By Rochelle R. Dean SME, Women's Human Rights Campaign Bahamas. This article was adapted from the speech Rochelle gave at #FiLiA2021 during the UNsynced Panel.


In order to be effective in the everchanging times of women’s rights, one must take into consideration that the times have certainly changed and along with that so has information and who has access to it.

The internet has proven to be both a glimmer of hope, but also a fallacy to many issues of global concern and women’s rights remain in the midst of it all.

Accuracy for activists still goes beyond passion and starts at the helm of understanding. Although our zealous efforts to defend women’s rights still becomes the armour of protection that ascertains that the term woman’ remains instilled in the minds and hearts of all. It is more so important; that no woman is left behind and that all women know their rights in an effort to exercise them in order to defend themselves, it is also important that women remain committed to new advancements in the fight to protect them as well.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) presents a dynamic approach to duality that serves as the basis for the call to eliminate discrimination against women, while making commitments to monitoring the twelve (12) key areas of the Beijing Declaration.

These international instruments serve as the foundation of what makes defending women rights recognizable and measurable for the advancement of women.

As we progress, we should not forget that reformations do not exist for women and reaffirming our rights is imperative as the Women’s Human Rights Campaign Declaration much like the Beijing Declaration also stands to recommit women to specific key areas in its nine (9) articles.

Excerpt from FiLiA 2021 Presentation:

[Taking into consideration that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is the basis of the protection on the rights of women and also incorporates specific articles of the Beijing Platform specifically relative to matters pertaining to gender which are not specifically defined in context, experts at the policy level have precluded to incorporate gender to address humanitarian and matters of peacekeeping in cultures that may or may not be significantly impacted by certain cultures and or caste system constructs or exposed to gender-based violence (GBV).

It is in this sense that the United Nations may be out of touch with grassroots feminists in that policymakers have added language with no definition, leaving grassroots feminists as well as others to any other such interpretations and notions.

There should always be a yin and yang approach to advocacy and activism in order for women’s rights to be protected.

In that sense, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) must be committed to presenting resource mechanisms that help to share palatable information while keeping in mind that these resource tools, as well as commitments, do not minimize accountability.

Resources like online campaigns and toolkits are excellent knowledge sharing avenues for grassroots feminists in their activism. ]

Governments must also play their part in holding fast to the binding commitments outlined in legally binding conventions while allowing women to sit at the table to justify their own arguments as to the legitimacy of their concerns, in protecting their rights outside of multilateral institutions.

As we move forward in the fight for what it is that makes us women who we are, we must recognize that every element of our existence is established in our own individualism that includes our physiological state, and how we were born, to fill gaps that may exist in this area as well as our intellectual being that continues to develop.  And these elements are engrained in the fact that women cannot be reformed and there is no improved model to being female.

Rochelle is country contact of Women's Human Rights Campaign Bahamas and two-time presenter and panellist at the Commission on the Status of Women. She is a civil society expert with experience in economic development with a focal point on social policy and skilled in policy analysis, global governance, global advocacy as well as HLPF and UN Development Reform. She has served as co-chairperson at the international level with (DESA) for the indicators of the global goals (SDGs) and recently served on the G20 Summit 2021 (2030 Agenda Innovative Finance) Finance for Development WG. A published academic in economic theory (managerial economics and behavioral economics). Rochelle also made amendments to the Fiscal Responsibility Bill 2018, a bill hailed as the best policy decision in the Bahamas for decades by Moody's. Rochelle also made amendments to the Non Profit Bill 2019 which regulated financial reporting and registration processes of the non-profit sector to bring the Bahamas in compliance with the Financial Action Task Force. Rochelle has an interest in judicial review, comparative law, constitutional law and the EU system.