Embarrassed at the UN
Although you might not know it from most newspapers, and certainly not from TV, this is the
second week of a major global gathering of women, "Beijing Plus 10" at the United Nations in NY. Thousands of women from around the world have come to NY for the 2 week session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (known to the attenders as the CSW). This happens every year but this year happens to be the 10th year since the 4th World Conference of Women held in Beijing in 1995.
At that amazing and transformative gathering, the governments of the world, US included, agreed on a list of goals for women's equality and well-being, known as the
Beijing Plan for Action. The Plan includes items like aiming to have at least 50% of all women in all countries educated at least to elementary school level, improving health and maternal death rates, nutritional status, etc. You would like to think that this would not be controversial, even in the current political situation. You would be wrong, however.... Whereas most of the world's 191+ countries send their best and brightest and most respected delegates to this meeting (Saudi Arabia and Sudan aside), the US has sent a delegation of undistinguished and lower-ranking officials and appointees who have spent most of the past 10 days infuriating the international delegates and the US women's organizations at the meetings.
Even while women all over the world, including the US, face serious issues of life and equality, our delegation stands up at the UN and rants about sex education and condoms (against both) and of course against abortion and any kind of women's health that could be labeled "reproductive health services" even to care for victims of rape. US lead delegate Ellen Saurbrey finally conceded that the US would not insist on an anti-abortion amendment to the global Beijing platform, but then gave an excruciating speech to the world about the US obsession with abstinence-only sex education and abstinence-only HIV-AIDS prevention. There were reports that global delegates actually booed Ms Saurbrey at one point, an amazing breech of diplomatic behaviour.
It is bad enough that this is the country that could not agree on the Equal Rights Amendment, is still one of the very limited number of countries that will not ratify the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women/CEDAW (again, our old friends Sudan and Saudi Arabia are among the few fellow hold-outs), but to expend so much public energy pressuring, posturing, and attempting to bribe the countries of the world to go backwards on the goals for women we supported 10 years ago is a bitter humiliation for those of us who would like to think that women are moving forward and should be able to count on freedom and equality. There are more women in parliament in Rwanda, the country still recovering from genocide, than there are in the US Congress or any state legislature in the US.
On the plus side of the CSW experience, it is wonderful to see the UN become, however briefly, a community of the world's women. Even with genuine debates on policy and priorities, there is an
exhilarating delight in meeting and hearing and seeing so many diverse and impressive women
and learning of their struggles and their successess. It also is striking to realize how essential a role the UN and UN documents such as the Beijing Plan for Action play in almost all parts of the world except the US. We the women of the US, indeed we the people, would have a lot to gain if we could break through the anti-UN isolationist curtain to enjoy our share of the rights the international community has established. Although we have given the UN a small bit of Manhattan and our reluctantly paid dues, what we have to gain potentially is much greater if we could be willing to think of ourselves as part of the global community-not the City on the Hill. Women in the US, at least, would be much better off if we would aim for the nineteenth century suffrage standard, "our rights and nothing less: our rights and nothing more".
peacewoman1213
second week of a major global gathering of women, "Beijing Plus 10" at the United Nations in NY. Thousands of women from around the world have come to NY for the 2 week session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (known to the attenders as the CSW). This happens every year but this year happens to be the 10th year since the 4th World Conference of Women held in Beijing in 1995.
At that amazing and transformative gathering, the governments of the world, US included, agreed on a list of goals for women's equality and well-being, known as the
Beijing Plan for Action. The Plan includes items like aiming to have at least 50% of all women in all countries educated at least to elementary school level, improving health and maternal death rates, nutritional status, etc. You would like to think that this would not be controversial, even in the current political situation. You would be wrong, however.... Whereas most of the world's 191+ countries send their best and brightest and most respected delegates to this meeting (Saudi Arabia and Sudan aside), the US has sent a delegation of undistinguished and lower-ranking officials and appointees who have spent most of the past 10 days infuriating the international delegates and the US women's organizations at the meetings.
Even while women all over the world, including the US, face serious issues of life and equality, our delegation stands up at the UN and rants about sex education and condoms (against both) and of course against abortion and any kind of women's health that could be labeled "reproductive health services" even to care for victims of rape. US lead delegate Ellen Saurbrey finally conceded that the US would not insist on an anti-abortion amendment to the global Beijing platform, but then gave an excruciating speech to the world about the US obsession with abstinence-only sex education and abstinence-only HIV-AIDS prevention. There were reports that global delegates actually booed Ms Saurbrey at one point, an amazing breech of diplomatic behaviour.
It is bad enough that this is the country that could not agree on the Equal Rights Amendment, is still one of the very limited number of countries that will not ratify the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women/CEDAW (again, our old friends Sudan and Saudi Arabia are among the few fellow hold-outs), but to expend so much public energy pressuring, posturing, and attempting to bribe the countries of the world to go backwards on the goals for women we supported 10 years ago is a bitter humiliation for those of us who would like to think that women are moving forward and should be able to count on freedom and equality. There are more women in parliament in Rwanda, the country still recovering from genocide, than there are in the US Congress or any state legislature in the US.
On the plus side of the CSW experience, it is wonderful to see the UN become, however briefly, a community of the world's women. Even with genuine debates on policy and priorities, there is an
exhilarating delight in meeting and hearing and seeing so many diverse and impressive women
and learning of their struggles and their successess. It also is striking to realize how essential a role the UN and UN documents such as the Beijing Plan for Action play in almost all parts of the world except the US. We the women of the US, indeed we the people, would have a lot to gain if we could break through the anti-UN isolationist curtain to enjoy our share of the rights the international community has established. Although we have given the UN a small bit of Manhattan and our reluctantly paid dues, what we have to gain potentially is much greater if we could be willing to think of ourselves as part of the global community-not the City on the Hill. Women in the US, at least, would be much better off if we would aim for the nineteenth century suffrage standard, "our rights and nothing less: our rights and nothing more".
peacewoman1213
posted by peacewoman1213 at 7:57 PM
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