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Friday, June 09, 2000
As the U.N. Special Session, Women 2000, wound toward today's conclusion of a weeklong look at progress since the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women, there was mounting concern from many delegates and attendees that advances codified in the Beijing conference's Platform for Action would be rolled back in the New York meeting's final consensus document. Here is a sampling of comment from the conference:
"Our movement to recognize and support women's rights is one of the most revolutionary and uplifting forces now shaping the world. And it is still young, still blossoming, still only beginning to spread the good news of opportunity and equality for women."
-- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an unusual intervention, noted that major parts of the final document remain unresolved and called on delegates to work together "to ensure that the gains made by women in Beijing five years ago are consolidated, protected and advanced further."
-- U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard