 
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Sunday, June 04, 2000
By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
NEW YORK -- In the continuing saga over what it is that women want, this is chapter 2000.
Five years after the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women sponsored the historic Beijing conference -- which spawned bomb threats, tenser relations between China and Western democracies, a speech by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton that helped launch her political career and a mammoth wish list -- the United Nations is holding a post-mortem.
Three thousand delegates, 7,000 representatives of non-governmental organizations and thousands of world press representatives are gathering this week in New York at a U.N. General Assembly special session to determine whether the Beijing conference in 1995 made a difference.
When they weren't dealing with overzealous Chinese authorities who sternly herded them into a little town miles from the capital city, the Beijing delegates adopted a platform signed by 189 countries -- 120 of them adopted action plans of their own -- that called for big changes in 12 areas they said were of critical importance to women. Those include poverty, education and training, health, violence, armed conflict, the economy, power and decision-making, institutional mechanisms for advancement, human rights, media portrayals, the environment and "the girl child."
The point of the upcoming conference -- dubbed "Women 2000" or "Beijing plus 5" -- is to have detailed reports from many countries showing what progress has been made. Advocates for women's rights groups are hailing this conference as a "millennial milestone" that they hope will focus attention on those 12 issues and prompt another platform to speed implementation of ways to improve women's lives.
Hillary Clinton, who gained international acclaim for a take-no-prisoners speech in Beijing on the need for better treatment of women worldwide, will again be addressing the conference. There will be another "action plan" at week's end.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, a key planner of the New York conference along with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, said the Beijing conference -- only the fourth in U.N. history -- was a "transforming experience" in her life, and that it had a "major impact" because it focused U.S. attention "for the first time" on systemic ways to help women.
That there is a follow-up this year is a major accomplishment, Shalala said, noting that there may be no more global conferences on women because they are controversial, costly and complicated.
Conservatives unhappy
Conservative groups are not at all happy about this week's conference or its agenda, arguing that the United Nations has no business advocating that teen-age girls have autonomy over their lives, that traditional gender stereotypes are bad or that equal athletic opportunities for women should be mandated.
"Like wind-up toys, the radical feminists are at it again," said Janet Shaw Crouse of the Beverly LaHaye Institute, a "pro-family and pro-life" lobbying group. "These meetings may seem innocuous -- boring sessions that produce dreary documents -- but the end product is a powerful instrument.
"When developing nations try to qualify for U.N. funds, they will be judged by their success at implementing the provisions of the document," she said. "The end result is that mere recommendations become, in effect, 'customary law' -- which, in turn, becomes real law."
For the past few weeks, representatives of about 117 countries have been working on conference documents and reports that attempt to assess whether the agenda adopted in Beijing has had much impact.
Not surprisingly, there are huge differences of opinion. Yakin Erturk, director of the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Economic Commission for Europe, said the reports so far "reveal that profound changes have occurred since Beijing. Governments have adopted gender-sensitive policies, undertaken legal reforms, made institutional adjustments, launched special programs and generated and disseminated knowledge in accordance with goals of the platform.
"In addition," she said, "new modes of resource allocations have emerged at national and international levels, although the actual amount of resources allocated to gender issues often has lagged behind the required levels."
Grading U.S. efforts
In the United States, an umbrella group for a network of activist organizations, called U.S. Women Connect (USWC), is not so sanguine. It has produced a report card on the 12 reform topics specified at the Beijing conference, grading the U.S. efforts to implement them. The grades range from an "F" for the government's efforts to reduce poverty to a "B" for new efforts to prevent domestic violence.
"They're very hard graders," Shalala said. "But we welcome their criticism and want them to continue."
USWC Chair Suzanne Kindervatter said: "The U.S. government has taken follow-up to the Beijing conference seriously, and we applaud its accomplishments in many areas. But the five-year review is just a milestone on the road to attaining women's and girls' rights and gender equality."
Citing the "F" her group gave the federal effort to ease poverty, she noted that the poverty rate among women has gone up despite a decrease in the overall poverty rate. Female-headed households make up two-thirds of those below the poverty line of $17,000 for a family of four. The group claims that the 1996 law overhauling the nation's welfare system "actually reduced the average income of [female]-headed households by 35 percent."
In rating national efforts in educating and training women for better jobs with a "C," the group argued that "recent assaults on affirmative action" have eroded gains, and women and girls "lag significantly in math, science and technology." It criticized the Clinton administration for making "no attempt to establish benchmarks for achieving gender equality in education."
The government's efforts to improve women's health garnered a "C-minus," despite what the group called "impressive investments" in research on breast and cervical cancer, AIDS and older women's health. One in five women does not have health insurance, the group said, and "reproductive rights are in jeopardy."
There have been "major gains" in actions to reduce violence against women, the report found, giving the government a "B-minus" for its progressive steps. A new law, $1.6 billion for new projects and more enforcement are responsible for the grade, the group said, but noted that violence against girls is a growing problem.
The government's efforts to increase the role of women in the armed services received a "C-plus." There is more coordination of efforts to prevent trafficking of women and children, or selling them into slavery or prostitution, the group said. But the USWC is angry that the United States won't sign the International Criminal Court statute to criminalize gender violence. It also advocates ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate has refused to do.
Efforts to improve women's role in the economy earned a "C-minus." Women still hold 70 percent of minimum-wage and part-time jobs. The number of elderly women who are poor is not declining. And women earn only 76 cents on the dollar, compared with men's earnings.
But women do have more "power" jobs in government, the group said, giving the administration a solid "B" for that. The group said more women have been appointed to positions of authority during Clinton's tenure than in any prior administration. Nonetheless, Linda-Tarr-Whelan, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, noted that women hold just 13 percent of U.S. legislative positions, compared with 38 percent in South Africa.
The government gets another "B" for creating the President's Interagency Council for Women in 1995, which has "effectively promoted and monitored women's initiatives across departments and agencies," according to the USWC. But it complains that the council is not statutory, could be disbanded by the next president and has set no time targets for its goals, nor has it any means to collect reliable gender-based data.
The group gives the government a "C-plus" for promoting human rights abroad, especially efforts to stop trafficking in women and girls. It also faults Congress for refusing to ratify the 1979 United Nations-passed Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, commonly called an international bill of rights for women. The convention has been ratified by 165 countries, but many U.S. conservative groups oppose it on grounds that it sets up an agenda for national action, calls for rights for young girls and recommends that China legitimize prostitutes as "sex workers."
The federal government gets a "C" from USWC for not overseeing equal pay for work of equal value for women in media jobs and for eliminating requirements that have resulted in fewer women and minorities in radio and TV news.
Government efforts in the category of women and the environment get a "D" from the group, noting that there is no available data about whether women are "disproportionately affected by environmental hazards."
Because the United States has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the group gives the government a "D" on the "girl child." It complains that a federal program called Girl Power! "does not address girls' extreme lack of access to reproductive health care."
While many of its criticisms are open to dispute, the USWC credits its findings to a number of other groups, including the Women's Environment and Development Organization, the President's Interagency Council on Women report, the Center for Policy Alternatives, Equality Now, the Institute for Women's Policy Research, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law; the National Black Women's Health Project; the National Congress of Neighborhood Women and the National Council for Research on Women.
The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, in its report preparing for the upcoming conference, also tackled each of the 12 issues concluding time after time that while there is far more awareness of these concerns that there was five years ago, not surprisingly, more needs to be done.
For example, it noted that micro-credit, or small business loans to women, is a global trend that has proved to be a " successful strategy for economic empowerment." But overall, it notes, there is a "widening economic inequality between women and men."
In the area of education, the U.N. commission said almost all governments are more aware of the need for educating women, yet "little progress has been made in eradicating illiteracy" in Third World countries.
While women's health is now on the radar screens of most governments, "the rates of maternal mortality and morbidity remain unacceptably high in most countries."
Although there is much discussion of war crimes against women, too many perpetrators receive no punishment, the commission said. And while more women are in governments around the world, still "women continue to be underrepresented at the legislative, ministerial and sub-ministerial levels" as well as in key jobs in private enterprise.
Julie Bernstein, spokeswoman for the Feminist Majority, said one area of concern to her organization has been the sluggishness of federal approval for and availability of Mifepristone (or RU 486), the morning-after pill to prevent pregnancies. Her group also is particularly concerned about female genital mutilation and harsh treatment of women by the Taliban -- the ultra-conservative religious group controlling Afghanistan. Both are expected to be major conference topics.
To some groups, such as the World Life League, the most troubling aspect of this week's conference is that it advocates "coercive population control" that the league contends is "waged against poor women of color throughout the developing world, under the guise of "reproductive rights."
But to thousands of women flocking to Manhattan this week, this gathering, as Shalala said, will inspire and convince them that the outlook for better lives for women is improving. Over the next week at the United Nations, there will be hundreds examples presented of progress for women.
An estimated 58 countries have adopted new laws regarding women's rights since the Beijing conference. At least 26, from China to New Zealand, have laws aimed at preventing domestic violenc
U.S. Ambassador Tarr-Whelan said "there is much to celebrate" in the coming week. But she also warned that the most serious issue confronting women worldwide is poverty. Dealing with that, she argued, must take precedence over everything else.