The third and final episode of our retrospective on the UN 4th World Conference on Women covers the 5-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action that states parties signed in 1995 in Beijing. The event held in June 2000 at UN headquarters in New York was intended to cover what progress women had made on those issues since 1995. The most hotly contested issue was sexual rights. Existing compromise language, paragraph 96 in the original document, says women have the right to control their own sexuality. In this program, you'll hear fierce objections by right-wing US organizers and delegates from Catholic and Muslim-oriented countries, but also a defence by the European Union bloc. Canada argued for the language to be expanded to explicitly include "sexual orientation." New Zealand considered sexual orientation to be covered under a clause worded as "other status." The G77 was somewhat split on sexual rights, but came out strongly on the issue that women in the world had become poorer over the past 5 years - attributed largely to globalization and national debts. According to sociologist Jacqueline Skyles, the agreement signed at the end of this meeting was "almost a miracle."
Host: Nafisa Hoodbhoy; Reporter: Frieda Werden
WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service has been covering the global women's movement and related issues for community radio since 1986. Contact, pitches: wings@wings.org
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