ISA at the UN
September 24, 2010
The International Sociological Association has standing with the UN’s Department of Public Information (DPI) and with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The ISA’s representatives for UN activities in New York are Rosemary Barberet (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) and Jan Marie Fritz (ISA Executive Committee member, University of Cincinnati), and Dilek Cindoglu (ISA Executive Committee Member and Bilkent University, Turkey). Representatives to UN activities are appointed by the ISA and do this work without financial support from the ISA.
Rosemary and I will be attending the fifty-fifth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York City and the affiliated events in and around the CSW meeting. (See http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/55sess.htm) This year the Commission will meet from 22 February – 4 March 2011. This event is a marvelous opportunity to learn how the Commission works and how so many NGOs work on the issues (before and during the meeting) that the Commission will be considering. Jan and Rosemary take part in a few of the working groups (the working groups actually work) to develop positions and recommendations to be considered by the Commission.
The priority theme of the 2011 CSW meeting is “Access and participation of women and girls to education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.” The Commission also will evaluate progress on the implementation of the agreed conclusions from its fifty-first session on “The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child.” We will propose an ISA session as part of the parallel program at the CSW and provide reference lists regarding the themes.
Rosemary also is one of our two representatives to UN meetings in Vienna. Rosemary and Dean Rudolf Richter (University of Vienna), the other Vienna representative, will attend the 7-10 day meeting of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna. (Information about meetings in Vienna - e.g., Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space - is provided on the UN-Vienna web page – http://unvienna.org)
Jan Marie Fritz, Member of ISA Executive Committee