What's IWYLG ?@@@
International Womenfs Year Liaison Group (IWYLG)
Toward the objective of 1975 International Women's Year: Equality, Development and Peace, advocated by the United Nations, Japanese women's organizations gathered together transcending their views, principles and fields of activities, and organized the Japan International Womenfs Year Convention in November, 1975. In order to implement the resolutions adopted at the Convention, International Women's Year Liaison Group (IWYLG) was founded in December, 1975, with Fusae Ichikawa as its coordinator. At present, the Group consists of about 40 national womenfs organizations with a total of some 20 million members.
Responding to the United Nations World Conferences on Women, IWYLG organized conventions in Japan in 1975, the International Womenfs Year, in1980, the midterm year of the United Nations Decade for Women, and in 1985, the final year of the United Nations Decade for Women, and reviewed and assessed the progress we made and identified challenges we faced. In 1988, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, IWYLG formulated the Plan of Action for Civil Society, and organized the Civil Womenfs Conference in 1990, in order to review and assess the implementation of the Plan of Action for Civil Society. At the Conference a special resolution was adopted on UNIFEM to promote economic independence of women in developing countries.
When the Fourth World Conference on Women was held in 1995, IWYLG participated in its NGO Forum in Huairou and organized the NGO Japan Convention in Tokyo in November, where the Plan of Action for NGOs was adopted based on the Beijing Platform for Action adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women.
Since its foundation, IWYLG has been dealing with important issues on gender-equality, has often written letters to and laid issues before the Government, local governments, political parties and relevant bodies, and held consultations with women parliamentarians. It has coherently demanded that successive prime ministers adopt policies to promote gender-equality and strengthen institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women.
IWYLG was given a special consultative status with Economic and Social Council in 1998. It sent its members as advisers to the Japanese delegations to the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, the 23rd Special Session of the General Assembly in 2000, entitled "Women 2000: Gender-equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century", and the 49th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (Beijing +10).
IWYLG consisting of autonomous and independent womenfs organizations nationwide is continuing its activities aimed at realizing a gender-equal society through its solidarity and actions.
