final essay
The total and equal participation within the society is highly dependent on the kind of access being received by the people in terms of their fundamental and basic freedom, rights and all other things which make the democracy a possibility. It is a known fact that civil and politics related rights are highly essential; however, it is also true that these rights are not really enough to make sure that the equal attributes of freedom and basic rights are enjoyed by all.
Quite a significant section of Australians have been found to be benefitted from the aspects related to universal education, health care facilities, fair chances of employment, along with aspects related to social security thereby enhancing the overall chances for opportunities related to citizenship. However, it is noteworthy that at the same time, there is a significant group of people who do not have access to these things and they include the physically handicapped people, the indigenous Australians and the single mothers who have been found to experience attributes of exclusion and the associated disadvantages thereby undermining the Australian democratic aspects as a whole (Mendes, 2017). The recent times of neo liberal era has now seen a few attempts through which the welfare state and its elements can be tightened and trimmed for betterment.
This essay will specifically focus on the condition of the women, especially the single mothers in Australia and how the current legislative aspects affect them and what are the different sociological issues which should be addressed for providing them with a reasonable freedom for a better tomorrow.
Australian women are prone to gender bias and pay, housing related disparities and since Australia does not have a constitutionalised form of depiction regarding the basic rights, it is important and imperative to design one by amending the current legislative protocols regarding it.
The women have high risks towards poverty due to the pay gap associated with the gender and the low employment status. Additionally, they are also laden with responsibilities of child care and very less savings related to superannuation (ACOSS 2016b). In such a scenario, the women have to play the role of sole parents along with facing homelessness and aspects of domestic violence which have a direct impact on the income and employment related opportunities.
The socio-economic aspects surrounding the Australian women and the single mothers are manifold and as a sociologist, it is extremely essential to identify them so that they can be addressed, and solution is provided for the issues and concerns they normally face from the society at large.
Domestic violence has been found to be one of the leading causes of homelessness for children and women in Australia with thousands of people turning up for help every year (Homelessness Australia, 2016). The funding by the federal government has seen family violence being cut and the different community based legal aids have seen thousands of victims of violence being turned away.
Aspects of domestic violence have been seen to impact the working performance of women, the different opportunities they have and the corresponding income they make (McFerran., 2011). By sheer failure to provide equal rights and entitlements which are to be owned by everyone, the opportunities are becoming increasingly limited for the Australian women to be able to fully participate and exercise rights in the Australian democracy. The different structural disadvantages which are being faced by the Australian women include the usage of the varied full range of accountability in the democratic front through which the existing inequalities being faced by them can be challenged.
Some sort of horizontal accountability among states is being provided by the international legal framework which might not directly address all issues pertaining to the domestic legal framework of the state. Another highlighting feature is that the Australian law has yet not incorporated all the international laws related to human rights within their system thereby letting the international bodies exert limited force (Klare., 2015). The parliamentary committee has been found to be the scrutinising body which takes into consideration the horizontal accountability oversight mechanism thereby proposing the legislation which is against the human rights commitment of Australia. Also, it is basically a small space to engage the public diagonally with the entire federal legislative process of Australia.
Though the economic necessity has ensured that the Australian women are pushed towards the active workforce, but nothing adequate has actually been done to ensure that they are relieved or freed from the obligations they withhold in the household and care related domain.
Knowledge regarding legislation aiming at improving the overall situation of the Australian women, especially the single mothers has been instrumental as the application of present legal aspects will help them to lead a better life than the current one.
Researchers have in fact documented that the women feel much more pressurised and rushed compared to their male counterparts due to the inequalities with regard to distribution of home front responsibilities (Craig and Brown., 2017). While it is quite difficult to manage things (home and workplace) for women while being in a couple-based relationship, the problems most often become manifold when the women needs to handle everything singly. In fact, Brown (2015), have very aptly pointed out that the single mothers in no way fir into the true frame of neoliberal subjects who are increasingly responsible especially at the context when public support is getting withdrawn day by day. Thus, these women do not have any other means but to economically engage themselves along with considering sole responsibility of their children in the context being under employed, exploited and accessing child care which often turns out to be a costly affair, higher standards of living, pay cuts and all this might be quite impossible for a majority of single mothers to maintain for survival.
Despite a series of these obstacles the advocates working towards the rights of women have made the various accountability related mechanisms available in the international domain to be a part of the strategic intervention which deals with issues related to social and economic rights (Van Ham and Chapel., 2017). Though, this has been ignored by the government quite frequently leading to a wide condemnation by the different human rights bodies working in the international platform, these people still have their own logic of considering this as an important and necessary part. This is largely due to the fact that values are being seen in the form of violations in the international record as they aim to retain hopes shaming the functioning of these various bodies. In fact, Australia still continue to display a certain degree of ambivalence towards the different human rights processes of the UN by ignoring the negative findings and underplaying them and aiming for becoming the major actor for obtaining a seat in the human rights council.
In Australia, extreme measures related to austerity could be substantially avoided as a result of the financial crisis, however, there has been no cutting back with regard to the welfare benefits which have been existent in the past.
Though the various social and economic rights have been included within the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW., 2010), the various feminist lawyers started giving it the attention only around the year 2000. A group of experts in the year 2002 drafted things related to the economic, social and cultural rights of women stressed on the importance regarding non- discrimination and provision for enjoying equal rights by both the genders. It has also been noted that without the full realisation regarding the social and economic rights, the status of women will always remain unequal and the equality related promises will only result in formal level changes. The Montreal principles were in fact aimed in a way to inform regarding the drafting of the general comments being made by the committee on economic, social and cultural rights (CESCR, 2017) respectively so that equal rights could be enjoyed by both men and women respectively. The general comment has been produced by CESCR quite recently in response to the growing needs regarding a symmetrical gendered approach rather than the pre-existing women centric approach respectively (Otto., 2014). Thus, it was clear in the general comment that even the men were prone to gender discrimination and thus recognising it in the right aspect was important.
Strengths and limitations of the existing legislation for Australian Women
A number of bills, policies and laws have been framed from time to time; however, the actual situation or the sociological implications of these laws for the target people- the women and single mothers have been grossly neglected. The different policies, a few of which have been designed for the betterment of women and children however do not even reach them as a major section of these vulnerable population are not aware regarding the existence of the same thereby leading to serious troubles. Being a developed nation, it is important for the policymakers and the associated people to look into the recommendations and work at the ground level to ensure that the facilities designed reach the beneficiaries.
The challenges pertaining to the neoliberalism and its harsh impact on the women at large basically require a number of strategies. One important amongst them could be the social and economic rights beings claimed by the various women’s groups in Australia which not only undermine the democracy in general but also highlight the corresponding disadvantages and vulnerability. While a few issues of the women have been framed in terms of claims related to social and economic rights, others have to be developed in the right scale, for instance, equal treatment of women irrespective of their origin at workplaces, the violence episodes and socio-economic rights and all other broader goals of sustainability (Fredman et al., 2016). This is definitely one significant opportunity through which the social economic and political rights of women must be attended by the Australian government and not just by amendments or alterations in the existing domestic laws and the policies respectively.
Australia has been a part of almost all the major treaties pertaining to human rights which also include ICESCR and CEDAW along with a series of fundamental and technical conventions on International labour organizations respectively. While, Australia has become a part of the CEDAW protocol way back in the year 2008, the ICESCR optional protocol still awaits its joining. However, CEDAW optional protocol has not been used by any Australian till date. This aspect remains unclear as to why this opportunity of filling individual complaints has not been considered. It could be such that there is a laxity with regard to the knowledge base regarding the mechanism to be used as the different groups don’t find it merited for giving the requisite efforts.
In spite of its status in the form of an international citizen who is also responsible with a democratic tradition which is largely liberal and proud, the performance in terms of avenues related to human rights and inhabitants is quite poor. This is particular especially for the social and economic rights which are considered. Australia, is in fact one of those countries which still does not have a bill of rights and one of the few 16 countries in this entire world who still do not have any sort of protection on social, cultural or economic rights of the women by constitution (Jung et al., 2014). There is, however, the presence of human rights act for the state and territory along with the ACT legislation which contains the social and economic right including that of the right to education.
The universal review of Australia normally conducted periodically led to its conclusion in 2015 and put forwarded two major recommendations in relation to the social and economic rights of women (Human rights council., 2016). These recommendations were largely related to closure of the gender attributed pay gap and improvement of the economic position of the women and also addressing the different violence related episodes faced by women with the help of support services and education and housing schemes. These kinds of recommendations are a clear recognition of the fact that in spite of being a developed and successful nation, Australia, as a country is not really doing enough for tackling the sexuality related division of labour and the corresponding poverty which results from it as a result of the violence and aggression being faced by the women whose workplace and home suffered constraints. The recommendation basically paid attention to the diversified field of girls and women who are in need of protection irrespective of their geographical location being rural or urban, culture, linguistics, disabilities, migrants or the refugees.
The idea regarding comprehensive legislation of the federal human rights was basically a government initiative towards the consultation of human rights under the age of human rights consultation group which was a part of the Brennan committee. The Australian Human rights commission defined the mandate as per the legislation which does not provide jurisdiction to ICESCR, but the sole responsibility of the social, political and economic rights of women and single mothers is largely a part of their integral functioning protocol (Capuano, 2016).
The absence or lack of aspects pertaining to enforceability regarding social and economic rights has led to limited set of understanding among the public regarding the content and nature it carries, in Australia. This kid of status has affected the value for those people who have articulated the claims.
From the sociological context, it is essential that the legislation powers be equally distributed and not made women centric. This is the only way through which women will be given due recognition at workplaces and no women will have to face biasness due to her gender or origin or the ethnicity she belongs to as long as she fulfils the legal requirements.
References
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