The Asia-Pacific High-level Intergovernmental Meeting to Review Regional Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and Its Regional and Global Outcomes was held in Bangkok from 16 - 18 November 2009 to review implementation of the Platform for Action fifteen years after its adoption. The meeting adopted the Bangkok Declaration on Beijing+15, which reaffirms the commitment of governments in the region to implement the Beijing Platform for Action and to take concerted action to achieve equality for women accross the twelve critical areas of concern identified in the Platform for Action.

This publication comprises three papers cover different aspects of the issues leading to and associated with the commercial sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children in the Pacific.

This is a report of a regional stakeholders' consultation and planning workshop involving participants from the Governments and civil society of Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, as well as Pacific regional organizations, academic institutions and United Nations organizations. They came together to review findings from situation analysis research on commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and child sexual abuse (CSA) and share experiences, develop or strengthen key elements of a national plan of action and involve other Pacific stakeholders in addressing this problem. A key objective was to raise the awareness of participants of the gender-based risk factors documented in the situation analyses and the need to incorporate a gender approach for effective responses to CSEC and CSA, as well as consider the economic and social root causes of such exploitation and abuse.

This publication contains the Seminar Outcome and discussion papers prepared by experts of the Regional Seminar on Strengthening the Capacity of National Machineries for Gender Equality to Shape Migration Policies and Protect Migrant Women, held from 22-24 November 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand. It addresses the diverse experiences of female migrants in the ESCAP region, including the situations of migrant domestic workers, female international marriage migrants, migrants working in the garment industry and in disguised sex work.

ESCAP has compiled a toolkit on CSEC in the region. The toolkit is composed of three chapters:
1. Tools for Developing National Plans of Action against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children;
2. Situational Analysis Research on CSEC: Basic approaches and tools;
3. Piloting CSEC Info: Experiences from East Asia. By sharing experiences, good practices and practical tools in the areas or research, development of national plan of action and the piloting of CSEC Info, the toolkit can serve as a user-friendly and functional reference for key actors seeking to learn from past practice and adapt such lessons to fit local and national contexts.

This publication contains the papers prepared by the experts for their presentations at the High-Level Intergovernmental Meeting to Review Regional Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and its Regional and Global Outcomes which was convened at Bangkok, Thailand, from 7-10 September 2004. It is hoped that this publication would add value to any efforts and initiatives that are being taken by concerned entities to promote gender equality and women's empowerment, and provide useful perspectives and suggestions for the formulation of relevant policies and designing of measures to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly.

The Beijijg Platform for Action emphasized the development of gender sensitive indicators in order to systematize the monitoring and evaluation of progress made in implementating its recommendations. The paper focuses more specifically on the development and the use of such indicators for three important regional: women's economic migration, women's participation in the informal sector, and the persistence of violence against women. It highlights the necessity of combining both quantitative and qualitative indicators for monitoring the situation of women in the three studied areas. While sex-disaggregrated statistics with baselines are able to convey the extent of a problem rate of progress through numbers, the use of qualitative indicators can indeed also help to derive contextual information on women's experiences of situations.

The publication provides a comprehensive framework for using legal and other instruments to combat trafficking in persons, especially women and children. The Resource Guide calls for a multifaceted response to trafficking utilizing the complete range of legal and other instruments relevant to all dimensions of trafficking involving human rights, slavery and slavery-like practices, trafficking, migration, labour, gender and children.

This publication represents one of UNESCAP's efforts at developing a set of indicators with which to assess the degree of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. The set of indicators is also developed on the basis of the Millennirm Development Goals (MDGs) as well as the Jakarta Declaration and Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women in Asian and the Pacific. The ever-growing need to develop systems of gender statistics and indicators has underscored the importance in selecting indicators that are appropriate for the intended purpose as well as technically sound. In developing these indicators, the criteria of selection depended on their usefulness to the countries in Asia Pacific region and the current availability of information and official statistics. The publication is also mindful that the countries will actually decide the priorities on the basis of their own follow-up and assessment needs.

This publication examines gender manistreaming as a strategy and an effective and established tool used to ensure that gender-awareness is incorporated at every step of the policy process in order to achieve gender equality. The publication is the result of a symposium on gender mainstreaming organized by the Office of the Special Adviser on Women and Gender Issues and the Division for the Advancement of Women with the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in December of 2001. The symposium and publication cover key issues on gender mainstreaming insluding institutional change, responsibilities and accountabilities, and strategies from various sectors and countries.

This e-publication offers an analysis of the issues facing women in Asia and the Pacific region, particularly in the context of globalization and social development. It also suggests some policy options that could be pursued in order to address the challenges women face. The structure of this publication reflects, first, the core goals of social development and, second, the social risks and global opportunities that challenge the realization of these goals. Related themes addressed include poverty and gender inequality, the feminization of employment and unemployment, social integration and social mobilization, social protection, social security and social safety nets and women and ICT.

This publication examines the social protection systems in a selected number of Asian countries, particularly social safety nets put in place temporarily to mitigate the effects of the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, and the reform of the social protection systems. The publication would be useful for policy makers, planners, administrators, academics and others in formulating and implementing effective gender-respontive and sustainable social protection systems and social safety nets.

This publication reviews the national, regional and global initiatives for equal ICT access from a gender perspective, and to assess how these initiatives had been translated into gender-sensitive policies in the Asia and the Pacific region. It also includes the meeting report of the Expert Group Meeting to Review ICT Policy from a Gender Perspective in order to provide an overall picture of the ICT policy initiatives and legislation environment in the region. It is addressed to policy makers with a view to promote establishment of gender-sensitive ICT policies and strategies in the national context. Women's ICT organizations and advocates in the field of ICTs, gender equality, and women's empowerment will also find this publication useful.

To promote women's and women's groups; full participation in a rapidly changing global information society, there is a need to identify the current situation of women's groups with respect to ICT use in order for them to be able to take advantage of these new technologies to promote their causes and missions. This publication explores the needs and opportunities for women's groups of ICTs for utilization as a development tool. The results of this research, including preliminary conclusions and recommendations, can be used as an awareness-raising tool for policy makers, NGOs and donors on the linkage between ICTs and women's empowerment, as well as for suggestions for technical assistance.

This is the official report of the Asian Women in a Culture Peace Conference, held in Hanoi, Viet Nam in 2000. The Conference, timely due to the closing of the International Year for a Culture of Peace, was a collaboration between UNESCO and UNESCAP. It provided a forum for Asian women to share their visions, experiences, and strategies on peace-building and non-violence in Asia, and to coordinate their actions for the promotion of a culture of peace and sustainable and environmentally sound development in the region. The publication includes the Hanoi Declaration, a background paper on a culture of peace from a gender perspective, a background paper on the role of women in building peace in Asia and the Pacific, as well as issue papers on education, training, socialization, research, the mass media and communication, and the economic empowerment of women as tools for the promotion of women as effective and influential partners in peace-initiatives.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the international bill of rights for women, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1979. This publication is based on a project which was implemented in the Pacific region in 1998-1999 to support the networking efforts of NGOs in promoting CEDAW. Focal point NGOs identified their primary concerns regarding CEDAW, and conducted public awareness campaigns and other intitatives to foster women's empowerment in the Pacific Islands. The publication provides an analysis of NGOs'; valuable roles in facilitating the promotion of CEDAW, advocating for women's basic rights, and raising public awareness of the importance of gender equality and sustainable development.

This publication, which is a compilation of reports and country perspectives, provides a sub-regional overview of violence against women in South Asia. The focus is on domestic violence and other violence in the community and workplaces such as wife-beating, incest, dowry murder, foeticide, infanticide, rape, sexual harassment, prostitution and trafficking in women and children. Violence against women has been increasing in the South Asian region in recent years. The publication includes country reports on Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as chapters on impacts of major interventions, suggestions on action plans for the future and possible areas of cooperation, and reviews of successful methods of prevention and effective approaches to legislative and policy intervention on violence against women.

This publication is the final product of a project on Improving the Status of Women in Poverty, and includes country studies and analysis of the difficulties in designing, implementing and evaluating poverty reduction strategies. The publication reveals a need for qualitative indicators and genderized macroeconomic policies, especially amidst structural adjustment and the effects of globalization. Conceptual and methodological issues related to poor female-headed and female-maintained households in rural and urban areas are examined in the context of country studies in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and the Philippines. Researchers, policy makers, NGOs and advocacy groups working for poverty reduction will benefit from this publication.

This publication is based on a project to support women NGOs in South Asia to link the international level of the women's movement to the grass roots by assisting NGOs to communicate the recommendations made during the Fourth World Conference on Women and Forum '95. The project implementation process of NGOs in four countries (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) are introduced with samples of materials women at the grass roots produced for bringing the Beijing Platform for Action into their communities.

The second publication in the "Studies on Women in Development", this study on "Human rights and the Legal Status of Women in the Asian and the Pacific Region" includes a report and the recommendations of the Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on the topic, recommendations of the Expert Group Meeting, as well as background country papers presented by the Meeting's participants. The EGM brought together experts from the UNESCAP region to critically review the progress made towards women's equality with men in the field of human rights. The publication is suitable and valuable for any researcher, practitioner, policy makers and those working in international organizations who works to strengthen the legal status of women in the field of human rights, or in civil and private life.

This handbook is a result of a workshop on the same title which was held in October 1997. In addition to introducing the components of computer networking, its history and technical requirements, the handbook describes the experiences of national, regional and global efforts in promoting computer networking to foster women's empowerment and includes a survey of several countries

This first publication in the Studies on Women and Development Series is a regional study prepared under the UNESCAP project "Promotion of women's rights as human rights". It is geared toward policy makers, researchers, and NGOs to encourage them to promote women's rights as human rights and to promote cooperation in eliminating all forms of discrimination against women. The current challenge is to translate legal status into legal reality, and this publication intends to shed light on the promotion of the legal status of women and legal literacy as important issues for women in this region.