At the U.N.'s annual meeting on the global status of women, a Vatican
observer stressed that the modern workplace should improve its
accommodation of wives and mothers, who “have an irreplaceable role” in
families.
True progress for women “requires that labor should be structured in
such a way that women do not have to pay for their advancement by
abandoning what is specific to them and at the expense of the family,”
said Prof. Jane Adolphe, a member of the Holy See’s Delegation to
Commission on the Status of Women.
Prof. Adolphe – an Associate Professor at the Ave Maria School of Law
– spoke on behalf of Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, Permanent Observer
of the Holy See to the U.N. on March 1 at the 55th session on the
Commission on the Status of Women in New York.
During her address, Prof. Adolphe called for the “promotion of
women’s equal access to full employment and decent work” and for an
increase in global access for women and girls to “education, training,
science and technology.”
This education, she clarified, “must be firmly rooted in a profound
respect for human dignity and with full respect for religious and
cultural values.”
“If this is absent, then education is no longer a means of authentic
enlightenment but becomes a tool of control by those who administer it,”
she warned.
Prof. Adolphe also discussed the worldwide status of women in regard
to sexual violence, insisting that “all States must enact and enforce
legislation to protect girls from all forms of violence and
exploitation, from conception onwards, including abortion, especially
sex-selective abortion, female infanticide.”
On the current international issue of human trafficking, Prof.
Adolphe said that governments need to make “concerted efforts” in order
to stop “this heinous crime.”
This can be done, she added, “by addressing adequately the demand
side of trafficking in persons by strengthening laws against
prostitution of children and adults, child pornography and sexual
exploitation.”
“The authentic advancement of women begins with full respect for the
dignity and worth of all persons,” she underscored.
“Such respect must
take into account the entire life cycle – from conception to natural
death – and States have the responsibility to ensure this in their
national legislations.”
The current session of the Commission on the Status of Women will
conclude on March 4, and is one of nine functional commissions of the
United Nations Economic and Social Council.