Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 15, 1995 TAG: 9509160003
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BEIJING LENGTH: Medium
The world's biggest women's gathering drew to a close today as it began: with calls for solidarity, heartfelt hopes for change - and reminders that even a common cause can bring uncommon discord.
The Fourth World Conference on Women - two weeks of official U.N. meetings preceded by a freewheeling week of seminars and protests in a muddy tent city outside Beijing - was poised to approve an ambitious plan to forge a new partnership between the world's men and women.
But as the 5,000 delegates discovered, agreeing on how to go about that wasn't easy.
Despite unity on the overriding goal - bettering everyone's lives by bettering the lives of women - divisions on specific points sparked passionate, sometimes painful arguments among the 189 member states.
Lesbian rights were debated for the first time at the U.N. level, but were dropped from the final draft early today. More last-minute bargaining took place over whether human rights and sexual freedoms should vary according to religious and cultural traditions.
The full conference was to vote on the document later today and then adjourn.
The final 150-page platform was a sprawling affair, seeking to cut across lines of class and culture to touch lives as diverse as those of an African village dweller and an American working woman.
The language might have been bureaucratic, but, for women the world over, the issues were vivid and immediate.
The platform denounced systematic rape as a weapon of war and called for an end to trafficking in women. It spoke out for more women in decision-making roles, and worked to balance the rights of children and their parents. It urged equal inheritance rights and decried on-the-job sexual harassment.
``This is an important document for women, for our daughters, for the next century,'' said U.S. delegate Linda Tarr-Whelan.
For China, the conference was an object lesson in being careful of what you wish for - lest it come true.
The Beijing government had hungered for the prestige of being host to a high-profile international event. But as the gathering progressed, Beijing reacted angrily to criticism and at times subjected conference participants to security intrusive by world standards, though not approaching the zeal with which it polices its own citizens.
As the conference was ending, the government's sigh of relief was almost audible.
``We're delighted we have successfully fulfilled our obligation to the U.N.,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian told reporters Thursday.
There was a lot of criticism, but the document's defenders said that was missing the point.
``What has emerged from this conference is ... consensus in the global community that improving the lives of women makes for strong, healthy and loving families,'' said U.S. delegation deputy chairwoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, a former Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania.
by CNB