towards a child day and night, they are more
likely to have higher overall opulence, in turn, increasing the nation's overall GDP.
Family Planning
Along with the possibility of certain religions and
nations forbidding abortion, there are other options if the
mother doesn’t feel entirely comfortable to raise a child.
These options are mainly narrowed down to matters that
circulate adoption. Many family planning agencies can
assist mothers in need and do the best they can to provide
for them so their child can live a life that won’t undergo a
direction of poverty. These agencies will also direct you towards medical care and ensure the best
scenario for the child. These organizations have proved in the past to be highly successful and help
thousands of women each year come out of child more stable than if they chose to perform
pregnancy alone. One downside of this however is that many of these organizations are very
religious and will tell an expecting mother that her only option is to have the baby and to move on
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from there. Furthermore, they will often refuse pregnancy tests if the woman says that she will
have an abortion over keeping the baby.
Birth control access
Birth Control has always been a major topic of debate for religious
and non religious reasons. There are extreme ends to both arguments but,
there is a clear
and large discrepancy between the birth
control availability in first world
countries and developing countries. For
example, Africa currently has about 33%
birth control availability while North
America has about 70% availability. The
ability to gain birth control has always
been an ever changing situation but in
recent years, there has been a huge increase in birth control availability. This is a huge step for the
better, yet the number of people who have access to birth control is still very low.
Birth control can be quite an expensive item to procure and in some cases, it is easier for a
woman to take the risk of having unprotected sex than for them to gain reliable access to the pill.
There are many forms of contraception such as, the pill, sterilization, condoms, IUD, or natural
family planning, however, the most effective methods are the ones that require purchasing and
money. For a woman in a religious area, buying items such as condoms is frowned upon and can
result in extreme embarrassment for the woman and for her family name. In non religious areas
where obtaining birth control isn’t frowned upon, with the average price of quality condoms
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ranging from $2-6 people barely able to pay rent will struggle to afford basic contraceptives. In
areas where birth control is administered for little to no charge, the lines are extremely long and
those who rely on free birth control often work several part time jobs to get by.
Questions to consider:
● How will the religious
people in your country feel
about reproductive rights?
● At what trimester will
abortions be outlawed?
● Is it ok to allow penalties
for miscarriages and how
can this be prevented?
● How available will birth
control be made in your
country?
● Will birth control be a part
of your country's healthcare plan?
● Will religion prohibit progressive action on the topic in your country?
● Is family planning the correct path for women in your nation?
Additional Resources:
https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/fact-sheet/the-u-s-government-and-international-
family-planning-reproductive-health-efforts/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/24/the-many-many-countries-
where-abortion-is-basically-banned/
https://beta.reproductiverights.org/
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https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/religion-and-reproductive-rights
https://onlinedoctor.superdrug.com/birth-control-around-the-world/
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Topic B: Access to Education
History of the Topic:
Traditionally, the role of women has been that of housekeeper and therefore women were
given little to no formal education. Instead of attending school or learning a trade, young girls were
taught etiquette and chores. Up until the and including the early 1900’s, the idea of a woman having
a job or education was looked at disdainfully. If a married woman did have a job, the family would
be seen as extremely desperate. If someone was destined to take care of the house or the children,
there was no need for them to have education. Those who were given formal education came from
rich families and were only given education up until they were ready for marriage. This entire form
of gender inequality continued until 1873, when Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon founded
Girton College in Cambridge, England which was an all-female college. This opened the doors to
many new opportunities for women that they had never gotten to pursue before.
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Although it is not often seen by those in first world countries, gender inequality in
education is a problem that plagues many countries to this day. Many nations where religion strives
their government, women aren’t placed into education systems. They are instead expected to be
the caretakers of their husbands and children while the husband made the profits that urged the
families financials. The projection of the women's lives in society slowly increased as the years
progressed however. They were seen less as objects and more as efficient manners that contribute
to a working community.
Current Issue:
The issue of inadequate education of women does not seem pressing to countries such as
America or France but to third world and poverty ridden countries, the unequal education of
women is a pressing matter. With ⅔ of the worldwide illiterate population being women, the ever
expanding gap in education inequality is extremely problematic. Education isn’t just a thing that
will help people further themselves in life, better educated women are healthier, have higher
incomes, and are more likely to have successful children. Furthermore, children who are born to
mothers that complete their secondary education are twice as likely to live past the age of five.
Offering education to women doesn’t only help the women, it helps their offspring in their future
breaking the cycle of poverty. If the children of the mother who they derive from successfully
accomplish a form of an education, at the very least, the mothers will be able to pass the
information from their schooling onto their own children as a form of passing on knowledge. By
relaying valuable information about searching for employment or basic forms of education, the
child will be enabled towards a much more prominent future in society than ones who aren’t
subjected towards this treatment. However, this is the bare minimum. Every child across the globe
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should be suitable for a proper education, as we will be able to produce more intelligent and well-
rounded figure-heads in our communities. The repercussions that can be driven from improper
schooling in young children can be
immense. Without the ability to form one's
own opinion due to limited knowledge on
subject matter can lead towards citizens who
are unable to function in a working
environment. There are a few ways we can
allow young children the access towards
education however.
Basic Education
In first world societies, women attending school is a necessary step and is often required
until a certain age. For example, people are not allowed to drop out of school in the United States
until the age of 16. However, this is not the case in third-world and developing countries. The
expectation is that a woman’s place is in the house serving her
husband. The oppression of women is furthered by the fact that
they receive little to no formal education in third world
countries. If women were able to get an education, they would
be suited for jobs that would both better the standing of women
in the world and help the economies of the countries that are
oppressing them. Although it may be an exchange, the exchange will allow for women to gradually
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be seen as equals in these regions. No matter what job they have, women in developing countries
will always be viewed as inferior and will be held up to a higher standard but through offering the
necessary qualifications for these jobs, women may be able to get a better standing in the world.
Possible Solutions
The current issue that comes from unequal access to education is both due to conservative
viewpoints and lack of proper resources for countries
themselves. As countries enter the stages necessary to
becoming a developed country, women entering the
workforce is a huge step. The unequal access to
education causes many countries to be stunted when it
comes to economic growth. There are several ways to
address the problems at hand however, the most
simple way to look at it is through short term and long
term solutions.
Short Term:
Short term solutions are effective ways to limit the issues for a short period of time
however, they are generally costly and ineffective in the long run. One method of securing short
term education for women are programs such as UNICEF’s school in a box program which
provides learning supplies to students who would otherwise not have access to proper education.
Although this would only allow girls to learn in a nontraditional environment, it still offers
effective measures for securing some form of education for girls. Other solutions could include
donating used school supplies and workbooks to areas that are largely affected by unequal access
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to education. This would allow for girls to begin teaching themselves however, once again this
puts girls in an untraditional learning environment where they would have to teach themselves the
majority of what they learn.
Bringing awareness to
the issue is also a valid method
of making change. Through
implementing social media the
unequal access to education
could be highlighted. People
from first world countries are prone to donate to causes that they feel could affect them so by
portraying this issue as a major concern for all countries, a large number of donations and support
may come rolling in. On top of this, volunteers are likely to support something that they feel
strongly about so by advertising volunteer opportunities to high school and college students, a
large number of people taking a gap year from either college or work may consider volunteering
for an education program.
Long Term:
Long term solutions often fall short due to lack of funding and therefore should have a
specific outline for how they will be funded along with a vague plan for when each step will be
implemented. Finding methods of implementing long term solutions without impeding on national
sovereignty is a difficult task that requires countries to work together to find solutions. Options for
long term solutions could include online learning programs, girls only schools, or mandatory
attendance for all students regardless of gender up to the age of 13 or 14. The primary issue with
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these solutions is that they require a large amount of funding or government support. In order to
combat that, countries may be incentivized through reductions of tariffs or infrastructure donations
to begin repealing legislation or cultural blockers of girls learning. All in all it is essential that
countries -whether first or third world- work together to create a comprehensive solution that
adequately addresses the issue at hand.
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Questions to consider
● How will funding for education be acquired?
● Will it be safe for women in your country to go to school?
● Who will do housework in families without children at home?
● Will schools be integrated male and female if the boys start ahead?
● What opportunities does education allow young girls?
● Will your country also open higher education such as colleges to women?
● Will your country also open this education system to older women?
● Who will help children with homework if their parents are not educated?
Additional Resources:
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https://www.unicef.org/education/girls-education
https://malala.org/girls-education
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation
http://www.ungei.org/
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-
days/international-womens-day-2014/women-ed-facts-and-figure/
https://www.right-to-education.org/girlswomen