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Program Areas, Sector: Gender

Posted Date: May 20, 1996

NGOs Score Victories at Beijing Women's Conference

Both the Forum and Conference mark a triumph for NGOs and the international women's movement. In the face of many obstacles imposed by the Chinese government prior to and in Beijing, conservative opposition to women's rights, and differences amongst women's groups themselves, NGOs proved their strength in numbers and in political savvy. More than 30,000 women and men made it to China for the NGO Forum despite problems with last minute visa approvals and hotel confirmations. The Conference included over 3,000 accredited NGOs, which is more than ten times the number that attended the 1985 Nairobi Conference. These many, diverse groups demonstrated a powerful sense of purpose, rising above physical and political constraints to secure an outcome supportive of rights and opportunities for all women.

The Forum (August 30 to September 8) was held in Huairou, a small town about an hour from downtown Beijing. The Chinese government "banished" the Forum from Beijing to Huairou in March after seeing NGO advocacy in action at the Social Summit in Copenhagen and the UNFWCW PrepCom. Over 6,000 workshops, plenaries, demonstrations and cultural events were scheduled over the ten-day period. The site itself included buildings, some not yet completed, tents and inflatable "tents" laid out over a multi-acre area. In spite of numerous problems -- inaccurate site maps, unexpected September rain that collapsed tents and walls, poor hotel facilities, inadequate transportation, pervasive Chinese security -- most participants found ways to make the experience meaningful. InterAction members sponsored over 60 workshops and displays, including sessions on reproductive health for adolescent girls, African women in politics, and women in livestock production. Regional groups built solidarity through songs, art and discussions in their tents. Caucuses or groups focusing on specific issues, such as human rights, refugees or youth met to organize and strategize for the Conference and beyond. And individual women sought out workshops on their issues or shared perspectives with women from almost every country around the globe.

"The scene was chaotic, but it was a creative, positive chaos," said Suzanne Kindervatter, director of the InterAction Commission on the Advancement of Women.

Though many NGOs left China after the Forum, the energy and positive spirit of the event flowed directly into the Conference (September 4-15). Prior to coming to Beijing, representatives of international women's networks met several times to develop a way that NGO lobbying at the Conference could be representative, inclusive, and effective. Based on recommendations of this group, an "Equipo," or team, of NGO representatives was created just before the Conference opened, composed of one member from each of the 30 regional and issue-based caucuses. Throughout the Conference this group met daily to coordinate lobbying and to present a daily briefing for all NGOs. While members had different priorities and different past roles in the women's movement, the group committed itself to working together and successfully avoided potential rifts.

In part due to the negative experience of the March PrepCom at the UN, NGOs accredited to the Conference had a common mission: to hold firm on the gains from the human rights and population and development conferenc- es, to advance the agenda on economic and political empowerment, and to secure government commitments for follow-up action and implementation. In March, the official Conference leaders had severely limited NGO access to the intergovernmental deliberations, and a small but well-organized group of governments and the Vatican had launched a campaign against the "Cairo language" on reproductive health and the concept of "women's rights as human rights." In the months prior to Beijing, NGOs worked to counter these challenges, but came to China ready to do battle if necessary.

At the opening of the Conference, about one-fourth of the Platform for Action remained "in brackets" or still under negotiation. NGOs were concerned that restrictions on access would limit their ability to monitor deliberations in key areas and that conservative forces would succeed in making roll-backs in the areas of rights and reproductive health. To the surprise and relief of most NGOs at the Conference, neither concern became reality. Soon after the Conference opened, the Vatican announced that it would not contest the language on reproductive rights agreed upon at the Cairo population and development conference. In subsequent negotiations on the Platform, governments agreed to language that even went beyond Cairo, stating that women have the right to decide freely all matters related to their sexuality and child-bearing (paragraph 97).

In the area of human rights, NGOs and supportive governments scored a victory with adoption of the phrase women's rights as "human rights" rather than "universally recognized human rights;" the latter is viewed by human rights advocates as indicating a responsibility of governments to uphold only rights that have been noted in international fora, rather than the inherent rights of all women and men.

The "women's rights as human rights" concept, which pervaded discussion of all twelve "critical areas of concern" in the Platform, was strengthened by the speech delivered by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on the second day of the meeting. Clinton served as honorary chair of an outstanding US delegation that led efforts to secure language for which NGOs advocated in many areas and supported NGO concerns related to access, free expression, and security. InterAction President Julia Taft was a member of the official delegation (see the July 10, 1995 Monday Developments).

Several controversial sections of the Platform for Action, dealing with the concept of "family," with inheritance rights, and with parental responsibility for girls reproductive health were settled through the adoption of compromise language acceptable to delegates representing different perspectives. Unexpectedly, the Conference Declaration proved to be the most arduous part of the intergovernmental negotiations. One US official expressed a hope that the Declaration would be a document, unlike the 150 page Platform, that would "sing;" in contrast, many other governments sought a more traditional UN style. Beyond tone, the Declaration became the place some governments tried to include concepts not included or weakly included in the Platform. In particular, some governments promoted a phrase on freedom of "sexual orientation," and others sought to subordinate or make women's rights conditional to national and religious customs. At about 4:30 a.m. on the final day of the Conference, the chair broke a deadlock by securing agreement from the lead governments involved to drop both references and to adopt more general language.

"The US was represented in the marathon negotiations by a talented team of officials who maintained a close consultation with US NGOs," said Taft. "Similar liaison between non-US NGOs and their own governments underscored a partnership of collaboration unprecedented in UN Conferenc- es. We are encouraged that these relationships will continue during the important implementation of the Platform for Action."

To ensure this, one unique product for a UN meeting was a set of commit- ments made by many governments to priority actions for implementing the Platform back home. Since the March PrepCom, InterAction and its member agencies had worked to promote the concept of the "conference of commit- ments," introduced by the Australian government. NGOs view the commit- ments as a means to promote follow-up and government accountability. Though this language went to Beijing in brackets, most governments and NGOs expected general agreement on the call to governments to make com- mitments in their plenary speeches and on a mandate to the UN Conference Secretariat to document them. In the deliberations in Beijing, however, the language on commitments was watered down, so that the UN was not responsible for documentation of the commitments. Therefore, NGOs took on the task of analyzing, documenting and publicizing the commitments made in the plenary speeches, and InterAction played a leading role in this effort. With one day of plenary speeches remaining at the Conference, 65 governments out of 150 that had presented speeches had made commitments. InterAction's CAW is completing the compilation of the commitments, and the current version is available on the World Wide Web: http://www.womensnet.apc.org/beijing/scoreboard.html

The US government made seven commitments, including the establishment of a structure to follow up on the Beijing Conference -- a decision for which InterAction and many other NGOs had lobbied. The Clinton Administration has established a White House Office on Women, and the US delegation will continue in an advisory role. NGOs in the US and other countries plan to use the commitments to ensure that governments follow- through with action and resources.

"For NGO representatives who attended the Nairobi Forum and Conference in 1985 and are now reflecting on the outcomes of Beijing, the advances for the women's movement and for NGOs as `policy-influencers' are clear and dramatic," said Kindervatter. "The Nairobi meetings were like a compass that pointed women in a certain direction. After Beijing, women and governments have a map to guide future efforts for gender equality and equity. And just as importantly, NGOs now have the numbers and sophistication to make sure that promises made by governments will be kept."