Fair for Women? A Gender Analysis of Benefit Sharing - Benefit Sharing - page 125

Chapter 6
Fair for Women? A Gender Analysis
of Benefit Sharing
Julie Cook Lucas and Fatima Alvarez Castillo
Abstract If benefit sharing is about justice, then it needs to be fair for both sexes.
This chapter provides a gender analysis of benefit sharing. Five cases are pre-
sented, from Kenya (Nairobi sex workers), Nigeria (NIPRISAN), southern Africa
(San/Hoodia), India (Kani people), and Iceland (deCODE biobank), to show the
ways in which women are politically marginalized, and the implications of this
for genuine fairness in benefit sharing. In the light of international commitments
to women's rights, international guidelines on benefit sharing are examined for the
extent to which they protect such rights. Seeing how gender-based power imbal-
ances on the ground can work against the implementation of guidelines and poli-
cies demonstrates the importance of strategies, processes and mechanisms that are
sensitive to power dynamics in local contexts. The chapter concludes that all guide-
lines and policies for benefit sharing should explicitly require women's meaningful
participation in all phases of decision-making, and should include examples of the
kinds of mechanisms that will enable women to have an effective voice.
Keywords Beneit sharing • Gender • Indigenous peoples • Women's rights •
Justice • Women's representation
Women's empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres
of society, including participation in the decision-making process and access to power,
are fundamental for the achievement of equality, development and peace …(UN 1995 :
Beijing Declaration, paragraph 13).
J. C. Lucas ( * )
UCLAN, Centre for Professional Ethics, Brook 317, Preston PR1 2HE, UK
e-mail: [e-mail]
F. Alvarez Castillo
College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila, Padre Faura Street,
1000 Manila, Philippines
e-mail: [e-mail]