The Beijing Conference on Women was a revelation of the 20th Century woman's status vis-a-vis environment and other issues
On Eve's of footsteps
The recently concluded Fourth UN
world conference on women (FWCW)
in Beijing, scored important gains for
the fair sex while avoiding the setbacks
which been apprehended. Women
the right to sexual self-determination
and equal inheritance in the face of
well organised event backlash. Beijing
M also set a new world record for
cc participation with 37,000
and men attending the
and the parallel NGO Forum
to chart out paths for their just and
peaceful coextstence.
IF-Tbe ink has barely dried on the
for Action, the 130-page document
negotiated into existence at the
conference. The parting words of
ilibrunk Mongella, secretary-general of
Conference (and Tanzania's former
&=or to India), urging action to
JF" intent deserve much praise at a
Time when international agreements are
brorkered and broken with alarming
casualness.
The themes of equality, development and peace at the Conference
referred to the 3 uN conferences held on
women's status and quality of life during the UN Decade for Women (1975-
1985). Equality had been the focus in
Mexico in 1975, development in
Copenhagen in 1980, and peace in
Nairobi in 1985. Many believed that the
Forward Looking Strategies (FLS) for the
Advancement of Women to AE) 2000,
the document adopted at Nairobi in
1985 was the last document.
The FLS was a multi-level timebound programme for governments to
follow to ensure equality between the
sexes. But even where some governments were obliging and kept honest by
over-watchful women's rights activists,
political agendas were shaped more by
global events than rhetorical commitments to gender equality.
The'80s witnessed the transformation of the geo-political map of the
world with Cold War ending and Hot
Peace beginning. This was accompanied
by the rise of new global economic and
ideological forces, natural disasters like
drought and famine, human-made disasters like structural adjustment pro-
the iqP "f RTV/AlDq and the
return of old diseases like polio and,
perhaps the most profound change of
all, human-inducted threats to life.
Few feminist analysts doubted that
these events could unfold without leaving their mark on women's lives. A 1990
study by the UN Commission on the
Status of Women (csw) to review the
impact of the Nairobi FLS contained
both good news and bad news.
The good news was that the national
legislation to end discriminatory practices had improved, and that machinery
was now in place to analyse and address
gender inequality. The bad news
was that the legislation was not implemented and the machinery was ineffec-
tive. The inequality indicator developed
by Krishna Ahooja-Patel at the International Labour Organization confer-
ence in 1978, continued to reflect the
true state of women: constituting 50 per
cent of the world's population, they perform 70 per cent of the world's work,
earn 10 per cent of the world's income,
and own 1 per cent of the world's
property. The appraisal of the FLS
further revealed a range of disturbing
trends from female foeticide to the
Despite legislative reform, the structural and cultural foundations of women's subordination had remained
unchanged. The inexorable results were
reflected in worldwide phenomena like
persistent wage disparities between men
and women, the casualisation of
the female labour force, the gender gap in access ' to natural
resources, women s rights to
property, reproductive healthcare or judicial authority - the
list was depressingly long.
The Beijing Conference on
Women was born to resolve
for meaningful and sustained
action. The Conference secretariat, established in 1991,
decided that its strategy would be
2-feld - to raise awareness and
public interest on gender issues,
and focus on a few key areas of
concern rather than reproducing
a long list. The location for the
Conference was determined by
the UN'S tradition of regional balance for conferences. Asia was
next in line with China being the
only Asian country offering to
host the Conference.
Unlike its 3 predecessors, the
preparations for the FWCW were
designed to be participatory and
inclusive. Governments had
been instructed by the csw to
prepare national reports on
women's status with the active
participation of NGOS - the major new
force on the global stage. Although, not
all countries did, many embarked on a
voyage of discovery often guided by
women's organisations into the ground
realities of their most disenfranchised
arid disempowered fellow citizens. The
official process was complemented by
an even more rigorous NGO process.
Women's organisations holding
their parallel preparatory meetings,
issued 'shadow' national reports to
counter the deficiencies of the national
report and networked across issues and
cultures. Women from all walks and
purposes of life made their claims to the
process and moved their concerns centrestage. Five regional preparatory conferences for governments had been held
in 1994 in Dakkar (Africa), Jakarta (Asia
and the Pacific), Jordan (Arab region),
Vienna (Europe and North America)
and Santiago (Latin American and the
platforms for action. These -regional
documents were in turn synthesised by
the Conference secretariat, and assembled into the draft Platform for Action
to be adopted by nations in Beijing. The
draft Platform for Action was built on
12 'critical areas of concern' covering
poverty, education, health, violence,
economic participation, decisionmaking, mass media, armed conflict, human
rights, environment, institutions and
the girl child.
The dress rehearsal for Beijing came at
the final PrepCom (preparatory committee) during the 39th session of the
annual meeting of the Commission on
the Status of Women in New York, in
March/April 1995. It was in New York
that things came to a head as delegates
from the 187 UN member states assembled to thrash out their differences and
clear the way for Beijing in September.
It took an additional week to settle controversies over the use of the analytical
term 'gender'regarding women's sexual
rights and sexual orientation.
The fact that the FWCW came in the
rerences neia in as many years, an"eo
the political baggage that the d
brought to the Conference tables
them. Counting backwards, thlem
been the World Social Sunum .
Copenhagen in March 1995,
International Conference
Population and Develo
(ICPD) in Cairo in
International Confe ce
Human Rights in Vienna is
1993, the UN Conference 49
Environment and Develoynhad
(the Earth Summit) in Rio
Janeiro in 1992, and
International Conference on
Girl Child in 1991. At each a
these conferences, nalssoll
organised into regional inte
blocs like the G-77
European Union, had ZA
over everything from mo
biodiversity. There
that some countries woutold,
Beijing as their theatre of
fr.om commitments. The "I
visible areas of dispute
threatened backslidin,
on women's reproductrIel"i
sexual rights advanced at d
ICPD in 1994,sality of women's human rift
enshrined in Vienna in 1999
These disputes did not r
confrontations between states 4q
much as confrontations bet
social forces with differing
der ideologies across countries:
conservatives wishing to ret patri
archy, and liberals seeking to liberate
women from gender roles that resigne
them to greater hunger, illiteracy,
poverty and domestic violence that
men face in any society.
Other less visible areas of dispute
included language on the responsibility
of industrialised countries for environmental degradation, criticism of struc
total adjustment programmes and ?I
ative impacts of the globalisinion of tbie
world economy. While the former set I
objections stemmed from the ultracon
servative backlash to women's gains
the trend towards cultural relativisal
in;
the later set had to do with contain
North-South divisions rega
distribution of wealth, power
resources. The strength and weakness
of the draft Platform for Action
discussed at Beijing, mirrored the
tcomes of the conferences that pre-
caded it. The rearguard action begun by
holy alliance' states (those that had
10Z together with the Holy See, arid
Honduras, Sudan, Guatemala,
eptakistan, Benin) at Cairo, which
smokescreeu of cultural rela
itn deny women and girls the
Fans of ensuring their health and bod
integrity which they said was the
threat to societal advancements.
guard against the dilution of the
on health, human rights, gen
vwknce and the rights and needs of
child, activists and lobbyists
rly from Latin America) had
that these were among the
thorough and well-defended
n of the document. The other
areas of concern for women
access to education, produc
resources, political decisionmaking
and porwpation in conflict resolution,
were more consensus-prone and also
Well-represented.
Of all the sections of the draft Platform
For Aicuon, however, the weakest and
integrated was the one on eriviron
Akhough the document did con
ges on the necessity for sus
Zimble development and global equity,
Md recognised the problems of acceler
awd economic growth, unsustainable
boducuon and consumption patterns,
md the negative impact on women of
tw-Mar", adjustment, the gender spe
Wky of the impact of the environmen
bi degradation and the centrality of
wommen as solution for sustairiability
owe absent. Environment was referred
to as a resource management issue.
While women's lack of access to and
control over natural resources whether it is fuelwood, water or fertile
lands - has to be urgently redressed,
more women need to be rep'resented in
government forums. The issue of
over-consumption by the rich minority
and under-consumption by the poor
majority, in both the North and the
South, as one of the most pressing issues
of environmental injustice was given
short shrift.
Here, the role that women as
primary consumers, could play (espe-
emphasised. While the document
recognised that many indigenous and
rural women are custodians of traditional knowledge, their control over this
knowledge and their intellectual property rights went unrecognised. There
was also no mention of the more fundamental critique of feminists of the
development model based on the shadow subsidy of women's unpaid labour.
Nor was there mention of the fundamental fallacy of promoting a growthbased economic model in a world with
ecological limits.
The document also neglected the
need to revive economic systems guided
by an ethic of minimum interference
with nature's products and it marginalised environmental issues from the
decision of mainstream political economic and social concerns. The
Platform for Action could have built on
the Earth Summit's prohibition of the
world's work done by the fair sex remains
fransboundary movement of illegal
toxic and hazardous waste in the
Agenda 21, to include the export and
dumping of all toxic, hazardous' and
radioactive material. Further, it could
have called for a code of conduct for
multinational corporations, whose
brazen profiteering often takes a ton oh
women, their families and ecosystems.
Of the thousands of women
who attended the NGo Forum in
Huairou, to parley on issues as disparate
as environmental health, economic
justice, biotechnology, communitybased development and militarism all contributed to the realisation of a
new life.
If we define sustainable development as development that is based on
the non-hicrarchial, non-exploitative
relations between women and men,
then Beijing must be seen as an important stop in the right direction.
When it finally emerged front under
wraps, the Platform for Action did
reveal some significant victories for
women. The most visible victories were
to do with the recognition of women's
right to sexual self-determination as a
fundamental human right that had been
vehemently opposed by the 'holy
alliance' countries.
While this recognition may not
completely transform the power relations between women and men in their
families, communities or countries
overnight, it does acknowledge women's right to refuse unwanted sex (even
marital), choose a female partner or
determine when and how many children they will bear. The right to equal
inheritance for women, regardless of
religious or cultural prescription, was
another groundbreaking victory. This
was particularly significant for the
African women participants in Beijing,
who placed top priority on land rights.
Despite fears to the contrary, the
advancements made at Cairo regarding
women's reproductive rights, and the
term 'families' to include non-traditional family units were maintained.
Among other significant gains were the
commitments made to increase credit
programmes for poor women, improving national accounting systems to
include unpaid labour by women, and
mobilising additional resources for
developing countries to enable implementation of the Platform for Action
effectively.
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