From DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.orgSat Sep 23 09:29:07 1995 Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 16:53:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: Jack Freeman assesses Beijing Conference [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 22.09.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jack Freeman assesses Beijing Conference By Jack Freeman Earth Times News Service "Women will no longer accept the role of second-class citizens." The words were spoken by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, at the closing session of the Fourth World Conference on Women, summing up as well as anyone could what the Conference in Beijing was all about. For, despite embittered feelings caused by the Chinese government's heavy-handed attempts to isolate the NGO Forum from the Conference proper, and reservations about sections of the 130-page Platform for Action voiced by some 40 nations, in the end there was clear consensus in Beijing that the women of the world are demanding equality and empowerment--and they want it now. Gertrude Mongella, Secretary General of the Conference, had proclaimed it a "social revolution in the making" in her opening address 11 days before. At the end she summed it up, for The Earth Times, this way: "I cannot describe the happiness I feel," she said. "I think we have achieved a very strong document for women. It is a launching pad for action for women's rights and for action for peace." At the closing session she hailed the adoption of the Platform for Action, saying: "We now have in our hands the mandates for which we have been working--our legitimate basis to demand change." Despite widespread concern before the Conference started that the Vatican and some Muslim nations would try to seek to roll back some of the advances on reproductive rights and reproductive health that had come out of the Cairo Population Conference last September, that did not happen. Indeed, it was generally agreed that the Beijing Platform makes notable advances in several critical areas, including: o The right of women to decide, without coercion, discrimination or violence, all matters related to their sexuality and fertility; o The valuation of women's unpaid work in the home, in agriculture and elsewhere; o The equal right of women to inheritance; o A broadening of the term "women's rights" and reaffirmation that they are human rights; o The need to end discrimination against the girl child, even before birth; o A commitment to put an end to violence against women; o A call for affirmative action programs to increase the numbers of women serving in decision making positions at all levels of government; o A call for inclusion of more women in peacemaking efforts. Among the proposals for the Platform for Action that failed to win acceptance was: language deploring discrimination based on "sexual orientation." Some participants in the Conference also voiced disappointment that it had failed to make much progress in the areas of war and peace and environmental concerns. In the end, many women's activists who were there expressed satisfaction with the Platform, although several said they were disappointed that more of the donor nations had not made specific commitments to provide additional funding to implement it. Some spokespersons for conservative Catholic and Muslim groups said they were disappointed that the Platform seemed to favor "individualism" over family values and paid too little attention to the value of motherhood. Still, there was virtual unanimity that the Conference had been a success. With more than 40,000 people participating (in Beijing and Huairou, site of the NGO Forum), it was the largest UN-sponsored conference ever. Almost 17,000 people were involved in the Conference proper, including some 5,000 delegates from 189 countries, 4,000 NGO people and 3,200 media people. Most estimates of the attendance at the NGO Forum were about 25,000--considerably lower than pre-Conference estimates as high as 36,000. Many participants called the Conference invaluable for the opportunities it provided for networking and sharing concerns with women from other countries. Many left Beijing vowing to monitor progress made on implementation of the Platform for Action, to stay in touch with one another, and to be in a position to report real progress when the next UN conference on women is held 10 years from now. Among the highlights of the Beijing Conference: Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told the opening session: "We must do more than decry the past. We must change the future . . . proclaim a new vision of equality and partnership." UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, prevented by illness from attending, sent a message read by Under Secretary General Ismat Kittani. He spoke of "a century of unprecedented social and political change on our planet" and the role of the UN in promoting women's equality over the past 50 years. US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton accused the Chinese government of "indefensible" violations of human rights, including the rights of women to attend international conferences. She told the Conference plenary: "It is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights. These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today there are people trying to silence our words. The voices of this Conference and of the women in Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly." Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund and Secretary General of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, told the plenary that "no one has the right to impose reproductive decisions" on women and that "any form of coercion is unacceptable" because it is a violation of human rights. Norway's Prime Minister Brundtland told the final session of the Conference that women must give up the illusion that someone else will do the job of establishing equality with men. "The history of liberation struggles," she said, "tells us that life, freedom, equality And opportunity have never been given. They have always been taken."