the beijing fourth world conference on women

The Beijing Fourth World Conference on WomenAuthor(s): Barbara RobertsSource: The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 21, No. 2(Spring, 1996), pp. 237-244Published by: Canadian Journal of SociologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3341979 .

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The Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women

Barbara Roberts'

The United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing from 4 to 15 September 1995, was the latest in a series which began in 1975, International Women's Year, and continued through the UN Decade for Women (1976-85). Each conference adopted an action plan whereby member nations agreed to take certain steps to improve the status of women and bring about equality, development, and peace (the Decade themes). Each conference was accompanied by a parallel nonofficial Women's NGO Forum, attended by ever-larger numbers of women determined to influence the outcome of the official UN conference.2 The Forums are times for networking, exchanging information, celebrating, and planning action.3 The NGO Forums are by far the larger and more colourful of the two meetings (the Beijing Forum was attended by about 30,000 women); whether they are also the more important in bringing about change is a matter of debate. They do indicate the widespread support, indeed, determination, of women globally, without which the action plans of

1. The author's e-mail address is: [email protected] 2. The Forum is usually too late to affect the official document adopted at the Conference, because

most of the work of drafting is done at preparatory conferences well in advance. However, some NGOs have the opportunity to participate in the Conferences and, depending on such factors as their own government's openness, can influence the proceedings to some extent.

3. I did not attend the Beijing Forum, but followed it, and the Conference, on the Internet, which is an excellent and thorough source on the issues, the process, and the outcome. At the Nairobi Forum, I was one of the coordinators of the Peace Tent, one of the three large venues, organized (with support from WILPF) by the international NGO Feminist International for Peace and Food, with members from two dozen countries. Audiotapes of Peace Tent sessions are held at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection in the US.

Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie 21(2) 1996 237



these conferences are not likely to be implemented. Ultimately, it is up to the citizenry to ensure that the decisions taken at such conferences are actually put into practice, and the Forums are a useful part of the process of consciousness raising and publicizing that support citizen monitoring and enforcement of

governments' commitments. The first such conference was held in Mexico City in 1975, to initiate the UN

Decade for Women and adopt a World Plan of Action for women's equality. This plan set out specific and concrete steps to be taken by member nations for the first five years of the Decade. The 1980 Copenhagen conference reviewed and appraised implementation, and identified actions for the second half of the Decade. At the end of the Decade, Nairobi was the site of the 1985 conference, at which the Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women (FLS) agreement was adopted, committing governments to achieve the objectives of the Decade by the year 2000.

FLS identified obstacles to achieving women's equality, development, and

peace; measures to overcome the obstacles; and specific strategies to implement the measures, to be undertaken at the international and national level. The commitments in FLS included general promises to integrate women into every level and stage of planning and decision-making for action on every issue

affecting women (quite broadly defined); and statements concerning actions to be taken to deal with specific areas of concern (for example, health, political participation, education, paid work, peace, environment, violence against women). Governments report regularly to the UN on progress in FLS implementation.4

These various action plans of the Decade are supported by another international agreement, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimi- nation Against Women (CEDAW), an international legal convention ratified by Canada in 1981, binding under international law. CEDAW signatories must take the necessary steps to remove ALL forms of discrimination against women. CEDAW defines discrimination as "any difference in treatment ... on the

grounds of sex that has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the

recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, on a basis of equality with men, of their human rights and fundamental freedoms in all spheres of life." This means the "exercise and enjoyment of all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, not only in public, but also in private life."5

4. For free copies of FLS, Canada's official reports to the UN on FLS progress, or an informal

government progress report called "Women's Equality in Canada," contact Status of Women

Canada, 360 Albert Street, Ottawa K1A 1C3, or phone 613-995-7835, fax 613-943-2386, or e-mail them at [email protected].

5. Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Progress Achieved in the Implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms ofDiscrimi-

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Canada must report at least every four years to the UN Committee in charge of CEDAW compliance. The Committee reports annually on its findings to the UN General Assembly. Thus CEDAW violations could be spotlighted in the General Assembly, which is a very embarrassing situation for the country concerned. Until now, individuals could not complain directly to CEDAW, but in the 1996 meetings, a procedure was being discussed for direct complaints by individuals or groups.6

The Beijing Conference took place against a background of increased attention to women's equality, after conferences on human rights (Vienna 1992), population (Cairo 1994), and social development (Copenhagen 1995). The aim of the Beijing conference was to assess progress on FLS implementation and adopt measures to speed up progress.7 The 1996 Beijing Declara-

nation Against Women, United Nations, 21 June 1995, paragraphs 17-18. CEDAW can be obtained from Human Rights Directorate, Heritage Canada, 15 Eddy Street, Hull K1A OM5, or phone 819-994-3458 or fax 819-994-5252. One example of CEDAW's impact on Canada is the 1985 changes to the provisions of the Indian act concerning the effect of marriage on women's nationality, which violated CEDAW article 9.

6. "Reports of Canada" to the UN, beginning with May 1983, are available from Human Rights Directorate, as is a useful "Reference Document" dated November 1985, by the Continuing Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee of Officials Responsible for Human Rights, which discusses some of the implications of CEDAW. For more on CEDAW see, for example, Rebecca Cook, "Women's International Human Rights Law: The Way Forward," in Rebecca Cook, ed., Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 3-36; Rebecca Cook, "State Accountability Under the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women," in Rebecca Cook, ed., pp. 228-256; Anne Bayefsky, "General Approaches to Domestic Application of Women's International Human Rights Law," in Rebecca Cook, ed., pp. 351-374; Rebecca Cook, "Gaining Redress Within a Human Rights Framework," in Joanna Kerr, ed., Ours By Right: Women's Rights as Human Rights (Ottawa and London: North-South Institute and Zed Books, 1993), pp. 13-15; Dorothy Thomas, "Holding Governments Accountable by Public Pressure," in Joanna Kerr, ed., pp. 82-88; Marsha Freeman, "Women, Development and Justice: Using the International Convention on Women's Rights," in Joanna Kerr, ed., pp. 93-105.

7. For an account of the Decade, the agreements, their implications and implementation, see Arvonne Fraser, The UN Decade for Women: Documents and Dialogue (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987); and Hilkka Pietila and Jeanne Vickers, Making Women Matter: The Role of the United Nations (London: Zed Books, 1990). For an assessment of the compliance of Canadian governments in carrying out their obligations see Deborah Stienstra and Barbara Roberts, Little But Lip Service: Assessing Canada's Implementation of Its International Commitments to Women's Equality, background study for the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, November 1993; Deborah Stienstra and Barbara Roberts, Strategies for the Year 2000: A Women's Handbook (Halifax: Ferwood Press, 1995); Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Work In Progress: Tracking Women's Equality in Canada, August 1994. The National Action Committee on the Status of Women regularly submits parallel reports to the UN to counter Canada's official reports; the most recent is "Decade of Deterioration on the Status of Women in Canada: A Summary Report," August 1995.

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tion8 and Platform For Action (PFA) were intended to provide a comprehensive action plan to enhance women's social, economic and political empowerment. Much of the discussion in NGO and official circles before the Conference was concerned with how to assure implementation.9 Australia's proposal for a conference of commitments was not taken up officially, but over 90 governments announced specific commitments during the Conference. An NGO network has compiled their list and is monitoring and publicizing results, beginning with International Women's Day 1996 at the March 8 meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.?1

The Beijing Conference differed from its predecessors in that most of the

language of international agreements adopted at such events is thrashed out in

preparatory conferences and little but tidying is left for the official meeting. However, the PFA draft that was taken to Beijing had almost 40% of its language in brackets, meaning it had not been agreed upon. Observers feared that alliances between Christian and Muslim fundamentalists that had resulted in vigorous challenges at earlier conferences (such as the UN Population Conference at Cairo in September 1994)1 might block the passage of the PFA or gut some of its provisions, which would weaken support for women's equality in many countries. These fears were not realized, and the language of the final document is strong, although there were heated debates, fueled in part by fundamentalist

attempts to weaken equality provisions, on issues such as women's rights as human rights, health, inheritance, parental responsibility, abortion, family forms, culture and religion, rape as a war crime, the value of women's unpaid work, portrayal of women leaders as mothers and professionals, and sexual orientation.12

8. The Beijing Declaration is a 38 paragraph preamble to the Platform For Action, explaining the circumstances and aims of the Conference, reaffirming governments' commitment to UN human rights instruments including the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, to documents adopted at other UN Conferences, to FLS, and to the empowerment of women. The Declaration concludes, "we hereby commit ourselves as Governments to implement the following Platform For Action."

9. Following the Conference, Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali appointed Rosario Green, a Senior Adviser and Assistant Secretary General, to oversee the follow up for Beijing and act as his adviser on women's issues. She is to ensure that a gender perspective is incorporated into all UN policies and programmes, to support system-wide coordination.

10. NGOs involved are InterAction, the International Women's Tribune Center, and the Women's Environment and Development Organization; for more information contact [email protected].

11. See Nathan Keyfitz, "What Happened in Cairo? A View from the Interet," Canadian Journal

of Sociology 20, 1 (1995), 81-90. 12. Canada had supported the inclusion of sexual orientation; it was dropped at the last minute due

to a perceived lack of support but it was remarkable that the discussion went that far. Canada has a deservedly good reputation on women's issues at the UN; unfortunately, on aboriginal issues the same cannot be said. In March 1995 at the UN Committee on Human Rights, Canada

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The Conference was remarkable for the frank discussion of topics that were taboo twenty years ago, and for the acceptance of pro-equality provisions by the

great majority of UN members. The PFA was adopted by consensus, although some 40 countries announced reservations (sections of the agreement they did not accept as written).

It is commonplace to lament UN agreements as boring and meaningless documents that no one pays attention to. That cannot be said by anyone who has read the agreements on women's equality produced by the UN Decade for Women. The PFA is a remarkable, complex, and lengthy (362 paragraph) document explicitly aimed at implementing the commitments of the FLS, CEDAW, and other UN agreements and instruments, to bring about the empowerment of women. The document sets out a plan for this, and for removing obstacles to women's "full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society, including participation in the decision-making process and access to

power" (par. 13).13 The PFA identifies twelve "critical areas of concern": poverty, education and

training, health, violence, peace, economic structures and policies, decision-

making, mechanisms to promote the advancement of women, human rights of women, media, environment, and the girl child. Each critical area of concern is discussed in an introductory section, followed by several strategic objectives, each with a list of actions to be taken, mostly by governments. Governments should have begun developing strategies and action plans (par. 297) by the end

co-sponsored a resolution (drafted by the US) that sabotaged and sidetracked the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (developed in consultation with indigenous peoples over a ten year period). The Declaration must now spend another decade in drafting, under a new process giving more power to national governments and reducing indigenous participation. The resolution also removed "s" from "peoples," which would make it more difficult for First Nations groups such as the Lubicon Cree of Little Buffalo, Alberta, to use UN avenues for support in their land rights and self-determination struggles (because they would not be seen as indigenous nations but as part of a general lump of indigenous people): Mililani Trask and Sharon Venne (an Alberta Cree lawyer working on this issue at the UN), "Action Alert to All Indigenous Nations Around the World: Draft Declaration on Indigenous Peoples," 8 March 1995, Copenhagen; "Report of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities on its Forty-Sixth Session," Economic and Social Council, United Nations, 28 February 1995; courtesy of Elaine Bishop, "Reflections," The Canadian Friend: Quaker News and Thought, 92.1 January-February 1996, 9-12.

13. For copies of the PFA, contact Status of Women Canada. SWC is preparing a chart that will link paragraphs in PFA, FLS, CEDAW and other UN agreements, available sometime in 1996. The Canada Beijing Facilitating Committee (which helped NGOs plan their participation) is

preparing an accessible guide to the PFA, Take Action for Equality, Development and Peace, available in May 1996; to order a copy contact the CBFC c/o CRIAW, 151 Slater Street, Ottawa K1P 5H3, tel. 613-563-0681, fax 613-563-0682, or e-mail [email protected].

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of 1995, to be completed by the end of 1996. Their first step (par. 296) is for "all institutions to review their objectives, programmes and operational proce- dures in terms of the actions called for in the Platform." The implementation planning should involve the "highest levels of authority" and the "implementation strategies should be comprehensive, have time-bound targets and bench- marks for monitoring, and include proposals for allocating or reallocating resources for implementation" (par. 297). Women's organizations "should be

encouraged to contribute to the design and implementation of these strategies or national plans of action" (par. 298).

Reactions by Canadian governments have been mixed. The federal government took an action plan to Beijing: "Setting the Stage for the Next Century: The Federal Plan for Gender Equality," produced by 24 departments and

agencies.14 The plan sets out eight objectives: 1) implement gender-based analysis (at the discretion of each department or agency); 2) improve women's economic situation; 3) improve women's physical and psychological well-be-

ing; 4) reduce violence in society, particularly violence against women and children; 5) promote gender equality in all aspects of Canada's cultural life; 6) incorporate women's perspectives in governance; 7) promote and support global gender equality; 8) advance gender equality for employees of federal departments and agencies. Each objective has a set of actions. Obviously the federal

government will be doing more planning with reference to paragraphs 296-298, because this plan does not have time-bound targets and the other "teeth" mentioned in PFA paragraph 297, was not developed in consultation with women's groups, nor does it indicate how the federal government will work with

provincial and territorial levels of government to coordinate implementation strategies and ensure that all levels abide by the PFA, which may be a crucial issue.

Provincial (and territorial) governments are also obligated by the adoption of FLS and PFA (and of course CEDAW), particularly since a number of the areas of action are under provincial jurisdiction (for example, health, education). Given the current climate of strong provincial advocacy for increased areas of

jurisdiction, it would be logical for the provinces to seize upon the PFA and use their implementation strategy planning process to further this cause. I contacted Alberta Women's Policy and Programs (the provincial "machinery" for women's equality) in February 1996 to ask about the process that would be used with reference to paragraphs 296-298, and was told that this was not something that Alberta would be involved in, because interational agreements were a federal responsibility.

14. The document is available from Status of Women Canada.

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This is a rather startling (and thus far unremarked) reversal of Alberta's usual views about the need for greater provincial autonomy and further decentraliza- tion of federal powers. The provincial government is apparently ceding to Ottawa the right to make implementation plans with teeth, for, say, education and health, which the Alberta goverment will carry out.'5 Unless, of course, the Alberta government does not intend to carry out PFA actions, but since no reservation was announced on its behalf at Beijing, that does not seem likely. Perhaps this policy puzzle will resolve itself when more information is available.

In fact, CEDAW, FLS, and the PFA are not just projects of the federal

government in Canada. The provinces and territories were involved in the

planning for FLS and PFA and they are legally bound by CEDAW. And they must send in periodic progress reports to Ottawa, to be included in the official

reports Canada sends to the UN on progress in FLS (and from now on, PFA) and CEDAW implementation. Moreover, statements by federal, provincial and territorial governments in Canada's FLS and CEDAW mandated progress reports to the UN make it clear that all levels of government recognize their involvement in these agreements.

What difference will Beijing make? The PFA is a considerable improvement over previous agreements: its clarity, concreteness, strong statement that gender equality was a question of human rights and a necessary condition for social justice, and recognition that women must share power in decision making at all levels of society, and especially its call for implementation strategies with teeth.

Despite its flaws and omissions,16 the PFA contains much of what is needed to bring about women's equality. As an activist, I am hopeful. As a researcher, I find the present situation challenging. One of the major differences between now and the post-Nairobi period is the improvement in communications brought about by the Internet.'7 Groups in Canada can communicate with each other, and with other groups globally, to keep informed and to form strategies. Women's

15. On the other hand, the Manitoba Minister for the Status of Women, with her premier's blessing, has extended an invitation for all the ministers to meet in Winnipeg to develop joint plans. The response had not been received at the time of writing. "Notes from meeting of November 18, 1995 with Rosemary Vodrey, Minister responsible for the Status of Women," with members of the Manitoba-Beijing Network.

16. For example, failure to identify the current global economic system and policies as a major cause of harm to women; see Sunera Thobani, "Beijing Platform Doesn't Do Right By Women," Herizons (Winter 1996), 48; Michel Chossudovsky, "The World Bank Derogates Women's Rights," Canadian Dimension (February-March 1996), 16-17; Shelagh Day, "What was Left out of the Platform: Globalization of the Economy," Onward From Beijing (December 1995), final issue of the CBFC Newsletter, 7.

17. One important vehicle is PAR-L, Policy, Action, Research List, a feminist Internet list started by staff from the CACSW before its dissolution. Moderators can be reached at [email protected].

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groups across the country are developing their own implementation strategies, planning to get the word out and make sure women know what has been promised.18 If the Canadian delegation were sincere in pledging Canada to implement the PFA, as it did in the Beijing Declaration, and if we hold them to it, then much is possible.

18. I have developed some brief educational materials, available via e-mail upon request: "Promises to Keep: FLS and Canadian Women's Issues," 1986 (revised 1995) and "More Promises to

Keep: The Beijing Platform For Action and Canadian Women's Issues," 1996. These documents are also available in French.

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