HISTORY
OF
CIM
CIM
Expands with the Inter-American System
The
English-speaking countries of the Caribbean followed their independence
with an application to join the OAS and CIM. As the OAS increased in
numbers after 1967, with the staggered entrance of the island nations of
the Caribbean, membership in CIM expanded accordingly. When Guyana and
Belize joined the OAS in 1990, all the independent nations of the Americas
were also represented in CIM.
From
the halls of parliament to rural shops, women in the Caribbean have long
been engaged in political debate and public discourse. Correspondingly,
Caribbean delegates have played an increasingly important role in CIM. In
their discussions of questions of civil rights, health
issues, and problems of violence against women, they have brought to the
continuing struggle for women's rights their particular perspective and
additional support.
Canada,
which joined the OAS in 1989, has been active in its support of CIM and
its endeavors since it became an observer member of the Organization in
1972.
Women
and development
The
quest for educational opportunities for women and the application of that
education to secure civil and political rights was fundamental for
feminists in the Americas and for the founders of CIM. CIM's leaders felt
that supporting the "moral, intellectual, and physical"
education of women was an essential part of helping women to obtain and
exercise the rights they were due. Equal access to education for women at
all levels—be it academic, technical, commercial, formal, informal,
scientific, political, domestic, or university level—was and continues
to be one of the primary objectives of CIM. As stated in 1947, CIM's
mandate established that:
The
economic and social development of our countries calls for the effective
participation of scientifically or technically trained women at all levels
of endeavor.
In
the 1950s, with the battle for women's suffrage in the Americas nearly
won, CIM made economic and social rights the priority. The move
represented a more comprehensive understanding of gender inequality, its
sources, and of what steps were needed to improve the status of women.
CIM
efforts resulted in a wider acceptance of the reality which most Latin
American and Caribbean women confronted: the "double working
day" and the need for social legislation to guarantee them a fair
wage and acceptable working conditions.
This
focus had always been part of the program of CIM and of feminists of the
region. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, along with support of women's
efforts to have the provisions of the 1948 Conventions on the Granting of
Political and Civil Rights implemented in the OAS member states, CIM
supported technical cooperation projects. CIM programs offered working
women organizational and cooperative training. For both urban and rural
women, CIM supported income-generating projects which supplied both the
means and skills necessary for women to modify their situation. It
stressed equal pay for equal work as the basis for any consideration of
economic policy that affected women.
