Posted Date: May 20, 2001
UN General Assembly Advances Women’s Rights
UN General Assembly Advances Women’s Rights
in Cliff-hanger Special Session
"Agonizing." "Frustrating." "The most difficult negotiations we’ve experienced." These words from government delegates of many countries capture the atmosphere of "Beijing +5," the recent five-year review of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women held at the UN from June 5-9. Despite the arduous process and two all night negotiating sessions, the "outcomes" document finally adopted by the General Assembly successfully affirms and advances the Platform for Action agreed upon in Beijing five years ago.
The aim of the five-year review was to assess progress, analyze effective strategies, identify gaps, and chart a course for more specific action over the next few years. Thousands of NGO representatives and government delegates from 189 UN member states came to New York to craft the plan for accelerating implementation of the 150-page Platform, which is a comprehensive agenda for attaining full gender equality and women’s rights in twelve areas, including health, education, political participation, and the economy.
The meeting opened with a mix of ceremony and trepidation. In his opening speech to the General Assembly, Secretary General Kofi Annan said that "undoubtedly there has been progress….but much remains to be done" to achieve gender equality. The President of the General Assembly, Theo Ben-Gurirab of Nambia, stressed that "the policies of governments on gender equality and the implementation of the Platform for Action can not be an afterthought or remain simply at the level of political pronouncements or election ploy. Resources for gender equality must be mobilized and utilized…and must be visible in international development cooperation."
While ambassadors and senior UN officials spoke in the General Assembly, government negotiators were already immersed in negotiations on the document. Though the Special Session opened on June 5, negotiations on the document had been on-going for over a year, from the time a draft was presented in March 1999, through the March 2000 "Prep-Com" and several weeks of "inter-sessional" meetings up until the Friday before the Session. At the outset of the week, less than half of the 200+ paragraph document had been agreed upon, and negotiations were moving at a snail’s pace.
In part, the negotiations bogged down due to the UN venue itself, which brought to the table many negotiators from New York UN missions rather than home offices and their respective geo-political agendas. A very small but vocal minority of conservative countries also appeared to be trying to re-open areas already agreed upon in Beijing and to obstruct new proposals from moving forward. As in Beijing, contentious issues included adolescent access to reproductive and sexual health services, sexual rights, sexual orientation, access to safe abortions, and the definition of "family." Surprisingly, certain mechanisms of accountability were also challenged (unsuccessfully) by some delegations: the importance of "political will," gender-disaggregated data, and international monitoring mechanisms.
By Thursday, about a quarter of the document was still left to negotiate. Voicing concern that the document might retreat from the Platform for Action, Secretary-General Annan made an unusual plea to delegates. Annan’s spokesman delivered the message that: "The secretary-general urges all member states to work together in a spirit of cooperation to ensure that the gains made by women in Beijing five years ago are consolidated, protected, and advanced further."
In the final 48 hours of the Special Session, delegates worked almost without sleep to rescue the negotiations and produce a document with strong recommendations in many areas. Some major advances include: tougher measures to combat domestic violence, including marital rape; the recognition of "honor killings" as a human rights violation; achieving parity in primary and secondary education by 2005; considering gender-related persecution and violence as grounds for asylum; greater attention to the impact of HIV/AIDS; and the recognition of the negative impacts of globalization on women and gender differences.
Assessing the outcomes, UN Assistant Secretary-General Angela King stated: "I feel that all those millions of women who are looking at us are totally vindicated, and they have something to grasp to assist them for their battles for equality."
(Note: The next issue of Monday Developments will include articles on the many NGO activities which were concurrent with the Special Session.)
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