From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgFri Sep 22 10:16:13 1995 Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 12:18:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: Women Finish Platform [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] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [This article has been excerpted.] In surprising accord, women finish platform Patrick E. Tyler / The New York Times BEIJING - The Fourth World Conference on Women reached agreement...this morning on a broad declaration calling on world governments to raise the economic circumstances of women, protect them from increasing levels of violence, and improve the status of girls throughout the world. The "platform for action" was to be presented to a session for ratification later today, and the vote was expected to be unanimous. A small number of states, including the Vatican and other countries with large Muslim or Roman Catholic populations, may register objections to specific sections. The completion of the document brings to an end 10 days of debate on issues ranging from how to free women from poverty through new credit proposals, how to raise the education level of girls, and how to insure their legal rights, including the right to equal inheritance. In the final hours, women groaned, cheered, and applauded through the final arguments in a sometimes raucous atmosphere...largely free of rancor, but where protocol was often lost in the noise. An Iranian slapped an Irish delegate on the back after they had gone head to head after a daylong negotiating session over sexual rights. Both seemed satisfied with the outcome. After a series of key compromises on language relating to sexual rights and cultural and religious differences, delegates from 185 countries debated final sticking points until 4:45 a.m. "We have a platform," said Patricia B. Licunan, who was chairman of the final drafting meeting that was to present the document to a session...today. "I promised we would be out of here before sunrise and I kept my promise," she said. Chief among the final obstacles to consensus was the issue of homosexuality and whether "sexual orientation" should be included in the antidiscrimination clauses of the document. But this language was jettisoned at 4:15 a.m. over the objection of more than 30 countries, including South Africa, whose delegation chief, Dr. Nkhosasna Zuna said: "We shall promise ourselves and future generations...we shall not discriminate against anyone ever again." The United States and Israel also spoke in favor of including sexual orientation. In an era of tight domestic budgets in many countries, the conference failed to win sizable financial commitments from governments to pay for new programs for women, but it managed to elicit a large number of pledges to redirect national budgets and resources. "There is not much new money around," said Monsignor Diarmuid Martin, a Vatican representative here, "but the benefit of these conferences is...they focus the attention of everyone on how money ought to be spent and how it can be refocused." India committed to raise the level of its investment in education with a focus on women and girls. Britain pledged to raise its child care expenditures 20 percent. The United States is setting up a White House Council on Women, and, as part of the 1994 crime bill, will carry out a six-year Justice Department initiative to combat domestic violence and other crimes against women. The conference ground to its conclusion with far less rancor than...expected on the sensitive issues of contraception and abortion. "It's been a long two weeks, it feels like two years," said Geraldine Ferraro, deputy chairman of the American delegation and delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. This conference, which follows meetings that began in Mexico City in 1975, was suffused with a sense of urgency by the rise of the number of women in poverty and the systemic rape and violence directed at women in the "ethnic cleansing" campaigns in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. With the end of the Cold War and the economic dislocations it has fostered, women's advocates have warned of the "feminization of poverty." Of the 1.5 billion people living in poverty, an estimated 70 percent are women. China had hoped to be one of the greatest beneficiaries of this conference by virtue of Beijing's selection as its site. But instead, China's fears...pro-democracy and human rights campaigners would set off a new outpouring of dissent against its government led, at times, to heavy-handed security measures. SIDEBAR: Platform's key points * Sex: Women have the right to decide freely all matters related to their sexuality and child-bearing. The platform condemns forced sterilizations and forced abortions. * Rape in war: The systematic rape of women in wartime is a crime and must be immediately stopped. Perpetrators are war criminals and must be punished. * Children's rights: Children have the right to privacy when receiving health information and services, but their rights must be balanced against their parents' rights and duties. * Women in power: Governments, parties and the entire private sector should 'build a critical mass' of women leaders, executives and managers. * Female inheritance: Governments should guarantee women equal rights to inherit, although they may not necessarily inherit the same amount as sons. * The family: It is the basic unit of society and should be strengthened, protected and supported. Women must not suffer discrimination because they are mothers. * Violence: Marital rape, genital mutilation of girls, attacks on women because their dowries are too small, domestic battering and sexual harassment at work are all forms of violence against women and violations of their human rights. 15.9.95