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Final document holds the line on reproductive health, strengthens anti-violence language
Sunday, June 11, 2000
By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
UNITED NATIONS -- So what was accomplished?
The 10,000 to 12,000 women who flocked to New York City for a review of the crusade for gender equality after 40,000 women had gathered in Beijing five years ago sat earnestly through five days of conferences, seminars, speech-making in the U.N. General Assembly and behind-the-scenes deal-making.
They battled ferociously behind closed doors, far apart on whether nontraditional families should be given recognition, on abortion rights and on whether stressing a wife's equality within marriage undermines traditional values.
Not until yesterday morning did the delegates from 180 countries formally reach consensus on a lengthy document that reaffirmed the plan of action adopted in Beijing five years ago.
An exasperated Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, at one point sent a statement to the negotiating delegates to the 23rd special session of the General Assembly, convened to monitor progress on gender equality. It would serve no purpose to retreat on the language of Beijing, he warned.
Angela King, the assistant secretary-general who is a special adviser to Annan on gender, exulted that there was no "rollback" from Beijing and noted that the language on reproductive health was not weakened. But she also said that she was frustrated that the language from the 150-page document adopted by 189 governments in 1995 was not quickly rubber-stamped this past week in New York.
Also, aside from some tougher language on the need to prevent and treat AIDS and the need to criminalize violence against women, there was not much strengthening of the Beijing document.
The dark corridors of the U.N. Secretariat building were filled with grumbling women in colorful saris, elaborate turbans and formidable piles of papers, complaining that they were going to have to return home without a final document, still being parsed and argued over yesterday. Conference participants' credentials and access to the United Nations expired Friday.
Some Islamic women and representatives for the Vatican, which has Permanent Observer status at the United Nations, complained that they had to fight to guard against "too much" emphasis on "sexual rights" and equal rights in marriage they feared could undermine the traditional family or sex education for children. Thus, the terms "sexual rights" and sexual orientation were excluded from the document.
Lesbian women angrily said they were being ignored and their interests traded in return for hard-won consensus that domestic violence against women is a crime that governments can not ignore and the firmer commitment on AIDS.
The issues are so sensitive that some representatives of nongovernmental organizations to the conference refused to have their names on lists for fear of reprisals to them or their families when they get home. Some Arab women, for example, said any suggestion that they support abortion rights or would vote to condemn discrimination against homosexuals would be considered outrageous at home.
But Gita Sen, an Indian lawyer who was highly visible at the conference, said she was upset that the same debates of five years ago were back with a vengeance at this conference and that it took more than a week to thresh them out again.
Some representatives said it didn't really matter what the final document said because it emphasized repeatedly that the goals of gender equality, development and peace remain the same.
The delegates agreed that the goals of the Beijing Platform for Action have not been met. And they vowed to urge their own governments to do more.
But others say it does matter because the forcefulness of U.N. documents can determine how much influence, if any, they have on member states and what effect some international agencies will have.
The conference did return the issue of women's rights to center stage again, which was a paramount goal of its organizers. With three-fourths of the 110 million children not in school being female, the documents sets a target of 2005 for gender equality in education worldwide.
Also, there is a wider recognition that marital rape should be forbidden, that the sexual trafficking of women is a crime that has been overlooked for too long, that domestic abuse of women is a crime.
The week gave the women present new zeal to continue to press for their cause of equal rights, they said, a sense of sisterhood that, a woman from India said, sustains her when things look bleak. And several hundred women were elated to hear Hillary Rodham Clinton speak on the need for micro credit, small loans made to poor women to help them earn a living by buying a sewing machine or milk cows or bakery equipment.
One of the organizers of the event, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, almost didn't even come to the conference.
In the Middle East, working to get the peace process back on track, she wasn't sure she wanted to speak to a divided group that might not reach a consensus.
Over and over, the women in dozens of forums, large and small, said they want more than words. They want action. They want governments to stop looking the other way when discrimination occurs. They want health insurance. They want reproductive rights. They want job training and more equal access to education. They want power and decision making authority. They want to be involved as peace makers. They want poor women to have Internet access.
They told grim stories of justice denied, of women beaten or killed just for being women, of women persecuted by the Taliban, of women who can't inherit property, of girls and women sold into sexual slavery, of African women having more AIDS cases than men do, of women raped without recourse.
"You do get very depressed and very gloomy," said Eveline Herfkens of the Netherlands, at one time the only woman on the World Bank Board. "Gender inequality limits economic growth for entire countries."
They also told of breakthroughs -- new laws against female genital mutilation, new laws letting women inherit property, less hunger, more girls going to school, more laws criminalizing violence against women.
At week's end there was a gnawing suspicion that many of the women who attended will never see equality achieved in their lifetimes and what they fear most, that it won't be achieved during the lives of their daughters, either.
A Work In Progress