 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 June 2000 Issue No. 485 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 June 2000 Issue No. 485
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Building on Beijing
By Dahlia HammoudaFive years after the largest global gathering of women in history helped spur 189 countries into adopting an ambitious plan to secure women's equality, representatives from the same nations met at the UN headquarters in New York this week to try to agree on a strategy to accelerate moves towards this elusive goal.
Dubbed Beijing +5, Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century is a special session of the UN General Assembly dedicated to reviewing progress made in the five years since the groundbreaking Fourth International Conference for Women in Beijing. Between 5-9 June, the conference is discussing innovative, practical ways to speed implementation of the 150-page Platform for Action adopted in Beijing.
Some 10,000 delegates and activists from more than 180 governments participating in the conference are expected to approve a final document -- to be issued tomorrow at the conference's close -- that reaffirms governments' commitment to the Beijing platform.
Egypt's official delegation is headed by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, who also heads Egypt's National Women's Council. The delegation includes 14 other leading women. Mrs Mubarak delivered a speech before the special session and, on its fringes, met with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, US First Lady Hillary Clinton, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, as well as a number of spouses of heads of state and delegation heads.
Mrs Mubarak, along with other speakers who took the floor at the plenary sessions, declared that achievements since Beijing are far outweighed by the remaining inequalities and persistent discrimination against women.
Proclaiming that the future of the planet depends on women, Annan, speaking at the conference's opening session on Monday, said that the education of girls was a major weapon against inequality and violence. Annan underlined threats to women's development, including AIDS, violence, trafficking in women and children and the gender gap in the workplace, which have increased over the past five years. He pointed out that the mere fact that more than half the delegates addressing the session were women of ministerial rank indicated an increase in the number of women decision-makers -- one sign of progress in the last five years.
Robinson, the UN's human rights chief, shares many women activists' worries that some countries will try to thwart Beijing's ambitious programme. During months of closed-door negotiations on the final document, delegates said the Vatican and a handful of Islamic countries -- including Algeria, Iran, Libya, Pakistan and Sudan -- had held up action on key issues. For cultural or religious reasons, these countries favour the status quo and have opposed references to reproductive and sexual rights for women, sex education for adolescents and non-traditional families. "There must be no going back on the commitments," Robinson said.
Mrs Mubarak echoed this message in her statement to the session. "Let me just emphasise that we are not here to reopen the debate or go back on the collective agreements and decisions adopted in both Beijing and Cairo. Rather we are here to move forward and pave the way for the empowerment of women," she said.
She spoke about means of dealing with the ideological divide plaguing progress towards agreement on a final document, calling for respect for cultural differences. "Attitudinal barriers can act as obstacles faced by nations as they attempt to integrate change and innovation into their traditional societies," she said. "We must, therefore, strive to modify attitudes and mind-sets without undermining the social fabric and cohesiveness of our nations."
But the problem is not only one of inflexible attitudes towards women, but also of lack of resources, she said. "How many countries can truly achieve our stated aims without the donor community providing sufficient ODA resources?" she asked.
Mrs Mubarak proposed an initiative similar to the Global Environment Facility -- a Trust Fund for Women or a Global Facility for Women. According to Mrs Mubarak, this facility would act as an umbrella for existing institutions, programmes and funds charged with formulating strategies. "It would also consolidate presently fragmented efforts as well as increase the resources needed to meet priority areas of universal concern identified in Beijing and beyond," she said.
Ambassador Ahmed Abul-Gheit, Egypt's permanent representative to the UN, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Mrs Mubarak's speech aroused great interest because, unlike most of the other delegates' addresses, which focused upon country achievement reports, it was "political rather than technical." Amid a general feeling of anxiety over a possible departure from Beijing's aims, Mrs Mubarak delivered a clear message from the outset that everyone was there to "build on Beijing while maintaining its principles and emphasis on critical areas of concern for women," Abul-Gheit said.
On Mrs Mubarak's proposition for a Global Facility for Women, he said a large number of delegation heads and ambassadors had already contacted him regarding this initiative. "It is an innovative proposal, not just because it deals with the issue of raising funds alongside the laying down of priorities and strategies, but because it is the first ever to unify global funds across the board for this cause," Abul-Gheit said.
The Weekly also spoke with Angela King, assistant secretary-general and special advisor to Annan on gender issues and the advancement of women. She said despite differences, there is a consensus on the necessity to remove women from grinding poverty and to give them access to adequate health care and education. She said Mrs Mubarak's idea for a Global Facility for Women was "a very forward-looking proposal which would lift issues of gender to the level of other important issues on the world agenda." King praised the "very supportive Egyptian delegation" and said Egypt's recent achievements on the gender equality front have not gone unnoticed by the international community.
Related stories:
