Delegates at CSW meeting push to reach compromise on final document

"Delegates to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women are racing to reach a consensus deal on a final document by Friday, and some diplomats say the future of the commission -- a global policy-making body created in 1946 for the advancement of women -- is at risk if they fail to broker a compromise," Reuters reports. "An 'unholy alliance' of Iran, Russia, the Vatican and others is threatening to derail [the] U.N. declaration urging an end to violence against women and girls by objecting to language on sexual, reproductive and gay rights, some U.N. diplomats said Wednesday," the news service writes, adding, "Russia, the Vatican, Iran and other conservative Muslim states including Egypt, object to references to access to emergency contraception, abortion and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, women's rights activists said" (Nichols, 3/13).

"Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood has sharply criticized a U.N. draft document on violence against women as 'deceitful,' saying its articles clash with Islamic principles and undermine family values," according to the Associated Press. "The Brotherhood's statement Wednesday says the document propagates sexual freedoms, advocates the use of abortion and equates sexual assault by a stranger with assault by a spouse," the news agency writes (3/13). "Among the 10 points the Brotherhood said it opposed were resolutions to ensure women's rights to complain of marital rape; promote equal inheritance rights and equal rights between men and women within the family; and allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslims," Bloomberg Businessweek notes (Marroushi, 3/14).