ISO: THA *************************************************************************** The electronic version of this document has been prepared at the Fourth World Conference on Women by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Secretariat. *************************************************************************** AS WRITTEN STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. PRASONG BOONPONG, MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE, VICE-CHAIRPERSON OF THAILAND'S NATIONAL COMMISSION ON WOMEN'S AFFAIRS HEAD OF THE DELEGATIONS OF THAILAND TO THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN BEIJING, CHINA, SEPTEMBER 5, 1995.(Please check against delivery) Madam President, On behalf of the Thai Delegation, may I extend my warmest congratulations to Your Excellency upon your election as President of the Fourth World Conference on Women. I would also like to express my deep appreciation to the Government and the people of the People's Republic of China for hosting this Conference and their warm hospitality extended to us. Our thanks also go to the many women and men who have worked for years to bring us here together today. Over the next two weeks we will face a great challenge - to chart the future course for all women all over the world, a course that aims to create new partnerships between women and men into the 21st century and a course that ensures equality, development and peace for women. The famous Thai poet namely Montri Umavijani wrote of observing a woman in another Asian nation: "Life must have been full of privations her whole being showed a nostalgia for the other side of the mountain she seemed to have left forever since the time of birth" I said another nation without identifying it, simply because the sad fact is that it could be any nation on this globe, for none has yet achieved the ideal launched with high hopes 20 years ago. The attainment to equality, development and peace for women are still out of reach. They are still "on the other side of the mountain". But this should be a fact which drives us on, rather than cause for despair. While that side of the mountain may still be elusive, women in many countries, including Thailand, have certainly gained more of a glimpse of that goal - have maybe even begun scaling the foothills towards equality, development and peace. For Thailand, the past ten years have been ones of tremendous social, economic and political change. There have been years of massive growth and development, something for which many countries are still striving. And we can be proud of the achievements of those years, while acknowledging that although women have benefited, they have not benefited equally, let alone begun to catch up with the many disadvantages with which they started the decade. Yet women have been the primary contributors to the nation's growth. Among the decade's success stories, in export-orientated industries such as clothing and textiles, electronics, preserved and frozen food and jewelry, women have provided more than 70 per cent of the workers. And women as a group have been able to share some of the benefits. Regarding the three sub-themes of the Decade for Women namely:- employment, education and health, we have seen many improvements in Thailand . Educational levels for young women are approaching very close to their male compatriots and health services have been improved, as evidenced by rising lifespans and falling maternal and child death rates, while access to the essentials of safe water supplies, sanitary and electricity have risen rapidly. In employment Thai women maintain their strong place, compromising about 47 per cent of the total national workforce. Yet many inequalities remain. Women continue to study in course which place them in supportive, rather than decision-making roles, and young girls are more likely than their brothers to leave education early to enter employment. They continue to earn far less than their male counterparts in industrial sector and at all levels. Throughout society, it is still enormously difficult for women to step outside prescribed roles - to find their own place on the mountain, rather than the one to which they have been directed. These are pervasive and difficult problems, yet there is a will to tackle them. The Thai Government will do everything it can to ensure women's access to all parts of the mountain. Maybe we will have to move the mountain - maybe we will have to demolish and rebuild it - but the Thai government will ensure that women which represent half of our nation have the opportunity to fully develops exercise their skills, abilities and interest. The Thai government is now preparing its next Eighth National Economic and Social Development Plan, which will take the nation into the next millennium. The Plan will be different its stress will not be simply on economic development, but on development from a social perspective. The plan will be people-centered, and as such particularly concerned with women, children, marginal social groups and the family æ both actors and beneficiaries of development. This will be development of people, and development for people. We are now working to ensure the need to work, for gender equity is fully recognized in our national plan, æ set out in Thailand's recently revised Perspective Policy and Plan for Women's Development, designed to provide guidelines for the next 20 years. The other important guide for us will be the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action to be adopted by this conference. I would like to affirm that the Thai Government will be committed to both important documents - and that means we are committed to take action to ensure that they come into effect. ##Last year, countries in the Asia and Pacific region, including Thailand got together in Jakarta in preparation for this conference. The mission statement of the Jakarta Plan of Action developed at that meeting stating that its aim was to be a framework for "concrete programmes and policies in all spheres of women's involvement". That message from Jakarta is one we will also have to take away from Beijing. Debate and planning are important, but they will not move the mountain. The draft Declaration and the Platform for Action which will be adopted by this Conference will offer us a basis for reducing inequalities between men and women and accelerating the advancement of women, building on the work of Nairobi and the International Decade for Women. It is up to us all here today not just to make these documents the best they can possibly be, but to ensure that they lead not just the intention, but actual implementation which will help women on to the other side of the mountain". If that means we must move the mountain, then so be it. With the skills, knowledge and ability of women and men of the world it can be done. It is important that over the next two weeks we do not just chart the problems. These are already well documented, and we have all seen them on the ground in our own nations. What we have to do is to look beyond Beijing. Please not just ask ourselves What should be done?" Instead ask:.... What will we do?" "How can we do it?" and When will we start?" I pledge here that the Thai Government will ensure that the Declaration and the Platform for Action from this conference will be implemented. We will draw up a detailed plan of action for Thailand. We will ensure that it is put into action. We will start today. Thank you Madam President.