From: beijing-conf-digest-owner@mail.edc.org To: beijing-conf-digest@mail.edc.org Subject: Beijing Women's Conference Digest V2 #119 Reply-To: beijing-conf@mail.edc.org Errors-To: beijing-conf-digest-owner@mail.edc.org Precedence: Beijing Women's Conference Digest Tuesday, 26 September 1995 Volume 02 : Number 119 In this issue: GLOBAL_TRAFFICKING_OF_WOMEN NGO FORUM ON WOMEN: A VIEW FROM CHINA WCW: Sisterhood... WCW: Green Left #203, September 20, 1995 IMPLEMENTATION & COMMITMENTS ? WCW: UN's Gastaut makes impact at Beijing WCW: Vatican Raps Women's Meeting WCW: Jan Pronk of Holland assesses Beijing Re: (DIS)INFORMATION ON CONTRACEPTION WCW: Questions of gender equality at Beijing See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the Beijing Women's Conference or Beijing-Conf-Digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 07:31:00 +0100 Subject: GLOBAL_TRAFFICKING_OF_WOMEN DATE=9/22/95 TITLE=GLOBAL TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN BYLINE=STEPHANIE HO DATELINE=BEIJING INTRO: IN THE POST COLD WORLD ERA, ONE INCREASINGLY TROUBLESOME BUT LITTLE REPORTED PHENOMENON IS THE RISE IN TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN. V-O-A'S STEPHANIE RECENTLY SPOKE WITH EXPERTS ON THIS ISSUE AT THE UNITED NATIONS FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN IN BEIJING, AND HAS THIS REPORT. TEXT: THE PROMISE OF A BETTER JOB IS USUALLY THE BAIT TRAFFICKERS USE TO LURE YOUNG WOMEN FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER ILLEGALLY. THEN, ONCE A WOMAN IS IN THEIR CONTROL, THE TRAFFICKERS SELL HER TO WORK AS A PROSTITUTE OR AS A VIRTUAL SLAVE LABORER. ACCORDING TO LIN LAP, OF THE NETHERLANDS-BASED FOUNDATION AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN, THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VICTIMS IN EUROPE OFTEN COME FROM POORER COUNTRIES AND HAVE MANY REASONS FOR WANTING TO LEAVE. // LAP ACT // WOMEN ARE JUST SOMETIMES TRYING TO LEAVE A BAD FAMILY SITUATION. THEY'RE NOT HAVING A CHANCE IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES IN EASTERN EUROPE, AND THEY COULDN'T GET A HOUSE TO STAY SEPARATE FROM THEIR FAMILY. THEY DON'T HAVE JOBS OR THEY JUST CAN'T BE INDEPENDENT. SO THEY THINK, WELL, IT'S POSSIBLE IN WESTERN EUROPE, IT'S POSSIBLE SOMEWHERE ELSE, AND THEY JUST GO AND TRY. THEN, WHEN THEY COME THERE, IT'S IMMEDIATELY PASSPORTS TAKEN AWAY, [WITH THE TRAFFICKER] SAYING "NO, YOU'RE HERE NOW AND I'VE ARRANGED ALL THIS FOR YOU. YOU HAVE TO PAY ME SO MUCH MONEY, SO YOU WORK." // END ACT // AS FOR THE TRAFFICKERS, LIN LAP SAYS GREED IS THEIR INCENTIVE. // LAP ACT // IT IS FOR FINANCIAL GAIN, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT COMES OUT OF IT. THE TRAFFICKER DOESN'T KEEP THE WOMEN HIMSELF; IT ISN'T A ONE-TO-ONE SITUATION WHERE SOMEONE JUST KIDNAPS A WOMAN HIMSELF OR MISLEADS HER AND THEN JUST USES HER FOR HIS OWN PLEASURE OR USES HER SERVICES. BUT HE SELLS HER TO ANOTHER PERSON OR ESTABLISHMENT OR INDUSTRY. // END ACT // THE BREAKUP OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION HAS ALTERED SOME OF THE OLDER MIGRATION PATTERNS. PETER SCHATZER, EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR FOR THE GENEVA-BASED INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION, SAYS ONE EXAMPLE IS THAT MORE WOMEN FROM EASTERN EUROPE ARE NOW SHOWING UP IN THE BROTHELS OF WESTERN EUROPE. // SCHATZER ACT // LET'S LOOK FIRST AT THE SEX TRADE, IF YOU WANT TO CALL IT THAT. THERE, EAST EUROPEANS ARE DEFINITELY REPLACING WOMEN FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES -- IN PARTICULAR FROM THE CARIBBEAN, FROM SANTO DOMINGO, THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC -- WHICH WAS A FAMOUS SUPPLIER OF WORKERS IN THE SEX TRADE IN EUROPE. THERE'S ALSO A REGIONAL FLOW FROM SOUTHERN CHINA INTO THAILAND, FROM BURMA INTO THAILAND. // END ACT // MR. SCHATZER SAYS ALTHOUGH MIGRATION IN GENERAL IS NOT NEW, THE INCIDENTS OF TRAFFICKING ARE DEFINITELY INCREASING BECAUSE OF STRICTER CONTROLS ON LEGAL IMMIGRATION TO SOME COUNTRIES. HE ADDS THAT WOMEN WHO FIND THEMSELVES TRAPPED IN A TRAFFICKING SITUATION OFTEN HAD BELIEVED THEY WOULD BE FINE ONCE THEY REACHED THEIR DESTINATION. // SCHATZER ACT // THEY THOUGHT THEY WOULD REALLY WALK ON ROADS PAVED WITH GOLD, AS MANY IMMIGRANTS USED TO THINK. THEY VERY OFTEN FIND OUT THAT NOT ONLY ARE THEY NOT PAVED, BUT THEY ARE EXPECTED TO PAVE THEM THEMSELVES. // END ACT // BOTH EXPERTS SAY GOVERNMENTS NEED TO DO MORE TO CRACK DOWN ON TRAFFICKERS. LIN LAP SAYS IT IS IMPORTANT TO CLEARLY DEFINE THE CRIME IN LEGAL TERMS, AND THEN STEP UP ENFORCEMENT. PETER SCHATZER POINTS OUT THAT IN MANY CASES, PEOPLE WHO TRAFFIC DRUGS OR WEAPONS USUALLY RECEIVE STIFFER PUNISHMENTS THAN THOSE WHO BUY AND SELL HUMAN BEINGS. (SIGNED) NEB/HO/TMS/CF 22-Sep-95 8:01 AM EDT (1201 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America . ------------------------------ From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 07:10:00 +0100 Subject: NGO FORUM ON WOMEN: A VIEW FROM CHINA ## author : Jon.Harder@mennolink.org ## date : 21.09.95 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor's note: The author, MCC's Vietnam co-representative, traveled to China with a delegation of some 140 Vietnamese women to attend the Nongovernmental (NGO) Forum on Women August 30 to September 8. The Forum preceded the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, September 4 to 15. HUAIROU, China -- Controversies and conflicts swirled around the some 24,000 women and men gathered here in China for the Nongovernmental (NGO) Forum on Women. Misunderstandings and misinterpretations abounded. And as the press gleefully fed to the public, organizational nightmares were plentiful. But the view from the ground offered a much more varied panorama. Being there was like sitting down to a generous meal, full plate after full plate. Some specialties were spicy, yes, and sour or bitter at times, often unfamiliar, but oh, so satisfying with new tastes lingering on the tongue. As a Mennonite I was greatly encouraged by peacemakers' stories, such as the Sudanese women who shared how they work to resolve conflict in their war-torn country. I was drawn into inter-religious conversations as women of many faiths discussed how to live together with people who believe differently. These are issues North American Mennonites and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) have worked with for many years. Perhaps if another gathering such as this one occurs, we could share our practical experiences with Christian Peacemaker Teams, Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs and other peace ministries. Working from the inside "The Vietnamese woman in quest of her rights," a workshop presented by a French human rights group, captivated the Vietnamese women I was with. As citizens of a country just emerging from isolation, still unsure of its image in the world, the announcement of this workshop stirred many emotions, including uncertainty and fear. The speaker, a French woman of Vietnamese ancestry, spoke about the problems women in Vietnam face, such as preferential treatment of boys and government suppression of religion. Finally one Vietnamese woman passionately voiced the thoughts on many minds, "You are Vietnamese. You still feel attached to Vietnam. But you left. We have stayed. We are Vietnam and we know what the situation is." Then another woman said more softly, "Yes, the problems you have mentioned are real. We know about them and are working on them. The difference is that we are working on them from inside Vietnam. We are not fighting Vietnam." A collective sigh, nods of affirmation and smiles of agreement swept through the Vietnamese delegation. The Vietnamese women had found they could acknowledge their problems while maintaining their pride and championing their successes. They could join as equal partners with other women in the world-wide debate. Sea of moving color Any attempt to stereotype the kind of woman who participated in this gathering falls short of the mark. To walk the Forum grounds was to be part of a moving sea of color and diversity -- all shades of skin and hair color; all shapes and sizes of bodies wearing dazzling national costumes from all over the world; all imaginable kinds of posters, banners, buttons and T-shirts emblazoned with slogans and images. There were daring young women with closely shaved heads and pierced eyebrows. There were Catholic and Buddhist nuns in habits and robes and Islamic women dressed in black from head to toe. There were representatives from Focus on the Family, National Association of Evangelicals and other U.S. Christian groups. So much work to do Forum discussion topics were also colorful and diverse, defying generalization. While the larger plenary meetings explored several subjects in depth, the hundreds of workshops also offered daily confronted participants with a mind-boggling array of choices. Voices spoke on behalf of women whose children did not have enough food to eat or water to drink. Voices spoke on behalf of girls who are pulled out of school at an early age to marry or to work. Voices spoke on behalf of young women and children being bought and sold for sexual exploitation. Voices spoke out against religious oppression. Voices spoke out about the freedom that comes through their faith. So much to hear. So much pain to feel. So much work to do. So much reason for hope So much encouragement, too, and reason for hope. A Swedish Lutheran minister told how she preaches that compassion means opening doors to immigrants. A Maori grandmother from New Zealand reminded us we are responsible for cherishing and strengthening our communities. Zambian community development workers described their success in changing the unfavorable depiction of women in the media and in school textbooks. A Pakistani Islamic theologian challenged fundamentalist oppression of women within Islam while still holding fast to the life-giving aspects of her faith. A mass choir, including three other Mennonite women and me, sang, "Alleluia, Kyrie Eleison, Elohim." Young women of many nationalities said to their elders, "When you are tired, when you are ready to lay down your burden, just look over your shoulder and see that we are there." Possibilities for international cooperation Whatever difficulties there may have been, this large and sometimes controversial gathering did provide, as its theme promised, a fascinating look at the world through women's eyes. It provided, for 10 days, a sense of the possibilities of international cooperation and community. It provided a safe place for small supportive exchanges and large creative international networking. It provided a tremendous opportunity for cultural exchange and exposure to different ways of thinking. In a world seeking wholeness within diversity, of people yearning to learn how to live peaceably together, it felt right. We are entwined in each other's lives. It was a privilege to be there. -30- Betsy Headrick McCrae of Cheraw, Colo., is a member of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, Minn. She is also affiliated with a small French-Spanish Mennonite Church in Brussels, Belgium. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mennonite Central Committee 21 South 12th Street, PO Box 500 Akron, PA 17501-0500 This press release may be redistributed, but not edited without permission. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 07:07:00 +0100 Subject: WCW: Sisterhood... - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [This article has been excerpted.] TIME Magazine September 18, 1995 Volume 146, No. 12 WOMEN'S RIGHTS SPIRIT OF SISTERHOOD Despite the hosts' surliness, delegates praise the U.N. women's conference BY JAMES WALSH The food was unpalatable. The toilets stank. Bathrooms flooded, and accommodations were cramped. Delegates in wheelchairs found themselves assigned to upper-floor, walk-up meeting rooms. Confusion prevailed over the times and places of workshops. Shuttle buses appeared and vanished erratically. Meanwhile, the ever-present Chinese security agents, in plainclothes or uniform, acted with...too much efficiency. They tailed visitors, photographed gatherings, searched rooms and bags, confiscated documents and videotapes, stopped peaceful protests, detained some journalists and on the whole created an intimidating atmosphere. To top things off, ...heavens glowered, sending forth rain that churned up mud, mud everywhere. Perhaps the United Nations could have chosen a worse host than China, but participants at the Fourth World Conference on Women were hard pressed last week to think of one. As the official U.N. event opened in Beijing, more than 30,000 delegates to a parallel, nongovernmental conclave in the remote northern suburb of Huairou were...tending with all manner of inadequacies and harassments. Just why China should have put on such an unseemly display for all the world to see was a consuming puzzle, but at least the International Olympic Committee had cause for relief. Two years ago this month, Olympics mandarins came within a whisker of awarding the 2000 Summer Games to Beijing, only in the end to name Sydney, Australia... In view of the way Beijing has handled the women's conference, faith in China's ability to play by international rules has suffered mightily. The sometimes unfriendly, ...surly treatment of guests from more than 180 countries so dominated foreign news dispatches that conference leaders despaired of communicating their serious business: relieving the plight of women worldwide who suffer worse things than searches and bad plumbing. Into this welter of conflicting concerns stepped one visitor who seemed to bring it all together -- to issue a ringing call against abuse and discrimination in their universal forms as well as their particular manifestations at the conference. Hillary Clinton, whose appearance was in doubt until China released the jailed human rights critic and U.S. citizen Harry Wu last month, spoke out against the host country's behavior in terms...the U.N. organizers could not quite manage. Without naming China outright, she delivered a rebuke to the way it denied perhaps as many as 10,000 visas to prospective delegates and quarantined the Huairou forum in slapdash quarters 30 miles north of the capital. As her audience thumped desks and applauded loudly, Clinton declaimed, "It is indefensible that many women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend or have been prohibited from fully taking part." Alluding to China's one-child policy, which has resulted in many coerced abortions, she...remarked, "It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will." In general, the star visitor's theme that "women's rights are human rights" played to the grievances...delegates had about their own voices at the conference. "Let me be clear," she said. "Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments." Back in the U.S., Wu applauded Clinton's statements, which...effectively pre-empted Republican criticisms of President Clinton for allowing his wife to visit what remains in many respects a police state. By the time she spoke, the Chinese government had begun to figure out how seriously it had embarrassed itself. As the controlled domestic press relegated Hillary Clinton to one line at the bottom of a People's Daily report, the regime lightened up considerably in maintaining "order" at Huairou. Undercover cops -- who had videotaped arrivals, showed up in dark glasses at workshops, impounded Chinese-language lesbian manifestos and harried Tibetans in exile -- began to back off. An attempt to halt a silent march by the Women in Black, a sisterhood that protests violence against women, ended in pathetic failure when demonstrators simply took...routes around police. In an unwittingly self-damning boast, Liu Jianyu, a top Chinese security official, declared, "There have been lots of protests these past few days. We are acting like police in any other country." Then disaster struck again...when Clinton ventured north to honor the Huairou delegates. Her speech was supposed to take place on the paved-over playing fields of Huairou's Middle School No. 1, a venue set aside to accommodate up to 10,000 of the visitors. Rain that morning ruled the site out...and a late U.S. request to move the assembly indoors created chaos. The new venue, a converted cinema, was built to hold only 1,500 people, but early arrivals packed it with twice that number. One delegate who got in commented in relief later, "It was quite dicey. A stampede for whatever reason could have led to death." Clinton, after arriving to some cheers of "Give 'em hell, Hillary!," paid tribute to the activists as the real foot soldiers in the struggle for women's rights. "You will be the key players in determining whether this conference goes beyond rhetoric," she told them. Outside...thousands of drenched women strained against grim-faced security officials who had locked arms. U.S. Secretary of Health Donna Shalala pushed forward in the crush for some time alongside Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, until the two were finally admitted, sopping wet, through a side door. Clinton's press secretary, Lisa Caputo, did not get in for the speech, and neither did Betty Friedan, the godmother of America's modern women's liberation movement. Shoved against a wall at one point, she exclaimed, "What's going on here?" Loudspeakers outside blared...all blame lay with the U.S. for shifting sites, but critics faulted the Chinese. Touring Huairou later, Shalala remarked, "They will never get another international conference again." For a rapidly modernizing power that wants to join the World Trade Organization, the conference designed to pave the way turned instead into a public relations mudhole. As for what delegates themselves hoped to achieve, the one-fifth of their Platform for Action that dealt with such issues as reproductive freedoms, gay rights and sex education remained under debate when the Huairou conference ended Friday. Bride burning, female infanticide, rape and economic discrimination came in for round condemnation, but how and to what extent a call to action might end those practices remained in doubt. ...for most of the women who had come from far corners of the earth to express their solidarity, even a damp sojourn under a heavy official hand proved exhilarating. If Clinton did not impress a delegate, perhaps Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto did, or Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, who appeared in a specially recorded videotape that was smuggled out of Rangoon. "I'm just really distressed...the media are sending back trivial information about the rain and the buses," said Rosalie Bertell, a Canadian epidemiologist. "There is other, substantive stuff going on here." Observed Janice Engberg, an American who teaches at China's Xiamen University: "Some people have had incredibly horrible experiences, while some people are absolutely elated to be here. This is the most exciting 10 days in their lives." A reminder of the old, often misquoted Chinese curse: May you live in exciting times. Reported by Jaime A. FlorCruz and Mia Turner/Beijing ------------------------------ From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 07:51:00 +0100 Subject: WCW: Green Left #203, September 20, 1995 ## author : greenleft@peg.apc.org ## date : 17.09.95 - --------------------------------------------------------------------- Women and the UN: another forged consensus? LYNETTE DUMBLE attended most of the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing. Here she gives her views of the proceedings. As the conference dragged to its final day on September 14, talk centred on whether a consortium of religious and political zealots would undermine the final document's influence on reproductive rights and sexuality. For the overall majority of women, this message misses the point of what this conference should have been about if women are to be given equal space at every level of society: namely the halt to violence, some entrenched in patriarchy, some closely linked to poverty, that is widely and increasingly prevalent in women's lives around the world. To focus at the conference end on Vatican and Muslim pedantries implied that their fundamentalisms were the solitary impediment to that goal, and if yet another UN consensus could be forged, women would suddenly have it all before them. Clause 19 is like many others within the conference's protracted draft document. It says: ``Absolute poverty and the feminization of poverty, unemployment, the increasing fragility of the environment, continued violence against women and the widespread exclusion of half of humanity from institutions of power and governance underscore the need to continue the search for development, peace and security and for ways of assuring people-centred sustainable development. The participation and leadership of the half of humanity that is female is essential to the success of that search. Therefore, only [a just and equitable social and economic international order and] a radical transformation of the relationship between women and men to one of full and equal partnership will enable the world to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.'' Together with the document's numerous referrals to last year's perceived consensus in Cairo at the UN International Conference on Population and Development, this informed women back in May what the Beijing conference was truly about, namely a sovereignty conditional upon working within the framework of UN misogyny, which fingers women's fertility as the solution to every conceivable crisis, including poverty, famine and the deteriorating ecosystems and standards of public health. Many women fell for the consensus that the UN assembly forged in Cairo, and the scene was well staged in Beijing to ensure that the captured support did not wane. In the first instance, the radical voices from NGOs were geographically isolated by placing them 50 km distant from the UN assembly in the somewhat rural district of Huairou. Here we could preach to our hearts content to already converted audiences about today's most numerically prevalent violence, one that the UN fails to see as misogynist: population control. This includes long-acting contraceptives that at one extreme may blind women by increasing the pressure within their brain cavities and at the other may leave women so malaised that they are unable to benefit from any educational or developmental endeavours; vaccines that render women infertile by creating auto immune disease; mass sterilisation camps where women die on a regular basis; medical experiments with hormones and an array of other chemicals that disrupt women's fertility or terminate their pregnancies with little or no concern for the acute ill-effects, let alone the chronic or future morbidity. And there are the other thriving violences against women from military rape and genocide, and sex industries such as prostitution and pornography. After some initial anxiety about arrest and/or deportation, NGOs opened out to publicly criticise the frank disregard for human rights within the host country, the People's Republic of China. Huairou became a place where the suspected violences against women within China began to be exposed. From the examples of the sexual exploitation of women in China the reality proved to be more horrendous than the suspicion: women snatched from their homes and enslaved to a life of prostitution, frequently to be retrafficked or recycled to the point of insanity, and facing punishments ranging from shackled feet to the removal of their eyes if caught attempting to escape. The UN assembly in Beijing was given an altogether different picture. Delegates basked in the rhetoric, often from male ministers, pontificating on the respect for women within their 5000-year-old cultures. A number of eminent government delegates took part in these political manoeuvres, condemning militant feminists as counterproductive to the conference process, before frowning upon poverty and violence in women's lives as if they were totally alien to their own territories. These and similar absurdities led those of us within the South Asian and Human Rights Caucuses to question whether some warp in time and/or space accounted for the fact that we were raising issues such as prenatal sex selection tests and patrilineal overtures that prompt the killing or abandonment of girl children within the context of these same ancient cultures. Australian health minister Carmen Lawrence was a notable exception and pulled no punches with either the UN assembly, or NGOs. After condemning France and China, both members of the UN, for their recent nuclear blasts, she affirmed the government's responsibility to correct the social, economic and health inequities endured by its own indigenous women and by other women in Australia's neighbourhood, and threw down the gauntlet for women's political equality within the next five years. Somewhat in contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton reserved her scathing comments about China's pathetic human rights record and its gag on the conference's free speech exclusively for the UN assembly, patronising her Huairou audience instead with a watery message that avoided any mention of their more dominant issues: the feminisation of poverty, the violation of women's human/reproductive rights by population control programs, the trafficking of women in sex industries and women's lack of political clout to stem the tide. All of this is not to say that the Fourth World Conference on Women was a complete waste of time, money and resources. To the contrary, sisterhood was never more global than on September 4 in Huairou when NGOs staged China's largest demonstration since Tiananmen Square. Reported in the China Daily as a mere 100-odd women, more than 3000 Women in Black marked the suffering of women around the world. They held an hour's silence under candlelight after recalling the movement's history in response to numberless atrocities against women across the world: from World War II against so called comfort women through to today's women, most frequently those in developing regions, via unregulated transnational company investments, international trade imbalances, environmentally destructive development programs, UN-sanctioned population control programs, military murder and rape, community-based crimes of dowry-related killings, bride-burnings, genital mutilation, domestic rape and incest, discrimination against lesbians, harassment of women in their place of employment, and the abuse and exploitation of the world's estimated 40 million refugees, more than 80% of whom are women and children. Barely a year has passed since, on a background of identical fundamentalist dissent about reproductive rights and sexuality, a conjured UN consensus in Cairo promised women empowerment. Since then women have contended with countless exercises contradicting that promise, such as altered health insurance packets in the Netherlands which attempt financially to deprive women of daily oral contraceptives, or regulations seeking to prevent women with more than two children standing for public office in India. Closer to home, one enacted amendment to Australia's Migration Act deems the People's Republic of China to be a safe third country for refugees, and another makes a mockery of our human rights record with its proposal to restrict the immigration intake by disregarding the national fertility policy of the home country of asylum seekers. Feminists, both radical and not-so-radical, went to Beijing with lukewarm expectations, knowing that society was already conditioned towards accepting the many faces of violence that subordinate women. However, since both UN and fundamentalist politics throughout the Beijing conference have outraged even the more moderate feminists, the UN has left itself with only one way out - a Platform for Action that avoids the euphemisms included in the document resulting from Cairo - if it hopes to retain an ounce of credibility with the women it won across in 1994. [Dr Lynette Dumble is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne's Department of Surgery at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She is a member of FINRRAGE (Australia).] - ------------------------------------------------------------- First posted on the Pegasus conference greenleft.news by Green Left Weekly. Correspondence and hard copy subsciption inquiries: greenleft@peg.apc.org ------------------------------ From: "Dr. E.A.S. Nelson" Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 08:38:20 +0800 (CCT) Subject: IMPLEMENTATION & COMMITMENTS ? Many postings have indicated the hope and enthusiasm that the Platform of Action from the WCW will be implemented. Yet no sooner has the dust settled on the WCW in Beijing than the US Senate votes to slash the US foreign aid budget. Currently Israel receives more US aid than the entire sub-Sarahan African region. At the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in March the US government COMMITED itself (along with 118 other countries) to the following: COMMITMENT 7 We commit ourselves to accelerating the economic, social and human resource development of Africa and the least developed countries. And specifically (e) Increase official development assistance, both in total and for social programmes, and improve its impact consistent with countries' economic circumstances and capacities to assist, and consistent with commitments in international agreements; What does one do when Governments make commitments but then do exactly the opposite? Do we in civil society have any role to play? What steps has UNDP and other agencies taken? Should there be a formal complaint made when governments deliberately break commitments? Should the UN keep a "report card" and grade governments on their ability to do what they say they will do? Tony Nelson ------------------------------ From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 14:48:00 +0100 Subject: WCW: UN's Gastaut makes impact at Beijing ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 24.09.95 - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- UN's Gastaut makes impact at Beijing By Jack Freeman Earth Times News Service Journalists covering a major international conference traditionally have a love-hate relationship with its official spokesperson--almost always an invaluable source and resource, but the reporters can never be certain that he or she isn't holding some key information back. At the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, though, the relationship of the press with the official spokesperson was more like love- love. Nobody there had any complaint about the job done by Thrse Gastaut. She was one person who could be counted on to "tell it straight." (Which came as no surprise to those who could remember her work as spokesperson for the Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993.) As spokesperson for the Beijing Conference, Gastaut presided over daily noon briefings for the press, giving a reprise at 12:30 p.m. covering the same information, but delivering it in French. (Based in Geneva, Gastaut is equally at home when speaking French or English.) She made a point of bringing with her to the briefings experts who could explain the issues under discussion in the closed working groups. And she scrupulously made an effort to every question put to her. But she also had an important question to ask at the briefings, one that helped the working press avoid wasted time. Gastaut's question was: "Are you a journalist?" She explained that the briefings were open only to members of the press, not to delegates or NGOs. It was an innovation that the reporters could applaud. ------------------------------ From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 08:26:00 +0100 Subject: WCW: Vatican Raps Women's Meeting ## author : chai@UIUC.EDU ## date : 20.09.95 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [This article has been excerpted.] BEIJING (AP) -- For 12 days, many delegates at the U.N. women's conference waited for the Vatican to drop a bombshell. It never did. But it did set off a few firecrackers. The Vatican's final shot came Friday when it condemned the conference's preoccupation with sex and reproduction, which it claimed was at the expense of sending impoverished girls to school. After 189 countries adopted the conference's Platform for Action by consensus, the Vatican endorsed sections on alleviating the increasing poverty of women, improving education and employment opportunities, promoting peace and ending violence against women. ...it objected to the entire chapter on health, just as it did at last year's U.N. population conference in Cairo, Egypt. ``Surely we can do better than to address the health needs of girls and women by paying disproportionate attention to sexual and reproductive health,'' said American professor Mary Ann Glendon, head of the Holy See's delegation. ... In Cairo, more than 20 Muslim and Catholic countries...joined the Vatican in objecting to phrases on reproductive rights. But the Vatican suffered several important losses at the population conference. It failed to block worldwide recognition...abortion is a fact that governments must deal with as a public health issue. It infuriated delegates and U.N. officials with its relentless fight to keep...liberal abortion language out of the 20-year plan to curb population. It also was put on the defensive for allying itself with extremist Muslim governments like those of Libya and Iran. At the women's conference, the Vatican lost another fight on abortion: The platform asks governments to review laws that punish women for having abortions. Again, the Vatican's closest allies were Islamic countries. But the anger generated in Cairo was missing. Abzug said the Vatican was forced to adopt a lower profile in Beijing because ``they didn't win in Cairo so they couldn't afford to have a second major loss.'' ------------------------------ From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 14:49:00 +0100 Subject: WCW: Jan Pronk of Holland assesses Beijing ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 25.09.95 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jan Pronk of Holland assesses Beijing By Jack Freeman Earth Times News Service BEIJING--If you ask Jan Pronk, Development Minister of the Netherlands, people attending the Fourth World Conference on Women paid too much attention to the issue of resources in the Platform for Action. "If a donor country is having its own budgetary shortage," he told The Earth Times, "its government can hardly go to the Congress and ask it to pass more money for aid--just because some document calls for 'new and additional resources.'" Conversely, he said, "If a weak formula were to emerge here, I am not going to reduce the aid that we provide." The basic point, he said, is that "one should not judge the success of a conference by its section on funding." He said that, regardless of the language of the Beijing Platform for Action, the Netherlands will continue to provide "substantial, adequate funding" for development. Because he believes that "we should not lose the momentum" of this Conference, he has proposed that a special trust fund be set up to provide resources for implementation of its action program, and he said the Netherlands' government was prepared to provide "adequate co-funding." He said such a fund might focus its attention especially on the needs of Africa. In any case, he said, the importance of the Beijing Conference is rooted in its taking up the issues of unremunerated work, human rights and, perhaps most of all, sexual rights. "And don't think these are 'Western.' They are universal," he said, "and have great importance for men as well." Pronk said he found it somewhat puzzling that this Conference found it so relatively easy to reach consensus on issues involving cultural values-- which, he said, are usually much more intractable than economic issues. "It may be," he said, "that the real issues at the grassroots level in many countries were not being represented here because all of the people here belong to a shallow elite in the world. We all speak the same global language, we all belong to the same cultural class, and possibly the same social class as well." Nor is he convinced that the NGOs that took part in the Conference were really representative. "I think it is more important for NGOs to lobby at the national level, as part of the democratic process, rather than lobbying here in the corridors without any democratic framework," he said. "A very vocal group may or may not be representing many people." ------------------------------ From: "Dr. E.A.S. Nelson" Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 08:19:08 +0800 (CCT) Subject: Re: (DIS)INFORMATION ON CONTRACEPTION In message 25 Sep 1995 09:47:04 +0000 (GMT), "Loretta O'Connor, UCC Advisory Service" writes: > >>I further believe that you have little insight to real world problems of >> desperate poverty, malnutrition, and uncontrolled population growth. >> While working in Africa, I was confronted EVERY DAY with 3 child deaths >> from avoidable causes (malnutrition, malaria, pneumonia, etc). >> Malnutrition was the leading cause of mortality and probably the most >> distressing. I am not suggesting that contraception is the only way to >> reduce these deaths but its an important part of a much wider picture >> involving spending on education, health and social development. It is >> my experience that a number of catholic mission hospitals will support >> (although not openly) the provision of contraception as a vital facet >> of the provision of health care. >> Tony Nelson > > At the NGO forum at the Cairo Conference many medics from developing > countries stated that their stock of condoms and other contraceptives > was overflowing, these having been provided by UN-related agencies. > However, their supply of basic medicines was appalling. What does this > tell you about the agenda of the UN? To me it would suggest that > they would like to keep down the population of the Third World, > one way or another, so that the Western world would not feel itself > threatened. > I would fully support your view that in many developing countries even the most basic of medicines are not available at the same time that certain items (such as condoms) are in over-supply (often because of cultural reluctance to use them). This however doesn't necessarily mean that UN (or other agencies) has a single agenda of keeping the world's population down. It is the result of the fact that much development aid is in a mess and poorly integrated. Donors like simple focused projects e.g. ORS for diarrhoea, Immunization programmes, condoms for AIDS prevention etc etc. Each programme is run by a separate organisation with little coordination. There needs to be dramatic rethink on how aid is given to the world's poorest countries so that they can develop in a coordinated and sustainable fashion. Family planning (contraception - short and long acting, natural planning methods, etc) is just one component of social and economic development - other more important components are provision of quality education, reliable appropriate health services and incorporation of the poorest (often women) into the economy by providing micro-credit and improving human and property rights. Please look at family planning as part of a much wider picture. Also please acknowledge that the developed world has access to a wide choice of methods for planning family size - a poor uneducated, discriminated woman in many of the world's least developed countries currently has no choices at all. Tony Nelson ------------------------------ From: DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org (Debra Guzman) Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 14:51:00 +0100 Subject: WCW: Questions of gender equality at Beijing ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 25.09.95 - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions of gender equality at Beijing By Jack Freeman Earth Times News Service BEIJING--It is a paradox. Women do not have complete equality with men in any country on earth, not even in Scandinavia--and that is beyond dispute. In the United States not long ago, you may recall, an effort to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women legal equality was defeated despite a vigorous campaign to enact it. And yet here at the Fourth World Conference on Women, the concept of equality for women was applauded, endorsed. ratified and enshrined by the representatives of every government on earth. Indeed, it seemed to be the least controversial point in the whole Platform for Action. The question is: Why? Why were the nations of the world so willing to preach what they are all so unwilling to practice? Why did they all find it so easy to denounce attitudes and actions that are their very own? Could it have been that all the nations of the world had, at long last, seen the error of their ways and were ready confess, repent, atone and make amends? Are we truly going to leave Beijing and enter a brave new world in which women are no longer underpaid, underfed, undervalued, underrepresented--and under constant threat of violence and abuse, even in their own homes? Or is there some other explanation? Can it be that the nations of the world felt so free here in Beijing to raise their voices for equality only because they thought nothing else would really be expected of them? After all, for the past 50 years the halls of the United Nations have rung with pledges to keep the peace--and yet, as everyone knows, there is still no peace. Since 1948 we have heard nation after nation voice support for human rights--but let's face it: In what nation are human rights not being violated? (Never mind that it was not until 1993 that the world's nations even acknowledged that women's rights are human rights too.) Every nation is also on record in support of development. At the Beijing Conference, as at all that have gone before, every speaker praised development without stint. And yet nobody can dispute that the poorest nations of the world keep getting poorer. While some delegates from the donor nations were here in Beijing to "talk the talk" of development and gender, back in their capital cities legislators were voting to reduce budgets for development assistance. Some were even voting--despite the global population crisis--to reduce their support of family planning programs. The good news is that the Conference has ended; no longer will the nations be able to go on talking about what they could do, or should do, or hope to do, to raise the status of women. All the talking had to stop. Now the action must begin. Some women's groups attending the Conference have warned that they will be monitoring the nations' performance and checking it against their promises. That may be a worthwhile effort, but nobody should have any illusions that it will make a difference. After all, peace groups, human rights groups and development groups have been monitoring and watching and reporting on the non-performance of nations for decades--and so what? Indeed, the nations are almost beside the point. Although the Beijing Platform for Action was negotiated by representatives of national governments, its recommendations cover many "actors" in society, including the media and the private sector (i.e. the business world)--even though they were not participants in the negotiation process. But, regardless, it is not the media that will turn the dream of women's equality into a reality. It is not the private sector. Nor, indeed, is it the governments of nations or even the United Nations. If the promise of equality that was made in Beijing is going to be kept, it will not be because of what is done by any government. It will only be because of what is done by the world's women. And make no mistake: No matter how much help they may get from other quarters, basically the women will have to do it for themselves. ------------------------------ End of Beijing Women's Conference Digest V2 #119 ************************************************ To subscribe to Beijing-Conf-Digest, send the command: subscribe beijing-conf-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@confer.edc.org". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-summit": subscribe beijing-conf-digest local-beijing@your.domain.net A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "beijing-conf-digest" in the commands above with "beijing-conf". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from ftp.edc.org, in pub/beijing-conf/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).