ISO: BRB
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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.
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AS WRITTEN


ADDRESS OF THE HONOURABLE BILLIE MILLER,
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
AND MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, TOURISM AND INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT

TO THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN,
BEIJING, CHINA, SEPTEMBER 11, 1995.


Madame President,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates.

It is a pleasure, Madame President, to congratulate you on your election
and to share the confidence expressed in your leadership of the work of
this Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

I bring special greetings from the Government and people of Barbados to
the Government and people of the People's Republic of China with whom
Barbados enjoys excellent relations. Let me also express my appreciation
to the Government for the excellent facilities provided for this
conference and for the hospitality and friendly welcome with which our
delegation has been received.

Madame President, the preparations for this conference have been long and
arduous. We applaud the outstanding role played by the Secretary General
for the Conference, Mrs. Gertrude Mongella, the work of her dedicated
staff, and the substantive contribution of the entire NGO community that
bring us to this crucial stage in the long march for equality,
development and peace. We acknowledge also the role played by the
governmental units charged with the responsibility for Women's Affairs,
all of which have worked tirelessly with minimal resources to ensure that
our countries were well prepared to participate in this historic event.

Barbados has collaborated closely with other member governments, NGOs,
and the specialised agencies and organs of the United Nations system in
the preparatory process for this Conference. We come to Beijing as a
member of the Caribbean Community which is united and will speak with one
voice on the major issues before us. I wish to take this opportunity to
publicly commend all who were involved in that process and whose efforts
have brought us here today.

We meet in Beijing to adopt a Platform of Action which must stand the
test of time well into the 21st century. Since the adoption of the
Forward Looking Strategies in Nairobi, there have been significant
changes in the international environment which have had a profound impact
on policies and people, especially women and children. These changes have
occurred not only in economic philosophies and strategies but also in
rapid advances in technologies, particularly in communications and new
approaches to management.

But the lives of women in many countries have not been touched by these
advances. They have experienced increasing unemployment, a decline in
real income, the worsening of social development indicators such as
infant mortality and literacy, the growing burden on their time to
compensate for lost public services, and an escalation of domestic and
public violence. In my own country Barbados, women have not been immune
from these adverse effects which stem in part from stabilisation and
structural adjustment programmes.

Also since Nairobi, the central role which women and gender issues have
occupied in United Nations Conferences has been re-emphasised. The draft
Platform before us represents a continuum of consciousness about the
gender dimension and the implications raised by the UN Conference on
Environment and Development in Rio; the UN Conference on Human Rights in
Vienna; the Global Conference on Sustainable Development of Small Island
Developing States in Barbados; the International Conference on Population
and Development in Cairo; and the World Summit on Social Development in
Copenhagen. We have come to Beijing to ensure the integrity of the
commitments made at these Conferences. And we also come to Beijing to
carry forward our vision of the kind of world we would want our children
to inherit.

Madame President, much has been achieved since the first World Conference
on Women in Mexico in 1975. In Barbados, we established a National
Commission on the Status of Women and created a Bureau of Women's Affairs
in 1976; we ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women in October 1980; in 1984, a National
Advisory Council on Women was appointed; in 1992, Government approved a
National Policy Statement on Women which integrated certain broad
principles essential to policy development in all sectors of the economy.
And in June of this year, we ratified the Inter-American Convention of
Belem do Para of June 1994 on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication
of Violence against Women.

Also since Mexico, Barbados has made dramatic progress in reforming laws
and enacting new legislation designed to guarantee women's rights and
eliminate discrimination. Such legislation includes the Family Law Act
(1982), the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (1983), the Maintenance
Act (1984), the Domestic Violence Act and the Sexual Offences Act (1992).
Recognising that some legal and administrative reforms are still required
to achieve adequate protection and treatment of women, under the law the
Government will continue to identify and implement needed reforms in
accordance with the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination Against Women.

Worldwide, however, many obstacles toward the empowerment of women
persist. We know that education is key to removing these barriers. Two
thirds of the world's illiterate are women. And we know that low female
literacy fosters poverty and thus high mortality, low life expectancy,
and low ratios of girl enrollment in school - repeating the cycle of
marginalization into the next generation.

But lack of education is not the only barrier to women's empowerment. The
International Conference on Population and Development reinforced the
link between women's rights, health and empowerment. Sexual and
reproductive rights are fundamental to the capacity of women to make
decisions in other areas of their private and public lives. And women's
full participation in decision-making is imperative if policies are to
reflect the concerns of more than half the world's people. At Beijing, we
must be careful not to reverse the gains made at Cairo on these important
issues.

Undervaluing women's work is also a matter of deep concern to this
Conference. This year's Human Development Report broke new ground in
highlighting the issue of women's un-waged work, and it's attempt to
quantify non-market work and the disparities between men and women in the
burden of work and in the income earned. The Report has also introduced
two new indices of human development which will make a special
contribution to our deliberations here and to the work ahead. I refer to
the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment
Measure (GEM). These, along with the Human Development Index provide
extremely useful tools for assessing progress toward a more equitable and
humane world.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) should be congratulated
on this work. Madame President, we know that these indices are by no
means perfect measurements of performance. But we are gratified that the
priority accorded by my country to social development in the twenty nine
years since its independence is reflected in the high rank achieved in
all three indices.

Our experience also shows that human development is not solely a function
of economic growth; that the well-being of our people can be enhanced,
even with modest growth. The key, Madame President, lies in the political
will to allocate the necessary financial and human resources and to
commit to gender equity.

This Conference provides a special opportunity for governments to
acknowledge the importance of prioritizing gender equality not only as a
human right, but as the most critical means to achieving the goals of
sustainable human development. The Platform of Action provides such a
blueprint for action by, with, and for the women of the world.

Madame President, while the plight of women is a major concern of both
developed and developing countries, the question of resources looms large
for developing countries in implementing this Platform of Action.
Following Rio, resources for agreed action plans of UN Conferences have
fallen far short of the commitments made by donor countries to support
developing countries. This pattern raises serious concern about the
viability of implementation, monitoring and follow-up. Implementation of
the Plan of Action for the Global Conference on Sustainable Development
of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which my country had the honour
to host, has become such a casualty. Budget constraints alone, however,
cannot explain the growing resource predicament in which programs,
adopted by consensus, now find themselves.

The experience of Barbados supports the conclusions of the Human
Development Report which underlines the need for firm political
commitment. Our experience also suggests that prudent management of
scarce economic and human resources is also crucial. We believe that
these have been the critical factors contributing to the favourable
ranking of Barbados in social development performance.

There is little doubt, however, that many countries like Barbados, still
need new and additional resources if they are to maintain their record in
gender equality. Certainly, there must be some way of acknowledging or
rewarding countries which have given priority to human development - in
the same way that countries which adopt appropriate macro-economic
policies of structural adjustment are encouraged and rewarded with
additional resources and concessionary financing.

On the occasion of this Conference, the Government of Barbados commits
itself to continue to pursue policies which will build on our past record
and advance the cause of gender equity. We will also give priority to
programmes which will ensure that women have access to comprehensive
primary and reproductive health services, and to the elimination of
gender-based violence in our society. And regionally, we will work with
our Caribbean partners to implement the Platform of Action adopted by
this Conference.

Madame President, I close with the words of a Caribbean poet who wrote of
Caribbean women what we know to be true of women everywhere:

"Our women are our unsung revolutionaries, our vanguard people, the ones
who take the strain, carry the visible and invisible burdens, make the
telling plans, dream the real large dreams, and forever act in the face
of overwhelming odds."

Madame President, this may be our last great opportunity in this century
to re-vitalise the implementation process towards equality, development
and peace. Let us not leave unfinished this noble task, which we have
launched here in Beijing, to the next generation.

I thank you.