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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


FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN
STATEMENT BY YVES BERTHELOT, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY,
ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE (ECE)
6 September 1995 (Translated from the French)


Madame President,
Honourable Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The countries of Europe, North America and Central Asia which comprise
the region of the Economic Commission for Europe attach the greatest
importance to the success of the Fourth World Conference on Women. Each
of those countries has intensely and at times passionately prepared for
it, as evidenced by the statements you have been hearing. However,
leaving aside the cultural and economic differences, one senses that the
women of the region are united by common difficulties and aspirations,
and that a unified vision of their contribution to regional stability
and development can be forged. The ECE member States have accordingly
decided to formulate a common platform for action, both to contribute to
the Beijing conference and to guide their future policies and
cooperation.

This preparatory process culminated at a high-level meeting held at
Vienna in October 1994, under the aegis of the Commission and attended
by a number of ministers, several hundred non-governmental organizations
and most of the major organizations of the United Nations system.

It is therefore a great honour for me to present to you highlights of
the analyses and recommendations made at Vienna. These recommendations
were formulated on the basis of a mixed assessment of how the situation
of women in the region has evolved over the past 10 years. While it is
true that significant progress has taken place in terms of legislation
on women's rights and equal treatment before the law, major gaps still
exist between the de jure and de facto situation. In the economic
domain, the number of professionally active women has risen
substantially, their activities have diversified and they have
increasing access to high-level positions. None the less, the majority
of them have poorly paid and precarious jobs; their remuneration has
actually declined since the late 1980s; and their share of unemployment
exceeds that of men in two thirds of the ECE countries. In social terms,
innovative measures, such as parental leave, child care and flextime
arrangements have permitted greater reconciliation of work and family
responsibilities, but such measures exist only in a small number of
countries. Women's participation in public life remains quite low, with
the exception of the Scandinavian countries, and has even declined in
the rest of western Europe, although it has risen in central and eastern
Europe after falling sharply when party quotas were abolished.

It is in the countries in transition that women’s situation is the most
critical. The prolonged recession, and the relatively little attention
being paid to social problems, have caused that situation to deteriorate
in most households and for most women: maternal mortality rates and
other gender-disaggregated statistics show that they are increasingly
impoverished and that their life expectancy has diminished.

In the light of this mixed assessment of the situation of women in the
ECE region, the Vienna Meeting accorded top priority to combatting the
feminization of poverty and to promoting women's rights and their full
participation in economic and social life by means of greater access to
employment, education and health care.

Allow me now to highlight some of the principles and policies adopted or
recommended by the Meeting. First of all, it reaffirmed the principle
that the fundamental rights of women are an "inalienable, integral and
indivisible" part of human rights. Within that context, and given the
dramatic situation of women in war-torn areas within the region, the ECE
member States endorsed sanctions against those who use women as a
"weapon of war" through such acts as murder, rape, sexual slavery,
forced pregnancy and torture. Secondly, in taking up the language of the
Cairo Programme of Action, the regional platform demands that women's
reproductive rights should be fully recognized and respected. It calls
for a new gender contract for sharing work and family responsibilities
on an equal basis as a prerequisite for changing both behaviour and
attitudes. And it invites States to orient all government action towards
equality between women and men.

I should also like to stress the importance attached by ECE member
States to the need for gender-disaggregated data and new statistical
methodologies. These are essential in order to highlight women's
contribution to the economy, raise awareness of the unequal treatment of
women and men and analyse the differential impact of economic and social
policies now being implemented or in the planning stages. The
Commission's secretariat is already involved in these tasks, cooperating
closely with member States, regional organizations and the relevant
United Nations bodies. The publication entitled "Women and men in Europe
and North America 1995", of which several copies are available here, is
a good example of this ongoing work.

It is my hope that this Conference will consider the principles and
policies I have just referred to; I am very pleased that a number of the
Vienna proposals already appear in the draft Global Platform for Action
now before you. The regional platform calls for a follow-up mechanism
involving Governments, non-governmental organizations and
intergovernmental organizations active in the region. As it was asked to
do, the ECE Œ secretariat is prepared to mainstream women’s issues into
all aspects of its work, and particularly in its analyses and
statistics. In its role as the facilitator of regional cooperation both
among the United Nations bodies and between those organizations and
other regional groupings, it will give the highest priority to the
follow-up of the Beijing Conference and to the implementation of the
Vienna Platform; in particular, it could assist in the formulation of a
regional plan for implementation of the measures recommended by both
platforms.

It is none the less obvious that the Commission cannot fully carry out
this work or assume its role without the necessary resources. This
premise is reflected in the recommendations contained in the draft
global platform concerning regional follow-up, which call for
strengthening the role of the regional commissions in order to ensure
the follow-up of both the global platform and the respective regional
platforms.

Madame President,

Every region of the world has experienced the fact that in times of
economic and social crisis, it is women who are the first victims and
yet who ensure the survival of the family. This dual burden is even
greater in areas of armed conflict. The Conference will succeed if
specific and concrete commitments are taken that can help bring an end
to that vicious circle. The success of the Conference will also be
measured by its ability to create a world in which women and men are
equal partners in every aspect of their lives.

Thank you, Madame President.