By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 28 2005 (IPS)

The U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), one of the key U.N. bodies monitoring both the progress and lack thereof in the social and economic development of women, has mixed feelings about a much-ballyhooed plan of action adopted at a major U.N. conference in Beijing in 1995.

"Gender awareness? Yes," says UNIFEM executive director Noeleen Heyzer. "Implementation and accountability? No."

As representatives of 191 member states gathered at the United Nations Monday for a review of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) on gender equality adopted 10 years ago, an estimated 6,000 women’s rights advocates from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were meeting at the fringes of the conference to demand more tangible results from world political leaders.

"Genuine equality means more than parity in numbers," says Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW).

"Parity can sometimes be achieved by lowering the bar for all – men and women. Equality, on the other hand, means justice, greater opportunity, and a better quality of life so that everyone, both women and men, achieve higher levels of well-being."

Kavita Ramdas, president and chief executive officer of the Global Fund for Women, is critical of the increasing number of conflicts worldwide and their devastating impact on women’s rights.

The world’s most powerful and influential governments have chosen to move into the 21st century with scant regard for the previous rights fought for and gained by women activists around the world.

"We cannot allow this trend to continue," she added.

In an interview with IPS, Heyzer said a positive outcome of the BFPA was greater awareness of gender empowerment worldwide.

She said that over the last decade about 179 countries have signed the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), while 120 countries have adopted national action plans for gender empowerment.

At the same time, she said, there were 45 countries that have statutory legislation prohibiting violence against women and 40 countries have changed laws that discriminate against women.

These are laws, Heyzer said, involving marriage, inheritance and better protection for women migrant workers.

"All these are very good because governments have done a lot to change the legal and policy framework (favouring gender equality)" she said, "But no progress has been made in several other fields."

The AIDS/HIV infection rate is still the highest among young and unmarried women. In most armed conflicts, women are still used as weapons of war.

"The gender architecture is fragmented and weak. We need to strengthen this," Heyzer said. "Unless this is done, you cannot hold institutions accountable." She also said there was a greater need for both "implementation and accountability."

In 19-page report released Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan admits that "lack of accountability remains one of the major challenges to effective implementation."

He says that "few mechanisms exists within the U.N. system to ensure accountability."

"A lot of progress has been made since Beijing," says Rachel Mayanja, special adviser to the secretary-general on gender issues and advancement of women.

"We are seeing more equitable laws that protect women from discrimination, abuse, and violence. However, there is much more that needs to be done to put the Beijing Platform for Action into practice, especially in terms of alleviating poverty, improving health, creating opportunity for economic advancement and political leadership, and reducing human rights violations."

The issue of gender empowerment was initially raised at the first U.N. Conference on Women in Mexico in 1975, to be followed 20 years later in Beijing.

The BPFA, adopted at the Beijing conference, identified 12 "critical areas of concern" for women – including poverty, education and training, health care, economic structure and policies, power and decision-making, human rights, communication and media, the environment and the rights of the girl child.

In 2000, the U.N. General Assembly held a special session on "Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century" (also known as "Beijing Plus Five").

At this meeting, the international community pledged additional initiatives, including strengthening legislation against domestic violence, an end to early and forced marriages and female genital mutilation.

"When I attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing 10 years ago, I was genuinely encouraged by the vitality and enthusiasm of the participants," Werner Fornos, president of the Washington-based Population Institute, told IPS.

"There was an emphatic sense of a strong potential for tearing down the walls of gender inequity, inequality and prejudice that have been massive roadblocks in the paths of all too many global endeavors," said Fornos, one of the few men to participate in all three international women’s conferences.

"In retrospect, the most positive outcome of the Beijing meeting, in my view, is the opportunities for women from all regions of the world to meet, communicate, share their experiences, and provide support in the challenges they face."

As a networking threshold, the Beijing conference was extraordinarily significant. There indeed has been important progress for women’s rights and empowerment over the past decade, he added.

Fornos said that while women hold only 13 percent of the seats in parliaments throughout the world, "who could have predicted 10 years ago that women today would make up 50 percent of the commissioners of the African Union?"

"Or that women would win 49 percent of the seats in the Rwandan parliament and 50 percent of that country’s High Court judges? Or that the constitution of Afghanistan would contain a provision guaranteeing equal rights for men and women?"

There is hope that the "New Family Code" in Morocco – granting women equality and co-responsibility and considering women at long last full-fledged citizens – will serve as a propelling model for other Islamic countries.

Last but not least, he said, it is extremely important that 45 nations now have laws against domestic violence, an additional 21 countries are drafting new laws on this issue, and many others have amended their criminal code to include domestic violence.

"But we still have only scratched the surface. I was virtually certain that a decade after the Beijing conference, there would be substantially more advances than there have been," Fornos added.

For example, he said, that of the 150 million children aged six to 11 who are not enrolled in school, 90 million are girls.

Consequently, of the world’s 876 million illiterate adults over 15 years of age, two-thirds are women, while 500,000 women die each year in pregnancy and childbirth.

At the same time, he said, about 48 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS are women.

"Beijing provided a magnificent beacon for women’s progress the world over. But hard work and eternal vigilance are needed to ensure that it will continue to shine brilliantly – not only for the sake of women everywhere, but for the sake of all humankind," Fornos added.

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