THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

ADDRESS TO THE OPENING

OF THE 23RD SPECIAL SESSION

OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

"WOMEN 2000: GENDER EQUALITY,

DEVELOPMENT

AND PEACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY"

New York, 5 June 2000

Excellencies,

Dear friends,

Five years ago, delegates and NGOs went to Beijing to right wrongs and promote rights. To show the world that when women suffer injustice, we all suffer; that when women are empowered, we are all better off. The conference was a success: the result was the Beijing Platform for Action.

Five years later, you have come -to New- York to review the progress made, and to press for further results.

Undoubtedly, there has been progress.

Violence against women is now illegal almost everywhere.

There has been worldwide mobilisation against harmful traditional practices such as so-called "honour killings" -- which I prefer to call "shame killings".

In many countries, new health strategies have saved thousands of women's lives. More couples now use family planning than ever before.

And a record number of women have become leaders and decision-makers - in Cabinets, in boardrooms, and here at the United Nations.

Above all, more countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development.

But at the same time, much remains to be done. For instance:

In economic terms, the gender divide is still widening. Women earn less, are more often unemployed, and generally are poorer than men. Women's work is still largely part-time, informal, unregulated and unstable. The fact that they have productive as well as reproductive roles is still all too rarely recognized.

Most countries have yet to legislate in favour of women's rights to own land and other property.

And even though most countries have legislated against it, violence against women is still increasing -both in the home and in new types of armed conflict which target civilian populations, with women and children as the first casualties.

Beside those old challenges still unmet, there are new ones. Let me give two examples:

First, the spread of AIDS is taking a devastating toll on women and girls. In the worst hit cities of southern Africa, 40 per cent of pregnant women are HIV-positive, and more than one child in 10 has lost its mother, to AIDS. Grandmothers are caring for orphans; young girls are kept out of school to care for sick relatives. The social fabric that women have worked so hard to hold together is being destroyed.

Secondly; trafficking of women and children, . an outrage dating back to biblical times, has now become a world-wide plague.

These challenges demand immediate action. I have asked Member States; when they gather for the Millennium Summit in September, to adopt specific goals for halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS. And Mary Robinson has called for a concerted international campaign against trafficking, through a rights-based approach and the development of a solid legal regime.

All these challenges, old and new, are part of the complex, interconnected world we now live in. They can be met only if we enable women to build on the best this new world has to offer, rather than condemn them to suffer the worst of it.

That means, above all, that women must be educated and enabled to play their part in the global economy.

It is lack of education that denies girls the information they need to protect themselves against HIV. And it is often the lack of job prospects that forces women to risk infection through early sexual relations.

Equally, it is the absence of economic opportunity that leads many women to want to migrate, and thus become a target for trafficking; their lack of education will make them vulnerable to trafficking, however much we legislate against it.

Education, in other words, is both the entry point into the global economy and the best defence against its pitfalls.

Globalisation involves technological changes which favour higher skilled workers over less skilled ones.

This is widening even further the gap between men's and women's earnings. Only education will enable women to close it.

Already, large numbers of women are engaged in global production, from textiles to data processing. But most of them work in appalling conditions, for near-starvation wages. This will only change when women are making economic decisions - as managers, entrepreneurs and employers, labour leaders and employment lawyers - and when they are making social and political decisions, as community leaders, negotiators, judges or cabinet ministers.

Already women form the main agricultural labour force, in Africa and many other parts of the world. Yet most of them are still denied the right to credit, land ownership and inheritance. Their labour goes unrecognised and unrewarded. Their needs are not given priority. Their role even in household decisionmaking is restricted.

Here too education can make the difference, enabling women to champion their sisters' rights to land, to credit, to marketing facilities and technology, and to an equal say in land reform.

Once they are educated and integrated into the workforce, women are better equipped to choose the time they marry and the number of children they have. They and their children can get better nutrition, health care and education. And their example will inspire others, as parents get message that girls are worth investing in -- at least as much as boys.

Indeed, study after study has confirmed that there is no development strategy more beneficial to society as a whole -- women and men alike -- than one which involves women as central players.

I hope that in the course of this century, we will also prove that the best strategy of conflict prevention is to expand the role of women as peacemakers. In the UN itself, we must find ways to appoint more women in peacekeeping and peacemaking_positions.

And that is why, in my Millennium Report, and again at the World Education Forum, I challenged Governments to make girls' education their priority. Indeed, I believe that implementing the Beijing Platform will be crucial to achieving all the Millennium goals I have asked the world's leaders to adopt on behalf of all the world's peoples.

Five years ago, you went to Beijing with a simple statement: "We are not guests on this planet. We belong here." Five years on, I would venture that we all know this is an understatement. I hope this Session will put the world on notice that not only do women belong on this planet, but that the future of this planet depends on women.

Thank you-very much.