WOMEN’S MOVEMENT AND INTERNATIONALISATION

ECPR Workshop, Mannheim, 26-31 March 1999

By Hilkka Pietilä
Independent Researcher and Writer

Engendering the Global Agenda:

A Success Story of Women and the United Nations

CONTENTS

1. Prologue – Women and the League of Nations 1

- Women at the Paris Peace Conference 1919 2

- People’s Organizations and Intergovernmental Cooperation 2
- Latin American Women as Forerunners 4
- Pacifist and Feminist Aims 4

2. The Founding Mothers of the United Nations 5

- Dispute over the Basic Concepts 6

- New Dimensions for the United Nations 8
- The Mission and Mandate of the Commission on the Status of Women 9
- Human Rights or "Rights of Man"?
10

3. Human Rights are Women’s Rights

12

- The Legal Status of Women in the World

12
- The Right to Family Planning - a New Human Right
13
- Convention on the Rights of Women
15The Missing Link in the Chain
17

4. The United Nations Decade for Women (1976 -1985):

a Decade of Development
19
 - New Trends with New States in the UN
19
- International Women’s Year as an Engine for Change
20
- The UN World Conferences on Women 1975, 1980 and 1985
22
- INSTRAW and UNIFEM emerged out of Mexico
24
- Women’s World Conferences
26
- The United Nations Decade for Women Changed the World
28

5. All Issues are Women’s Issues

30

- Women for a Healthy Planet

30
- An Infallible Strategy
31
Diving into the Mainstream of World Conferences
34

6. The Beijing Conference – A Grand Consolidation

36

- The Greatest Success of All Time!

38
- PFA – an Agenda for Women’s Empowerment
39
- Reorganization and Reorientation of Women’s World
41
- Governments Accountable to the World’s Women
44

7. Epilogue – Will the World Change?

46

- Momentum from the South

47
- Every Government is Accountable
48

References
50
Annex I -An open letter to the women of the world
Annex II -Year by year progress of the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
 Engendering the Global Agenda:
A Success Story of Women and the United Nations

Women's international organizations, which were still very young, had interesting
collaboration with the first intergovernmental peace organization, the League of Nations, in
the 1920s and 1930s. This collaboration also gave them very important experience and
facilities to participate effectively in the founding process of the United Nations in the 1940s,
immediately after the Second World War. This early history of engendering intergovernmental
politics has attracted the interest of researchers surprisingly late, as late as the early years of
the 1990s (Miller, 1992). During this decade the process of engendering the global agenda
has, in practice, achieved irreversible results.

1. Prologue – Women and the League of Nations

The founding of the League of Nations marked the beginning of organized and
institutionalized intergovernmental collaboration in a form which was unprecedented in world
history. This was the first step in intergovernmental foreign policy towards supranational
goals – such as peace and security – instead of each nation merely defending their individual
interests against the interests of others. Women immediately seemed to realise the nature of
the cooperation in the making. They had good reason to become interested in this new
development. First, all intergovernmental cooperation aiming at the ending of wars and
violence and the settlement of disputes through negotiations corresponded with the yearning
for peace in women’s minds. This desire was particularly strong in everybody’s mind after
having experienced the destruction and horrors of war in massive proportions, as was the case
after both of the World Wars.

Another reason for women’s commitment to intergovernmental collaboration, right from the
beginning, has clearly been their firm belief in the fact that the advancement of women in
different countries requires governmental policies and democratic opportunities for women to
influence those policies. Since the pursuit for the strengthening of both the prerequisites for
peace and the advancement and empowerment of women united women across borders,
women saw promising chances for the advancement of their own aspirations in the new
intergovernmental cooperation.

It is, however, amazing to see how well prepared the international women’s organizations
were to set out to influence the intergovernmental process right after the First World War.
After all, the international organization of women’s cooperation was still very young: the first
women’s international organizations began to emerge at the turn of the century and during the
First World War.
 2

- Women at the Paris Peace Conference 1919

In 1919, after the First World War, the representatives of governments gathered at the Paris
Peace Conference to establish the League of Nations and the International Labour
Organisation. Representatives of women’s international organizations were already present,
giving their own proposals regarding the Covenant of the League of Nations in order to
prevent the exclusion of women from the provisions and decisions.

In this context, women founded the Inter-Allied Suffrage Conference (IASC), whose
delegation received the right to participate in certain peace conference commissions. Provided
with the chance to meet the representatives of fourteen Allied governments, the delegation
immediately urged that women be provided with access to the decision-making positions in
the League of Nations. Furthermore, they already had proposals on issues that they wished to
be included in the programme of the newly established League. They proposed that the
League set out to promote universal suffrage in the member states, take measures to recognize
the right of a woman married to a foreigner to keep her nationality and include in this
programme the abolition of traffic in women and children and state-supported prostitution. In
addition, they called for the creation of international education and health bureau and the
control and reduction of armaments.

Based on these proposals, the Covenant of the League of Nations declared that the member
states should promote humane conditions of labour for men, women and children as well as
prevent traffic in women and children. It also included wording that obliged governments to
permit all positions in the League of Nations, including the Secretariat, to be open equally to
men and women.

At the same time, women from American and British trade unions were on the move when the
constitution of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was being drafted. They called
for an eight-hour working day, a forty-four-hour work week, an end to child labour, support
for social insurance, pensions and maternity benefits, equal pay for equal work for women and
men as well as minimum wages for housework. Their proposals were politely received but
quickly shelved as being far too radical.

Nevertheless, women’s active efforts resulted in the inclusion of a reference to fair and
humane conditions of labour for men, women and children in the International Labour
Legislation. The work towards the other objectives first presented at this early stage has
continued ever since, but some of the objectives have still not been achieved.

- People’s Organizations and Intergovernmental Cooperation

After the founding of the League of Nations and the ILO, representatives of women’s
organizations began to regularly observe the operations of the intergovernmental organizations
and give their own proposals to government representatives. They founded the Liaison
Committee of Women’s International Organizations which became "the voice of women" in
Geneva. The women’s organizations campaigned throughout the 1920s and 1930s to ensure,
 3

amongst other things, that women and women’s rights would not be neglected as the League
established an authority in the international legal protection of the human rights of other
groups.

This was the start of the dialogue between international non-governmental organizations
(INGOs) and an intergovernmental organization (IGO), i.e., the League of Nations.
Forerunners in this dialogue, which later on continued with the United Nations, include
women’s international organizations such as the International Council of Women (ICW), the
International Alliance of Women (IAW), the International Cooperative Women’s Guild
(ICWG), the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, the International
Federation of University Women (IFUW), the World Young Women’s Christian Association
(WYWCA) and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), which were
based mainly in Europe and the United States.

"While each type of organization clearly had distinct goals and priorities, they all believed that
the League of Nations was an important vehicle for social and political reforms, in particular,
the advancement of the status of women", says Carol Miller. These organizations were
estimated to represent forty-five million women, but "a leadership cohort of middle and
upper-class British, Scandinavian and American women who met on a regular basis in London
or Geneva coordinated women’s international work." (Miller 1992:iii)

Encouraged by the founding of the ILO, American female trade unionists convened the first
International Congress of Working Women in collaboration with women from the European
trade unions in Washington, DC, in 1919. The International Federation of Working Women
(IFWW) was also founded at this conference, and decisions were reached regarding a united
approach to women’s questions at the forthcoming annual International Labour Conferences.
The ILO operations towards the development of labour regulations had a brisk start as early as
in the 1920s, with women participating intensively right from the beginning.

The operations of women’s organizations in those times can now be compared to the
large-scale NGO conferences arranged in connection with the recent UN world conferences.
In Paris in 1919 a handful of newly established women’s international organizations arranged
the first parallel conference to coincide with the intergovernmental conference, with the aim of
having their voice heard in the discussions of the governments. It was not until twenty-five
years later, at the founding of the UN, that some of the proposals made then by women
reached the ears of the governments. Women’s early proposals had included international
collaboration in fields such as education and health care, but the world had to wait until 1946
to see the UN create the UNESCO and WHO to address these issues. Women also had clear
demands regarding disarmament and arms control, issues which were to become fundamental
parts of the UN operations right from the onset.

In the recent decades the parallel NGO conferences have become a permanent feature in
connection with the UN world conferences, gathering thousands of people from around the
world to monitor the proceedings of the intergovernmental events. These peoples’ fora create
massive publicity for issues that people from around the world wish to emphasize.
 4

- Latin American Women as Forerunners

Latin American women, for their part, were instrumental in the decision by the International
Conference of American States in 1928 to create the Inter-American Commission of Women
(IACW), the first intergovernmental body to address issues related to the status of women. The
IACW prepared and the governments adopted the Montevideo Convention on the Nationality
of Married Women in 1933. This was the first intergovernmental convention providing
women and men with equal status with respect to nationality. In 1935 the League of Nations
approved the Convention and urged all the member nations to ratify it.

The IACW also prepared the Declaration of Lima in Favor of Women’s Rights (1938). It was
as early as this that the IACW encouraged member governments to establish women’s
bureaux, to revise discriminatory civil codes and to take their initiatives regarding these issues
to the League of Nations (Galey 1995).

Perhaps the most concrete achievement in women’s ability to make an impact at the
international level was the Committee of Experts on the Legal Status of Women established
by the League of Nations in 1937 and authorized to conduct a "comprehensive and scientific
inquiry into the legal status of women in various countries of the world." The Committee’s
work had barely begun when the Second World War broke out, but its founding was an
important step towards the establishment of women’s human rights on the agenda of
intergovernmental cooperation. This Expert Committee can also be regarded as the
predecessor of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) established later on by the UN.

- Pacifist and Feminist Aims

To summarise the relationship between the women’s organizations and the League of Nations,
Carol Miller refers to two pathbreaking achievements:

Firstly, women created a model for cooperation and interaction between non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and intergovernmental organizations. In those days the practice was
that only heads of states, foreign ministers and leading diplomats were entitled to participate
in intergovernmental conferences. Women, however, demanded the right to have access to the
meetings in the Conference Hall and to the official documents, and the right to distribute their
statements in the Hall as well as to interact with official delegates, i.e., literally to practice
lobbying. They were granted these rights firstly at the League of Nations World Disarmament
Conference in 1932, and later at other meetings.

Secondly, through their well-prepared proposals and credible actions, the women’s
international organizations were able to establish the so-called women’s issues on the agenda
of international cooperation, in other words, issues related to the status of women were
international issues, not purely domestic concerns. This principle was established at the
League of Nations at a time when women in many of the member states did not even enjoy
political rights and when women were not accepted as diplomats (Miller 1995).
 5

Although pacifist aims, disarmament and peace were important reasons for women’s support
to the League of Nations, Carol Miller points out that feminist objectives, the essence of
which was the legal recognition of women’s equality, were clearly as significant. From this
perspective, the founding of the Expert Committee mentioned above was in itself a victory
showing that the securing of equality between women and men and the status of women were
issues that could not be left for the governments alone to decide upon. These early days saw
systematic work towards convincing the League of Nations to draw up and adopt an
international equal rights convention.

These were the beginnings of the formulation of a ‘dialectic’, indirect, two-way strategy that
has been used to advance women’s objectives throughout the history of the United Nations.
When women found it very slow or impossible to promote their objectives at the national level
in their own countries, they took their issue past their national governments to
intergovernmental organizations. Their collaboration within these organizations has often
resulted in resolutions and recommendations, even international conventions, that are more
advanced than those adopted at national levels. These accepted intergovernmental
instruments have then been effectively used by women to pressure their governments and
legislators to adopt and implement compatible laws in their respective countries.

As British pacifist and feminist Vera Brittain put it: "the time has now come to move from the
national to the international sphere, and to endeavour to obtain by international agreement
what national legislation has failed to accomplish"( Miller, 1994, .221).

The favourable attitude of the League of Nations towards women’s activism was based on the
fact that its leaders soon realized how valuable a lobby or support group women were for the
League in almost every member state. Women, on the other hand, saw the League as a new
and powerful arena for the advancement of their objectives – peace, human rights and the
equality of women as people and citizens in all countries. Thus the initiatives of the pioneering
women received a positive response and, due to their tenacious and clever diplomacy, the
League of Nations became a body far ahead of most of its member states with regard to the
interests of women.

2. The Founding Mothers of the United Nations

The operations and the official existence of the League of Nations ended with the onset of the
Second World War. In retrospect, however, it is clear that the work carried out during its
existence was not in vain.

History shows that the bases and models for intergovernmental cooperation created by the
League of Nations formed a firm basis on which to build the new intergovernmental peace
organization which was already being outlined by the Allied nations during the war. Thanks to
the collaboration between women’s international organizations, models of cooperation had
already been created between international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and
 6

intergovernmental organizations. Furthermore, the so-called women’s issues had gained

visibility and become already a familiar item on the international agenda.

Due to women’s actions in the 1920s and 1930s, there was a substantial group of women in all
countries who had gained experience and expertise in the international arena and in
networking. Women in the official government delegations, representatives of women’s
organizations and the women in significant positions in the League of Nations kept in touch
with each other and acted in consort to further their common objectives.

Women’s earlier experiences were an indispensable asset when the UN founding conference
in 1945 was approaching. Consequently, women were appointed to several of the government
delegations participating in the San Francisco conference. There were four Latin American
women serving as delegates: Minerva Bernardino (Dominican Republic), Amália Caballero de
Castillo Ledón (Mexico), Bertha Lutz (Brazil) and Isabel P. de Vidal (Uruguay). In addition,
two women in the Venezuelan delegation, Lucila L. de Perez Diaz and Isabel Sanchez de
Urdaneta, served as advisors. The women delegates representing other countries included
Cora T. Casselman (Canada), Jessie Street (Australia) and Wu Yi-Fang (China). The US
delegation had five women, Virginia Gildersleeve as a delegate and the others as advisors.
Ellen Wilkinson and Florence Horsbrugh were assistant United Kingdom delegates.

Four of these women delegates, Minerva Bernardino, Bertha Lutz, Wu Yi-Fang and Virginia
Gildersleeve, were also among the 160 signatories of the UN Charter as representatives of
their governments.

- Dispute over the Basic Concepts

Many of these women had several overlapping mandates which added weight to their
contributions. Amália Caballero de Castillo Ledón was the chair of the Inter-American
Commission on Women (IACW) mentioned above, and both Bertha Lutz and Minerva
Bernardino were members. They also acted informally on behalf of the IACW and were
instrumental in the movement which demanded that the Preamble to the UN Charter must
reaffirm not only the nations’ "faith in fundamental human rights" and "the dignity and worth
of the human person" but also in "the equal rights of men and women".

Consequently, this wording was incorporated into the Charter. Later generations have
regarded this wording to be of crucial importance since the Charter legitimized right from the
beginning the demands for full equality, equal rights for women and men alike. Had this
wording not been ensured in San Francisco, a long struggle to substantiate this warranty
would have ensued. The fact that a total of four different Articles in the Charter affirm that the
human rights and fundamental freedoms belong to all "without distinction as to race, sex,
language or religion" gave strength to the initial wording. (Articles 1(3), 55, 68 and 76.).

Jessie Street, an Australian with the backing of a powerful network of women’s organizations
in her country and good connections with numerous women from several other countries made
a strong impact in San Francisco. She pushed for the inclusion of an article in the Charter
 7

which corresponded to the stipulation incorporated into the Covenant of the League of Nations
making all positions in the United Nations equally open to men and women. The proposal was
widely supported and formulated as Article 8: "The United Nations shall place no restrictions
on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of
equality in its principal and subsidiary organs."

This Article was incorporated into the final text of the Charter, although a special attempt by
forces hostile to any special endorsement of women’s eligibility was made to remove it. The
women activists in those days regarded this article as another highly significant achievement
for the advancement of women. In the years thereafter, however, those persistent women must
have felt severely disappointed in observing how the Article was grossly ignored. Only
recently, during the past couple of decades, has this Article been given appropriate
recognition, and the number of women in high positions in the UN system has increased
rapidly (United Nations 1998). 1

The actual work of the United Nations began with the inaugural session of the General
Assembly in London in early 1946. The issue of women’s rights reappeared in the session as a
prominent item on the international agenda for the first time since the beginning of the Second
World War. Seventeen women participated in this session as delegates or advisers to the
respective delegations. They prepared an historical document, "An Open Letter to the women
of the world from the women at the first Assembly of the United Nations." The letter
introduced the UN to the women of the world as "the second attempt of the peoples of the
world to live peacefully in a democratic world community" and called upon them to take the
important opportunity and responsibility which confront women in the United Nations and
their respective countries. (Annex I)

Ms Lefaucheaux of the French delegation initiated the letter but it was delivered to the
Assembly by a delegate of the United States to the session, Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs Roosevelt
urged the governments to take the letter home and encourage women everywhere to come
forward and "share in the work of peace and reconstruction as they did in war and resistance."
She expressed her conviction that the United Nations "can – if we give to it as much work as
we have given in the past to winning the war – be an instrument to win the peace."

This letter was the first formal articulation of women’s voice in the UN and an outline of the
role for women to play in a new arena of international politics and cooperation. The Open
Letter was neither discussed, nor formally adopted, but further elaboration and interesting
supportive statements were given by several delegates. The letter and the statements are
recorded with the hope expressed by the President of the session that the issue "will be taken
into very serious consideration" (United Nations 1995: 93–98).

1
The percentage of women at the Professional level has increased from 35.5 percent to 36.8 percent from 1
January 1997 to 1 January 1998. Over the same period, the percentage of women staff in higher-level positions
(D-1 and above) increased from 18.5 percent in December 1996 to 22.6 percent as of 1 January 1999
(E/CN.6/1998/8).
 8

- New Dimensions for the United Nations

The UN Charter established three new substantive elements of crucial importance for women
that had not been features of the League of Nations.

1. In addition to political tasks, the UN was given the mandate "to promote economic and
social progress and development". One of the five principal organs, the Economic and
Social Council (ECOSOC), was established to be in charge of these operations. It was also
mandated to establish subsidiary bodies, such as the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and specialized agencies, such as Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), the World Health Organization (WHO), etc. (Article 55a of the Charter.)

2. Concerning human rights, "the UN shall promote universal respect for and
observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to
race, sex, language or religion." (Article 55c.)

3. The legitimization of the collaborative relationship between non-governmental

organizations and the UN. Article 71 of the UN Charter provides the framework within
which NGOs can acquire consultative status with ECOSOC. This opportunity has been
utilized by, amongst others, all the women’s international organizations that had already
been collaborating actively with the League of Nations.

The creation of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) under ECOSOC, was another
area requiring a considerable struggle. Although, in a way, as previously mentioned, CSW
already had a precedent in the League of Nations, contrary to the wishes of the women
participating in the founding conference, it was initially set up as a sub-commission of the
Commission on Human Rights.

However, the first Chair of the Sub-Commission on the Status of Women, Bodil Begtrup from
Denmark – the President of the Danish National Council of Women and a former delegate to
the League of Nations – did manage at the second session of ECOSOC to push through a
resolution establishing the CSW as an independent entity. Therefore, despite the failure to
reach a decision on this in San Francisco in 1945, CSW was able to commence its operations
as an independent Commission as early as 1947. Bodil Begtrup continued as the Chair and
Jessie Street was elected as the first Vice Chair of the Commission. The members included
Amália Caballero Ledón and Isabel Urdaneta who had already been active members of their
national delegations in San Francisco.

Why is it that women, right from the very start, so persistently demanded a special
Commission on the Status of Women instead of pursuing their cause through a
sub-commission of the Commission on Human Rights? Bodil Begtrup, a key advocate of the
Commission, argued that women did not want to be dependent on the pace of another
commission. They believed that through a commission of their own they could proceed more
 9

quickly than in the Commission of Human Rights where their proposals would end up in the
queue with so many other human rights issues.

On the other hand, at that stage no one knew how the work of these functional commissions
under ECOSOC – including those on Social Development and the Rights of Minorities among
a few others – would be organized. In fact, in the course of time it has been seen that in the
independent Commission on the Status of Women the proposals by women have gained a
totally different weight and significance than what would have been the case within the
Commission on Human Rights. As an independent commission, CSW was entitled to set its
own agenda, to decide on its priorities and to report and make proposals directly to ECOSOC.

John P. Humphrey , the first director of the UN Secretariat Division of Human Rights, gives
an interesting account of CSW in his memoirs: "[M]ore perhaps than any other United Nations
body the delegates to the Commission on the Status of Women were personally committed to
its objectives … [and] acted as a kind of lobby for the women of the world.… There was no
more independent body in the UN. Many governments had appointed … as their
representatives women who were militants in their own countries" (Humphrey 1984, in
Morsink 1991).

"The UN Charter gave women slim, formal recognition, but the human rights provisions gave
women constitutional-legal leverage to renew their quest to improve their status, achieve full
citizenship with men, and enter the world’s political stage," is how Margaret Galey (1995)
assesses the significance of the UN Charter to women.

- The Mission and Mandate of the Commission on the Status of Women

In the years from 1946 to 1962, CSW focused on mapping out the legal status of women in the
Member States, and later on the preparation of legislation and international conventions for
the advancement of the status of women. The resources of the Commission were extremely
low, and the assistance provided was limited to a Section on the Status of Women with a very
small staff within the Human Rights Division of the United Nations Department of Social
Affairs. This shortage of assistance was partly compensated for by the motivation and
enthusiasm of the members of the Commission.

Nevertheless, the first thing the Commission did in the initial session was to specify its
mission and mandate:
The two basic functions of the Commission are to "prepare recommendations
and reports to the Economic and Social Council on promoting women’s rights in
the political, economic, civil and educational fields", and to make
recommendations "on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field
of women’s rights". The Commission also has the mandate to make proposals on
the further development of its functions and mandate. ( E/RES/2/11, 21 June
1946)
 10

Women’s international organizations were the main channel through which the Commission
aspired to establish a direct contact with the women of Member States. They had already
manifested their interest and resourcefulness when the Commission was being founded.
Through the acquisition of a consultative status stipulated by ECOSOC, representatives of
these NGOs received the right to participate as observers at Commission sessions and have
access to the reports and documents drawn up by the Commission. Upon the Commission’s
approval, they could also address the sessions.

As early as the first session in February 1947, the Commission heard twelve women’s
international organizations. Most of these were organizations that had already established a
relationship with the League of Nations and been active at the United Nations founding
conference. The Committee also expressed its willingness to collaborate with the World
Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the American Federation of Labor and the International
Cooperative Alliance, even though these were not women’s organizations as such.

Since its inception women’s international organizations have been very eager to attend the
Commission sessions and monitor its work. Many organizations have appointed permanent
representatives to the Commission who have attended the Commission sessions over a long
period of time and have acquired considerable expertise and crucial personal relations within
the Commission and the UN Secretariat. Furthermore, it rapidly became clear how the
organizations could get their proposals on the Commission's agenda. Since only governments
can be official members of the Commission, they have the exclusive right to propose items to
the Commission's agenda. Utilizing their connections and negotiation skills, NGO
representatives can, however, persuade the government representatives to adopt NGO
proposals and submit them to the Commission.

This is how, throughout the years, countless issues have begun as NGO initiatives and ended
up as UN resolutions and recommendations. Collaboration between representatives of NGOs
and governments has been close and fruitful from the start, and the official delegates have in
fact often been grateful for the well-prepared proposals submitted by the NGOs.

In 1987, based on experiences and outcomes of the International Women’s Year (1975), the
United Nations’ Decade for Women (1976-85) and the Nairobi Conference (1985), the
mandate of CSW was expanded to include activities such as the advocacy of equality,
development and peace; monitoring the implementation of internationally agreed measures for
the advancement of women; and reviewing and appraising progress at the international,
subregional, sectoral and global levels (E/RES/1987/24).

- Human Rights or “Rights of Man“?

The active women present and CSW had a decisive role in the process of drafting the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1946–48. Starting from the Declaration’s preamble,
they had to make sure that the phrase "equal rights of men and women" incorporated through
 11

great effort in the UN Charter would not be watered down. Minerva Bernardino2 of the
Dominican Republic in particular was alert and called for an explicit phrase as it was not
enough to use the term ‘everyone’ because "in certain countries the term ‘everyone’ did not
necessarily mean every individual, regardless of sex." In the end, the countries even voted
upon whether the Declaration should reproduce the exact phrase contained in the preamble to
the UN Charter. The results of the vote were convincing – thirty-two in favour, two against
and three abstentions.3

Women monitored the drafting of the Declaration paragraph by paragraph in order to prevent
the inclusion of any sexist phrases. It took extensive debates to erase the word ‘man’ used in
reference to all people. In fact, it was during this time that the English word ‘man’ was
reinterpreted. The word ‘man’ represents gender, not species; it therefore excluded women, as
was the interpretation of Ms. Bernardino. Thanks to the unyielding efforts of the women
present, Article 1 of the Declaration now reads "All human beings are born free and equal in
dignity and rights" instead of "All men…" The words ‘everyone’ or ‘no one’ are used
throughout the final text instead of using the words ‘every man’ and ‘no man’.

However, there was still a problem, which remained unsolved. All along the text the
masculine pronouns ‘he, him, his’ are used. After all, due to linguistic differences, this
‘universal’ declaration appears different in different translations. For instance in the languages
like the Finnish these kind of ‘gender’ problems don’t appear, since the words including
pronouns do not indicate any gender. The ‘gender cleaning’ or degenderization’ of the text is a
particular task in each language.

Interviewed by INSTRAW News at the age of ninety, Minerva Bernardino said: "I am very
proud to have been instrumental in changing the name of the Declaration of the ‘Rights of
Man’ to the Declaration of Human Rights". She believed that the women who fought for the
cause were "…conscious that they were making a revolution. " The revolution continued in
the 50s and had to do with other, more important language issues as well, such as the right to
live with dignity. "In interpreting these words, we denounced, in the United Nations, the
horrible mutilations of women in certain religious/cultural rituals in certain regions in Africa.
We started a job that has not yet ended. Women have not really worked in solidarity to end it."

Minerva Bernardino placed special emphasis on solidarity "because it is the key to success.
Just causes in general always win, I am convinced, but without solidarity you do not achieve
your specific goals " (INSTRAW News 18/1992:15-17).

In hindsight one can only imagine what kind of a document the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights might have been had it been written solely by men – even though the
Commission was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. The adoption of the Declaration by the

2
Minerva Bernardino (1907-1998) was a delegate of the Dominican Republic to the UN founding conference in
San Francisco in 1945 and her country’s first UN ambassador until 1957. Her positions included the Chair of
CSW and First Vice President of ECOSOC, and she was the only woman of those present at the UN founding
conference who also took part in the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the UN in 1995 in San Francisco.
3
The two countries that voted against were China and the United States.
 12

General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 was a triumph and a defining moment for
CSW. Ever since, CSW has used the Declaration as a basis for action for the promotion of the
cause of equal rights and freedoms. In the UN, the Declaration has been the basis for
codifying human rights into well-known legally binding international Conventions.

3. Human Rights are Women’s Rights

The United Nations "Blue Book"4 on the Advancement of Women divides the UN operations
towards equality and the advancement of women into four different periods: Securing the
legal foundations of equality 1945–1962; Recognising women’s role in development
1963–1975; the UN Decade for Women 1976–1985; and Towards Equality, Development and
Peace 1986 onwards (United Nations 1995).

-The Legal Status of Women in the World

The first task of CSW was to conduct a global survey on the status of women’s rights. Thus, in
fact, it took up the work where the League of Nations had left off a decade earlier. The
questionnaire sent to governments was positively received, and 74 countries promptly
provided their replies – including countries that at that stage were not even members of the
UN. The survey revealed that four areas were found to be of particular concern:

i- political rights and the possibility to exercise them;

ii- legal rights of women, both as individuals and as family members;
iii- access of girls and women to education and training, including vocational training;
iv- working life.

By the year 1962, several conventions were prepared by the UN, UNESCO and ILO in all four
areas of concern. The most significant of these include the Convention for the Suppression of
Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949), the Convention
Concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value
(ILO 1951), the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (1952), the Convention on the
Nationality of Married Women (1957), the International Convention against Discrimination in
Education (UNESCO 1960), and the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age of
Marriage, and Registration of Marriages (1962).

The subjects and history of these conventions are a sad reflection of the central problems of
the lives of women in the first half of this century. For instance, in many countries political
rights of women were not self-evident in the 1940s, and were in force in only 30 of the 51
countries which signed the UN Charter. Marriage also involved enormous problems for
women, placing them in a situation where regulations on several related issues were
4
The "Blue Book" refers to the United Nations Blue Book Series. Volume VI of this series is on The United
Nations and the Advancement of Women 1945-1995. This publication is a collection of the most important
documents and resolutions on women in the United Nations in the period 1945-1995.
 13

non-existent or insufficient. This called for an international convention that obliged the
Member States to create legislation regarding consent to marriage, minimum age of marriage
and registration of marriages. If a marriage was not registered, i.e., legitimized, the wife had
no security and she could be abandoned at any time, thrown out of her home and separated
from her family.

- The Right to Family Planning - a New Human Right

The women’s indirect two-way strategy has been effectively used in connection with the right
to family planning, women’s right over their own body, i.e., to decide on the number and
spacing of their children. Although this issue was not discussed when the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights was drawn up, it has become a generally recognized basic
human right which has undoubtedly had a major impact on the advancement of women’s
status and lives during this century. Women’s right and means to control their own fertility
also decidedly improves their possibilities to control their lives in general and exercise other
human rights such as the right to education and training and economic activities of their own,
to participate in the political, cultural and social life in their countries.

The right to family planning is a latecomer when compared with women’s political and legal
rights. As late as the 1960s, it was still a very new issue all over the world. However, it rapidly
gained support within the women’s movement of the industrialized countries. The UN and the
densely populated countries – with India already in the forefront– soon took an interest in the
issue because population growth was more and more commonly regarded as a major problem
in many countries and globally. However, family planning became an issue of serious
controversy within the UN where it was categorically opposed by many catholic countries led
by the Holy See. The other strongholds of resistance were the Islamic countries.

The right to family planning was included for the first time as a human right in the
Declaration of Teheran (13 May 1968) which resulted from the International Conference on
Human Rights. In the following year it was included in the Declaration on Social Progress
and Development by the UN General Assembly (11 December 1967). In the 1970s the issue
was constantly wrestled over at the General Assembly and World Conferences.

It was also suggested that specialized agencies such as the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) should start training their
personnel in the promotion of and education in family planning for women and provide them
with contraceptives. The countries opposing these ideas reacted by threatening to withdraw all
their support to these agencies if they included family planning in their programmes.

The political controversies managed to slow down the process but not to bring it to a
standstill. Women’s organizations and development agencies continued to support and
demand family planning. American development aid organizations and politicians in
particular regarded birth control in the developing countries as the most important form of
development aid. Women delegates to UN conferences and women’s NGOs created networks
with UN organizations and kept the issue moving in practice, while the disputes in the General
 14

Assembly still persisted. The women activists saw this as a major interest of women in
general, not just in the developing countries.

The right to family planning was taken up again in the first UN World Population Conference
in 1974. Very definite formulations on the issue were adopted in the World Conference of the
International Women's Year (IWY) in Mexico 1975 and included in both the World Plan of
Action and the Declaration of Mexico: "Every couple and every individual has the right to
decide freely and responsibly whether or not to have children as well as to determine their
number and spacing, and to have information, education and means to do so"(Declaration of
Mexico).

The right to family planning is included in a more specific form in the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) which reaffirmed this
right as a binding obligation to the States Members. The next important step forward in the
process was taken in the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development (ICPD) in Cairo 1994 and the Beijing Platform for Action. The new
formulation and expanded understanding of the issue were assumed in Cairo, where the
concepts of "Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Health" were defined and adopted.

According to the Cairo Programme, "Reproductive health implies that people are able to have
a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to
decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this are the rights of men and women to be
informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family
planning of their choice" (paragraphs 7.2 and 7.3). Reproductive health and rights receive
even more precise and extensive formulation in the Beijing Platform for Action, which
reconfirms the definitions formulated in Cairo (paragraphs 94-96).

A heated discussion took place in Beijing on the concept of sexual rights, which was supposed
to cover all of the above and in addition the issue of various sexual orientations. The concept
itself was not acceptable to many countries and it was not adopted, but the essential substance
as adopted in Cairo and further developed in Beijing was finally adopted within the whole
document with consensus. However, 12 catholic countries, the Holy See and 19 Islamic
countries expressed their reservations to particularly listed paragraphs related to this issue in
the final document.

Along with the right to family planning, another basic human right becomes a reality: the right
to be born a wanted child. It is easy to understand how infinitely important this is as a
fundamental human right at the very beginning of a new life. It has an immeasurable human
value, and a recent study in Finland has shed new light on its physical and practical
importance. For example, the risk of being born prematurely is lower with children wanted by
their parents, they are breast-fed longer, and they have fewer mental problems later on in their
lives than unwanted children. The study also reveals that in 1966 twelve per cent of children
were born unwanted in Finland whereas in 1988 the corresponding figure had dropped to one
per cent, and the number of premature babies had also halved during the same period (Järvelin
1997).
 15

In practice, the right and opportunity to family planning is an asset for whole families, men,
women and children the world over. It is important even from the economic point of view,
because it facilitates the economic planning in families to provide better conditions,
nourishment, care, housing and education for the children they choose to have.

Along with the appropriate implementation of the policies for reproductive health and rights
even controversial problems such as abortion and teenage pregnancies can become easier to
solve. In Finland illegal abortions and teenage pregnancies have disappeared since 1970,
when the new abortion law was enacted and the education and services for family planning
extensively improved. For a few years the number of legal abortions increased, but soon they
started to decline - due to unwanted pregnancies going down - and now the abortion rate in
Finland is one of the lowest in the world (15 per 100 live births in 1993).

The right to family planning is an excellent example of an issue pushed on many fronts over a
decade. From 1968 onwards it was brought up in every relevant context at the UN conferences
and in the resolutions – despite often forceful protests. Debate over the issue expanded rapidly
in national and international media, women’s magazines as well as flyers, development aid
publications, etc.

The Plans of Action adopted by the UN Population Conference in 1974 and the International
Women’s Year Conference in 1975 included clear principles regarding the issue, and it was
established as an obligation of international law in 1979 into the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women which so far has been ratified by
a record number of 161 countries. The latest contention over women’s reproductive rights
took place at the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995.

This difficult and passion-provoking issue could not have been pushed forward this quickly
without women’s collaboration across borders and past governments. Nevertheless, the
struggle to achieve the practical implementation is still going on, even in countries that have
ratified the Convention. In this struggle, the Convention together with the Plans of Action
adopted by UN world conferences have proved indispensable tools for women in their efforts
to press governments for the actual implementation of the decisions they have jointly made on
this inalienable right.

- Convention on the Rights of Women

 16

From women’s point of view the single most important international legal instrument adopted
by the UN is, however, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women, or in short the Convention on the Rights of Women. 5

In fact, it is not a question of any specific women’s rights but essentially about the fact that the
universal human rights which both the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights confirm as rights which all people, both men and women, are entitled to, are still not
enjoyed equally by women and men. If this was the case, no convention on the elimination of
discrimination against women would have been needed. The very necessity of this Convention
is revealing and paradoxical – the Convention against discrimination bears witness to the
continued persistence of discrimination.

The predecessor of the Convention was the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women which was initiated by CSW in 1963, following several occasions where the
General Assembly had recognized that human rights were not realized equally between men
and women. This was the beginning of a process similar to those required for the production
of many other UN conventions. The first step is the preparation of a declaration, a
recommendation by nature but already encompassing the essentials of the issue. This
Declaration was adopted in 1967. (See Annex II)

The preparation of the actual Convention started in 1973 and resulted in a draft to be adopted
by the General Assembly and becoming a part of international law binding to the countries
that ratify it. Even though this multistage process towards a convention takes time, it is often
needed and useful in order to mature the views of decision-makers in the UN and Member
States alike towards the acceptance of an issue that may imply fundamental changes in values
and legislation. A UN process of this nature can even serve the purpose of shaping public
opinion worldwide.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is a

concise and comprehensive conclusion to the process, which had taken place within the UN
system for more than thirty years, to incorporate the principles of women’s rights and gender
equality into the provisions of international law. It includes, in their most precise form, all
provisions aiming at the elimination of discrimination against women previously covered by
separate conventions. It also contains provisions covering issues that had been omitted from
earlier conventions. Therefore it also recognizes the above-mentioned right to family planning
as one of the basic human rights and incorporates it into the provisions of international law.

5
The significance of an international convention lies in the fact that it reinforces a universally adopted legal
norm on the issue concerned. It provides a cross-national and indisputable justification for the efforts of NGOs,
women’s movement and legislators when they work towards exposing of human rights violations and call for
their rectification in their respective countries. An international convention provides indisputable grounds for
demanding that the convention be ratified and that corresponding national legislation to remedy the grievances be
created by governments. Without an internationally adopted framework, the work towards the advancement of
women’s legal and social status would in many countries be even more difficult than it is today.
 17

The Convention was unanimously adopted in 1979 and entered into force two years later in
1981 following ratification by the required twenty countries. Ratified by 161 countries by the
end of 1997, the Convention has become one of the most widely ratified UN human rights
conventions.

In addition, the Convention provides for follow-up by the UN regarding the practical
implementation in the member states. It calls for the establishment of the UN Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to which the States Parties to the
Convention are obliged to report on the progress of its implementation every four years.
CEDAW also has the right to invite governments individually to a hearing about their
measures towards the implementation of the provisions.

CEDAW is composed of twenty-three experts of high moral standing and competence elected
by States Parties for a term of four years. The candidates for the election are nominated by the
states that have ratified the Convention. The members of the Committee serve in their
personal capacity, not as representatives of their governments.

The Nordic countries seek to conform their national legislation to the convention before the
ratification of a new international convention. Consequently, for example, in Finland the
ratification of the CEDAW Convention took six years. However, ratification of the
Convention does not necessarily guarantee its implementation. Nonetheless, the Convention
provides an invaluable instrument for women in all countries as they work towards the
development of legislation and the elimination of discrimination against women worldwide.

These days the governments of some countries also consult representatives of women’s
organizations and arrange hearings regarding the report under preparation before submitting it
to the UN. Women’s organizations can also send CEDAW their "shadow report" on their
views of their government’s actions towards the implementation of the Convention.
Furthermore, an Optional Protocol to the Convention providing CEDAW with the mandate to
hear complaints of individual citizens and concerned NGOs about violations against the
Convention is currently under review.

- The Missing Link in the Chain

A hole waiting to be filled has, however, been discovered in this multitude of work and the
extensive network of women’s rights. During the past ten years there has been a growing
awareness within the UN system of a missing link: violence against women. When the
Convention on the Rights of Women was being prepared, this issue was overlooked both in
the UN and elsewhere. Consequently, the Convention does not include a single mention of
violence against women.

However, since the 1985 Nairobi Conference to review and appraise the achievements of the
UN Decade of Women, the UN has headed the discussion with which the wall of silence
surrounding the issue of violence against women has been broken. In 1993 the General
Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women after a
 18

long and thorough preparation process directed by CSW. The Declaration may be yet another
first step towards the preparation of a binding Convention on the Elimination of Violence
Against Women, as suggested by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his message on
the International Women’s Day in 1995 (United Nations 1995b: paragraph 219).

In fact, the countries of Latin America are ahead also in this issue. The Organization of
American States, OAS has adopted already in 1994 the Inter-American Convention on
Violence against Women (known as the Convention of Belem do Para). It entered into effect
in 1995 and presently has 29 ratifications by member states out of an organization of 35
members. This was possible because the OAS has capacity to develop treates. This could be
an advisable example also to other regional organizations of the states, for example like the
Council Europe.

The decisive impetus towards broader progress in this issue was, however, provided by the
Platform of Action adopted by the Beijing Conference, with one of its key objectives being
"the elimination of all forms of violence against women." As many as three of the total of
twelve strategic objectives of the Platform of Action are directly connected with the
elimination of open, physical violence against women and girls (Violence against women,
Women and armed conflict, The girl-child). The detection and elimination of economic,
structural, social and cultural violence runs throughout the entire Platform of Action.

As part of the process to implement the Beijing Platform of Action, four significant
conferences took place in 1997 dealing with violence against women from a totally new
viewpoint. The issue was addressed by a conference organized by the Swedish Government in
Stockholm in January and at the regional level in the seminar by the Council of Europe in
Strasbourg in June. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) organized a Conference on
Domestic Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean in Washington in October, and
UNESCO held an Expert Group Meeting on Male Roles and Masculinity in the Perspective of
a Culture of Peace in Oslo in September.

These conferences were unique in regarding violence against women as part of the violence of
the male culture. The focus is on its reasons and the violent nature of the current male culture
in general, how destructive it is upon men themselves and upon the entire culture. Now it is
men’s turn to analyze from a gender perspective their own lives and their status in culture and
society. This should also clarify why life in the prevailing male role is often so restricted, poor
and harsh. Men also need to study how culture and society should be changed in order to
liberate them from their straitjacket. And when we reach the situation where the man no
longer batters, the woman no longer becomes a victim, either.

These conferences concluded that the world community should aim towards a culture of peace
where violence would merely be an exceptional phenomenon and disordered behaviour among
the human species. Furthermore, the creation of a culture of peace requires the involvement of
both men and women. As if a culmination of the recommendations and conclusions reached
by these conferences, the General Assembly made a unanimous decision in November 1997 to
declare the year 2000 the International Year for the Culture of Peace, thus providing the best
possible framework for the advancement of this issue amongst others (Pietilä 1997).
 19

4. The United Nations Decade for Women (1976–1985) – a Decade of Development

As described above, in the early decades of the UN women’s collaboration with the UN and
the measures taken towards the advancement of women focused above all on improving
women’s legal status and taking women into account in the implementation of human rights.
A critical change began in the early 1970s: Until then women had first and foremost been the
objects of UN support and measures, whereas this was the start of realizing that women had a
central, even critical, role as active subjects and actors in relation to many development
problems.

- New Trends with New States in the UN

With the proportion of developing countries growing amongst the UN member states,
development issues became increasingly pronounced on the UN agenda. As early as the
1960s, developing countries had begun to shift the focus from political and security issues to
development issues in the UN. The world food situation was quite critical again in the early
1970s, and at the same time it was also understood that something had to be done with the
explosive population growth. These problems forced the UN system to realize that women
were the key factor in the solution of both of these issues. Unless the situation of women is
addressed and their status and conditions improved, there is no hope for the alleviation of the
food and population problems. Thus the hard facts of the world situation brought women into
the spotlight.

At the same time, the feminist movement was growing strong and becoming very active in
the industrialized countries. The excitement caused by the new discipline, women’s studies,
brought the status and thoughts of women into public discussion, which was also reflected in
the UN, together with the world situation. Kurt Waldheim, appointed Secretary-General in
1971, faced demands from many quarters to increase the proportion of women in the UN
Secretariat and, above all, in the senior positions. The UN, approaching its thirtieth
anniversary, still had not seen a single woman in the top positions of the organization.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) had for several years tried to transfer the
attention from the conference tables of New York and Geneva to the women in the villages
and rice fields of the developing countries. However, the first International Development
Strategy adopted in the UN for the Second International Development Decade, 1970–1980
only included a subordinate clause about women. CSW’s impressive countermove was to
propose to the General Assembly a comprehensive resolution outlining "A Programme of
concerted international action for the advancement of women" to be implemented during the
Decade. The resolution was unanimously adopted on 15 December 1970 [A/RES/2715
(XXV)].
 20

In early 1972, the Secretary-General appointed Helvi Sipilä from Finland as the first female
UN Assistant Secretary-General. In the autumn of the same year, the General Assembly
declared the year 1975 as International Women’s Year with the objective of focusing attention
on the status of women both within the UN System and in the Member States. In addition, two
years later, in autumn 1974, a decision was made to organize the World Conference of the
International Women’s Year in Mexico City in 1975. All these decisions and events set off an
unstoppable avalanche.

- International Women’s Year (IWY) as an Engine for Change

International Women’s Year (IWY) is an exceptionally successful example of an NGO

initiative taken up by the UN and resulting in a massive mobilization process. The Women’s
International Democratic Federation (WIDF) was one of the organizations actively utilizing
their consultative status in CSW. In the early 1970s WIDF’s president was Hertta Kuusinen
from Finland who also represented her organization as an observer at the Commission. She
brought to the March 1972 session of the Commission a proposal of the WIDF requesting the
proclamation of an "International Women’s Year" in order to bring the needs and views of
women to the attention of the UN System and the world.

The proposal of the WIDF was backed by other NGO observers, and the Romanian delegate
with the support of her government presented the proposal to the Commission. Helvi Sipilä,
the Finnish government representative at that time, seconded the proposal and thus the
Commission decided to recommend to the General Assembly the proclamation of 1975 as
International Women’s Year. The General Assembly adopted the recommendation in
December 1972.

International Women’s Year 1975 (IWY) was just one in the series of UN theme years, most
of which had hardly been noticed. The General Assembly adopted IWY with scepticism and
reluctance, but women and women’s organizations welcomed it with enthusiasm. It came at a
time when many other factors were converging in the same direction; the problems of women
finally had to be taken into consideration, and their role in the development of each and every
country recognized. Thus IWY became a framework within which these issues could be the
objects of global attention and, at the same time, it highlighted the previously ignored aspects
of many issues in such a way that it was no longer possible to forget or deny them. Therefore
the success of the IWY exceeded all expectations, and it brought the UN into the minds of
broader circles of the world’s women.

IWY provided the UN with a framework within which women’s needs and views could be
promoted. It proved an excellent tool which the new Assistant Secretary-General Helvi Sipilä
used efficiently within the UN System to justify in every possible context the measures
towards the advancement of women. It also provided the NGOs operating within and outside
the UN system with excellent further impetus in their efforts on behalf of women the world
over.
 21

IWY, in fact, had significant influence before it even began. The preparations for two
important UN world conferences were already well under way when the decision on IWY was
taken. These were the World Population Conference to be held in Bucharest and the World
Food Conference to be held in Rome, both in 1974. These were addressing the two key issues
from the point of view of women, population and food.

When Helvi Sipilä started as the Assistant Secretary-General in 1972, she became involved in
the preparations of the World Population Conference. Thanks to her personal efforts, the
preparatory committee realized that no population policy could be effective without the
involvement of women. An unofficial preparatory meeting was organized, to which Ms Sipilä
invited one prominent woman from each member country, and 116 women attended. It
became an international lobbying conference to ensure that the government delegations would
include women who were prepared to see to it that due consideration was given in the
conference proceedings to the involvement of women and their interests in these issues.

The preparations for the World Food Conference were at an advanced stage in the FAO when
the decision on the proclamation of IWY was adopted. FAO already had a special household
and nutrition section which was well aware of the vital role of women in food production,
especially in Africa. With the Food Conference approaching, the NGOs, including the
International Peace Research Association’s Food Policy Study group got organized and
arranged a meeting, in Rome, which succeeded in influencing the official Conference that
followed. As a consequence, the Conference adopted an extensive and comprehensive
resolution on ‘Women and Food’ which indicated the multitude of fields in which women
were needed and able to contribute to the improvement of world food supply, for which they
needed to have better access to land, education, technology and funding.

Most of the eleven other world conferences on the major topics organized by the UN in the
1970s by no means managed to take women into account this well. On the contrary, in the
1970s it was entirely a matter of chance if women’s voice was heard in the ‘male enclaves’ of
these major conferences which aimed at assessing the global situation and drawing up
long-term action plans for the key problem areas of development (Palmer 1980).

The primarily male delegations did not address women’s contribution and needs, even when
they were provided with excellent background material. A case in point was the Water
Conference held in Mar del Plata in 1977 for which both the UN Secretariat and the FAO had
prepared outstanding documents on women being, in many countries, the only existing "water
supply system" as they literally carry the water required by their villages for drinking,
cleaning and irrigation, often from distant locations. The final documents adopted by the
conference did not include a word about women’s crucial role in water issues.

A decisive factor to the outcome of the conferences in the 1970s was whether or not a
delegation happened to include an informed and active woman who would take the initiative –
preferably beforehand, during her government’s preparation process – and get women’s issues
to the discussion table. As a member of a delegation, even a single woman would be in a
position to succeed in preparing a draft resolution or amendment on women’s concern to the
conference papers and persuade her delegation to introduce it in the conference - whereas for
 22

the NGOs, participating at a parallel conference, it was very difficult or almost impossible to
make an impact on the official conference proceedings (Pietilä & Vickers 1996:84-95).

- The UN World Conferences on Women 1975, 1980 and 1985

The UN World Conferences for the advancement of women in Mexico City (1975),
Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985) were part and parcel of the series of world
conferences organized by the UN in the 1970s. Each one of them was, however, unique in
character, starting from the first one held in Mexico.

The 1975 World Conference of the International Women’s Year in Mexico City was the first
ever global intergovernmental conference specifically organized to address women’s issues
and world problems from a women’s perspective. Even though it cannot be called a women’s
conference since the official participants were government representatives, it was still the first
major UN conference in which a vast majority (73 percent) of the 1,200 delegates were
women, and where as many as 113 delegations of the total of 133 were headed by a woman.
(Although the proportion of men among the delegates was higher, 27 percent, than was the
usual proportion of women at other UN conferences at that time!)

The World Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Objectives of International Women’s
Year adopted by the Conference was intended as a programme for the advancement of women
to be implemented during the forthcoming decade in all areas and all countries. It crystallized
the past and present long-term objectives of the women’s movement within three thematic
areas: Equality – Development – Peace, which then became the overall theme of the UN
Decade for Women and of all of the other world conferences on women. Right from the
beginning, these objectives have been regarded as internally interrelated and mutually
reinforcing, so that the advancement of one contributes to the advancement of the others. This
is emphasized throughout the document (United Nations 1976).

When endorsing the Declaration of Mexico and the World Plan of Action in autumn 1975, the
General Assembly proclaimed the entire decade 1976–1985 the United Nations Decade for
Women, the objectives of which were the ones set forth in the World Plan of Action. With the
same resolution the General Assembly also established the International Research and
Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), in principle. The decision was
also made to hold a mid-decade conference in Copenhagen in 1980 to review and appraise the
achievements during the first five years and further specify the objectives for the remainder of
the Decade.

The experiences gained, obstacles encountered and results achieved during the entire UN
Decade for Women were thoroughly assessed and evaluated at the World Conference to
Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality,
Development and Peace in Nairobi in 1985. The evaluation showed that the objectives set
forth in Mexico had not been achieved during the Decade, but that plenty of other significant
things had been accomplished instead.
 23

One of the major achievements of the UN Decade for Women was that the situation of the
world’s women was better mapped than ever before. During the Decade the UN System
collected an enormous amount of information, facts and figures on the lives, problems and
conditions of women in different countries. This brought up the problem that, as a rule,
national and international statistics did not provide gender-disaggregated data, and thus it was
impossible to get a real picture of the disparities between men and women. Therefore the UN
requested that the Member States renew their statistics and provide the UN with data
disaggregated by sex. Thus the scale of inequality and discrimination would become more
visible and women’s contributions to society better acknowledged. The invisibilities of
women’s lives would start to become visible.

Another great step forward during the UN Decade for Women was that the very concept of
development came under critical scrutiny from the point of view of women for the first time
ever. Before the Nairobi Conference two comprehensive surveys on development were
produced. The UN General Assembly decided in 1981 that an interdisciplinary and
multisectoral World Survey should be prepared on the role of women in overall development.

An alternative report on development was produced by the group Development Alternatives

with Women for a New Era (DAWN) about a year before the Nairobi conference. The group
was established and convened in Bangalore in August 1984 on the invitation of Devaki Jain, a
well-known development economist and thinker from India. It was a group of researchers and
activists from the South who brought together their experiences with development strategies,
policies, theories, and research. Their point of departure was the awareness "of the need to
question in a more fundamental way the underlying processes of development into which we
have been attempting to integrate women". ( DAWN Report, 1985, 11)

Both of these reports were produced parallel to each other and they consisted of the analyses
of the dominating pattern of development as it had been brought up in the industrial world and
in their policies in the so called Third World. The DAWN report, Development, Crises, and
Alternative Visions, expressed its criticism in a very straightforward manner. The UN
publication World Survey on the Role of Women in Development is more diplomatic and
concealed. However, they support each other and their basic message is the same:
Development in the past and present does not serve the needs of women, neither does it
correspond to women’s values and aspirations.

These reports were prepared for the Nairobi Conference and became very important
background documents. They also represented a turning point in the history of women’s issues
in the UN system. They brought the role of women in development into focus as an
indispensable new dimension and they made the prevailing pattern of development
questionable from the point of view of women.

When the General Assembly endorsed the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the
Advancement of Women (NFLS) in autumn 1985 it also decided that the world surveys on the
role of women in development would be prepared every five years as part of the follow up of
the implementation of decisions in Nairobi.
 24

In general, attitudes towards women began to change both within the UN system and the
Member States as a result of the UN Decade for Women. A manifestation of this was the fact
that the NFLS were adopted by consensus by 157 member states whereas the earlier
conferences had resorted to a vote. A final document adopted by consensus is always more
strongly binding to the governments than one based on a majority vote (United Nations 1985).

Since the objectives of the UN Decade for Women had not been achieved in ten years, setting
new objectives was not deemed necessary. Instead, the NFLS document includes new,
improved strategies for the attainment of the goals of the UN Decade for Women by the year
2000. Thus the UN Decade for Women will in a way continue until the year 2000.

- INSTRAW and UNIFEM emerged out of Mexico

Until the 1970s there was only one small unit within the administration of the UN system to
focus on women’s interests and needs, the Branch for the Advancement of Women, which
later evolved into the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW). During the
Conference in Mexico City this was found to be inadequate in maintaining the momentum
created around the world by the International Women’s Year and the World Conference. The
need to strengthen the institutional structures devoted to women within the UN system was
articulated very strongly by the delegates at the Conference.

The delegates made a move for the establishment of a special fund for the decade 1976-1985,
which then was to become the Voluntary Fund for the UN Decade for Women. They also
adopted a resolution (resolution 26) to the effect of the establishment of an international
research and training institute for the advancement of women.

Both of these proposals were founded on the promising prospects of funding. First of all, it
appeared that there would be some money left over in the IWY Trust Fund which had been
created through voluntary contributions from the Member States for the financing of the IWY
and the Mexico Conference. They were also encouraged by some lofty pledges made in the
Conference. The most promising was from Iran, a pledge of US$1 million for the Fund and
other purposes and another US$ 1 million for the proposed research and training institute
which at that point was planned to be established in Teheran.

After a series of complicated procedures, the Voluntary Fund for the UN Decade for Women
was officially established in 1976 to give support to "the poorest women in the poorest
countries" in their efforts to implement the goals of the World Plan of Action. When the
Decade ended in 1985, the mandate of the Fund was expanded to become the United Nations
Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), a separate and identifiable entity within the UN
system in autonomous association with the UNDP in New York. It has three primary
objectives: to provide direct support for women’s projects, to promote women’s participation
in the decision-making of mainstream development programmes and to support the economic
and social objectives and equality of women in the developing world (Snyder 1995:25-28).
 25

In addition to governments’ voluntary contributions, women in different countries have also

started to raise funds for the work of UNIFEM. This activity has been formalized by way of
establishing UNIFEM National Committees to raise funds for the support of UNIFEM and
disseminate information about its work. These Committees now exist in 18 countries and their
annual contributions total some US$ 300,000 for the work of UNIFEM.

The International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW)
was established in principle by the General Assembly with the same resolution which
endorsed the World Plan of Action and the Declaration of Mexico (3520(xxx) of 15 December
1975). The formal decision on the establishment of INSTRAW was made by ECOSOC
(Council resolution 1998 (LX) of 12 May 1976). Due to political developments in Iran, the
original plan of locating the Institute in Teheran did not materialize.6 Therefore, it took some
time before the Institute became operative in practice. It initiated operations in the beginning
of the 1980s in New York and finally found its permanent seat in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic, in 1983.7

According to its Statute, INSTRAW is an autonomous institution within the framework of the
United Nations. Its activities cover all member countries of the UN, both industrial as well as
developing countries. Its main task is to promote and conduct policy research and studies that
will enhance the effective integration and mobilization of women in the process of
development and in the formulation, design and implementation of development activities at
all levels. It also conducts training for policy makers and development planners as well as
women’s organizations to develop sex-disaggregated data and quantify women's work and
contributions to societal development.

INSTRAW advocates networking within and outside the UN system. Within the UN system
special importance is given to cooperation between INSTRAW and the regional commissions
of the Economic and Social Council and the other UN research and training institutes. In its
strategic work plan for the new millennium, INSTRAW plans to expand its role to respond to
global change and emerging needs.8

With the view of extending its scope and strengthening its relationships with Member States
INSTRAW has established a network of National Focal Points which exist today in about 50
countries. A Focal Point constitutes working links between INSTRAW and governmental
bodies, the research community and women’s organizations in the country concerned and
INSTRAW. At best these Focal Points can function like outstretched arms of INSTRAW
reaching to women in member countries.

6
The contribution pledged by Iran, however, was made available to the Trust Fund of the Institute.
7
A support office was maintained in New York, but as of 1992 it was strengthened as a Liaison Office for the
purpose not only of maintaining close contact with the Permanent Missions, but of facilitating inter-agency
coordination and expanding INSTRAW's outreach within and beyond the UN system.
8
The most salient aspects of the Institute's new strategy include a network to link women's studies programmes
and research institutes internationally and to serve as an information center on WID issues both within and
outside the UN.
 26

INSTRAW is funded exclusively through voluntary contributions from Member States,

intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, foundations and private sources. It
is not entitled to financing through regular contributions of the Member States, which is the
method of funding for most of the UN agencies. Neither is it funded by a particular
endowment fund as is the case with some of the other UN research institutions. These
ambiguities in financing have seriously hampered the possibilities of INSTRAW to reach the
scope and role it was hoped to have and that it should have as the only institution bringing the
research contribution on women and by women into the UN system.

In 1993, a possible merger of INSTRAW and UNIFEM was under consideration by some
member states. The proposal, however, was not accepted by the General Assembly, which
requested that the matter be further examined. The World Conference in Beijing reconfirmed
that INSTRAW and UNIFEM definitely have different mandates and tasks within the UN
system. The distribution of labour between them is also clarified in the way the Platform for
Action allots their tasks. For INSTRAW it assigns, among other things, the work to "identify
research to be given priority, strengthen national capacities to carry out women’s studies and
gender research, and develop networks of research institutions that can be mobilized for that
purpose". These are tasks which only a research institution can carry out (Paragraphs 334 and
335 in PFA).

Today the work and resources of the gender related institutions within the UN system should
be seen against the framework whereby the whole UN system has taken the obligation of
mainstreaming the gender perspective into all their policies and programmes. This obligation
has been elaborated in the programmes of action of the world conferences and in particular in
the System-wide Medium-term Plans which are prepared for every five years beginning from
1990. The second System-wide Medium-Term Plan for the Advancement of Women 1996-2001
was revised and endorsed by ECOSOC in 1996 (ECOSOC 1996/34. See also Pietilä &
Vickers 1996:107-116). The latest and most far-reaching decision in this respect was made by
ECOSOC in 1997 when endorsing the report of the Secretary General on the coordination of
United Nations system activities for mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and
programmes of the United Nations system. (See also section 6 of this paper.)

- Women’s World Conferences

The parallel NGO fora held in connection with the intergovernmental conferences on women
became the real world conferences of women themselves. From the beginning these parallel
events organized by NGOs – mainly women’s organizations, researchers and activists in the
women’s movement – gained proportions totally different from those of the NGO conferences
held in connection with the other UN conferences.

The IWY Tribune organized in Mexico City in 1975 had approximately 4,000 participants,
while the official conference had about 1,200 delegates. In the 1980 NGO Forum in
Copenhagen there were some 7,000 participants, and the number of participants five years
later at the 1985 Nairobi Forum broke all records and totalled some 16,000.
 27

Organizing a large NGO Forum in connection with UN world conferences became common
by the 1970s. 9 The programme of the parallel events are compiled by the NGOs and
participating groups themselves. The forum consists of events arranged by the organizations,
seminars, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, even theatre, concerts and other artistic
performances. The international planning committee makes the arrangements for facilities and
locations for the suggested events and organizes some large-scale plenary gatherings. Massive
events like this are also characterized by a constant flow of improvised meetings, happenings,
demonstrations, processions, etc.

For example, some 125 workshops and meetings were scheduled each day at the Nairobi
Forum ’85 – about 1,200 altogether in ten days – and there was a constant flow of improvised
gatherings, discussions, group meetings of all kinds in all places. Networks were being sown
on the green lawns of the Nairobi University campus, under the trees here and there, in the
Peace tent, in hotels and dormitories – no one knows the total extent of such activities.

What distinguishes the Women’s NGO fora is the enthusiasm of all the participants. They are
characterized by women actively doing things, organizing, participating, presenting,
discussing - and also singing, dancing and performing – not just passively sitting and listening
as is generally the case in so many conferences. The participants are all natural "experts" on
being women and on women’s lives in their countries. Therefore the exchange of information
and experiences is so easy, and all are interested in also sharing the research and knowledge
presented by researchers on women’s conditions and lives from all over the world. It is at
these fora that the separation of theory and practice is eliminated as both contribute to the
enrichment of the total experience.

At Nairobi Forum ’85 the strength and dignity of African women made an unforgettable
impression upon Europeans who ages ago had consented to being ‘only women’. The African
women’s visible awareness of their own dignity, their handsome appearance and colourful
clothes, were a clear signal that they were not the ‘second sex’ but the first in their world - as
European eyes perceived it there. The Nairobi Forum was also the first one of these large
conferences where the proportion of participants from different parts of the world was
becoming more balanced. There were so many women from Asia and Africa and their
contribution was so impressive that white western women were no longer dominant.
9
The first large parallel conference was held in connection with the United Nations Conference on Human Environment
(UNCHE) in Stockholm in 1972. As there appeared to exist great interest amongst women both at international and national
levels to come and follow the UN World Conferences on Women, an organization appropriate to respond to this interest was
created. NGOs observing UN operations permanently in accordance with their consultative status had a coordination
committee for their work in New York, called the Conference of NGOs (CONGO). Under the auspices of ONGO, a special
planning and preparatory committee was established to organize and prepare at the international level the particpation of
NGOs in the conferences on women. Upon its initiative, preparatory committees were established in each host country
(Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi) in collaboration with the local NGOs with the task of seeing to the practical
arrangements.

The NGOs wishing to engage in constant observation of the UN operations can apply to ECOSOC for a consultative status.
These organizations can also get accredited as observers to the official UN world conferences. This way they gain access to
the official documents and the conference sessions. This method of participation has been available to NGOs since the
founding of the UN.
 28

However, NGO Fora are not merely one big celebration. It was apparent in Nairobi that the
experiences gained in Mexico City and Copenhagen had taught women a lot about influencing
the intergovernmental conferences. In many countries women had been active beforehand,
lobbying their governments and expressing their suggestions to the governmental bodies as
they had already learned that it is extremely difficult to influence intergovernmental decisions
on the spot during a world conference. Therefore, it should be done beforehand in each
country.

Women’s international communication is crucial to the success of their efforts. The better the
NGOs prepare their initiatives and tactics in collaboration across borders, the greater the
number of governments receiving parallel suggestions from the NGOs in their country.
Nevertheless, it is also important to be present at the conference itself, to monitor and witness
the progress of the pre-prepared process. The NGO Fora also have an indirect impact on the
official UN conferences through the atmosphere and impressions conveyed to the official
delegates and, through them, to the course of the conferences.

There was a feeling at the Nairobi Forum that this kind of world conference of women should
be organized independently and irrespectively of the intergovernmental conferences. While at
that time only a dream in the minds of many participants, the idea started to live and evolve.

In the summer of 1987 a World Congress of Women was organized in Moscow by the
Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), bringing together more than 3,000
women from all over the world and reviving the spirit of Nairobi. In summer 1988 a Nordic
Women’s Forum ’88 was organized by Nordic women’s organizations in collaboration with
the Nordic Council of Ministers and their governments in Oslo, Norway, and attended by
some 10,000 women from the Nordic countries and from other parts of the world. In between,
there have been smaller events such as the International Interdisciplinary Congresses on
Women held every three years in different parts of the world.

The impetus behind all these events is the international women’s movement which is also
invisibly alive and influential in the minds of more and more women. In many countries it is
nourished by women’s research which provides new information and indisputable arguments
for the use of women in building their awareness and making women’s invisible world visible
to all.

- The United Nations Decade for Women Changed the World

The UN Decade for Women was the most successful of all the UN theme decades. The time
was right and ripe for it. The process which began to mature in the early 1970s became
concrete in Mexico City in 1975, underwent mid-term stocktaking in Copenhagen in 1980,
and was established as an acknowledged part of the UN operational agenda in Nairobi in
1985.

Much took place during and due to the UN Decade for Women 1976–1985. Women’s
awareness and self-confidence increased everywhere. At the world conferences women had
 29

also reached out to each other across borders; global sisterhood was becoming a reality, and at
home it was passed on to those who were not present at the world conferences.

Women’s contribution to development and the advancement of women was also addressed in
the UN Development Strategies for the UN Third and Fourth Development Decades in the
1980s and 1990s and, in addition to the world conferences on women, in numerous other
major UN conferences, for instance in the Resolution on Women and Industrialization in the
Third General Conference of UNIDO in New Delhi 1980. A decisive change took place in the
perspective from which UN debates and documents addressed women.

In the early years of the UN women had been seen as objects whose legal status and situation
needed to be improved in a paternalistic manner. The 1970s brought into the discussions the
potential contribution of women to development efforts in each country. The phrase
“integration of women into development" was adopted, and women were seen as a resource
the utilization of which should be intensified. For this purpose it was necessary to improve not
just the status but also the nutrition, health and training of women.

However, women were still in a way seen as instruments, and it was even claimed to be "a
waste of human resources" if women were not fully integrated into the so-called development
efforts. The human dignity and rights of women were not yet seen as a value in their own
right. Then, a trend towards seeing women as equals, "as agents and beneficiaries in all sectors
and at all levels of the development process", finally emerged in the International
Development Strategy for the Third Development Decade of the UN in the 1980s.

The Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies represented in many ways a turning point in the
entire history of women in the UN. The NFLS recognize women as "intellectuals,
policy-makers, decision-makers, planners and contributors, and beneficiaries of development",
and obligate both Member States and the UN System to take this into consideration in policy
and practice. The essential principle of the NFLS is formulated in paragraph 16 which
explains what a women’s perspective means:

"The need for women’s perspective on human development is critical, since it is

in the interest of human enrichment and progress to introduce and weave into
the social fabric women’s concept of equality, their choices between alternative
development strategies and their approach to peace, in accordance with their
aspirations, interests and talents. These things are not only desirable in
themselves but are also essential for the attainment of the goals and objectives of
the Decade."

Since the 1980s, the UN reports, programmes and resolutions have begun to reflect the
recognition and understanding of the fact that women’s equitable participation in all walks of
life is no longer only their legitimate right but a social and political necessity in the process
towards a more balanced, humane and sustainable future.
 30

5. All Issues are Women’s Issues

Women’s enthusiastic participation in the parallel events to the UN world conferences shows
extensively and concretely how active and interested women all over the world are in their
own issues. This has also been a manifestation of women’s great expectations and faith in the
potential of the United Nations.

As described above, it was a matter of chance whether women’s voice was articulated and
heard at the intergovernmental conferences in the 1970s and 1980s. This depended on whether
there happened to be at the conference itself or its preparatory phases (official delegations,
parallel conferences, the national level or in the preparatory committee of the conference) any
women with initiative and knowledge of the UN procedures who would make proposals for
alterations or resolutions regarding issues important to women. There was no international
network to systematically ensure that women’s voice was heard.

The NFLS adopted in Nairobi in 1985 do, however, represent the view that there are no
specific women’s issues but that all issues in the world are also women’s issues. Women have
the right to equally participate in the handling of and decision-making upon all human affairs.
A general understanding is gradually emerging that women are entitled to voice their views
and make their impact on all human issues wherever the formation of our life and future are at
stake. Women wish to influence the handling of all issues – not just women’s issues - within
the UN System and at its world conferences too.

- Women for a Healthy Planet

In autumn 1989 it was decided that the UN would hold an “Earth Summit“, the UN
Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 – twenty
years after the first UN Conference on Human Environment took place in Stockholm in 1972.
The report Our Common Future compiled by the Independent Commission on Environment
and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime Minister of Norway, was
used as a basis for the Conference. Environmental issues had been on the UN agenda since the
Stockholm Conference, but women had hardly been taken into account in connection with
these issues, and their participation in the debate on the use of natural resources and
environmental protection had been rare.

In developing countries environmental problems have for quite some time been very concrete
everyday issues for women. In the USA women regard pollution and environmental
degradation as the reason behind many problems including women’s health problems,
especially the increase in breast cancer. Therefore, ecological issues are strongly present in
their feminist movement and women’s studies. In Europe and in the Nordic countries there has
not emerged any significant women’s environmental movement, and ecofeminist
environmental thinking is rare.

The Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), established in the USA
in 1990 with Bella Abzug as the leading figure, focused on environmental issues right from
 31

the beginning.10 At the beginning of the 1990s WEDO called women from all over the world
to come and follow the preparations of the UN Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED). From the start of UN preparation, the WEDO international task force was present
in every single UNCED Preparatory Committee session.

In November 1991, approximately six months before the Rio Conference, WEDO organized
the World Women’s Congress for a Healthy Planet in Miami. Attended by 1,500 women from
83 countries, this was the largest unofficial meeting held prior to the Rio Conference. The
Women’s Congress adopted the Women’s Action Agenda 21 (directly related to the main
document prepared for the UN Conference, entitled Agenda 21, i.e., Agenda for the 21st
Century) which formed the basis for women’s efforts to influence the documents of the
official UNCED in Rio.

The Women’s Action Agenda 21 declared in its Preamble clear points of departure for
women’s actions on environment:

“As caring women, we speak on behalf of those who could not be with us, the
millions of women who experience daily the violence of environmental
degradation, poverty, and exploitation of their work and bodies. As long as
Nature and women are abused by so-called ‘free market’ ideology and wrong
concepts of ‘economic growth’ there can be no environmental security.“

“We equate lack of political and individual will among world leaders with a lack
of basic morality and spiritual values and an absence of responsibility towards
future generations.“

“We will no longer tolerate the enormous role played by the military
establishment and industries in making the 20th century the bloodiest and most
violent in all of human history. Militarism is impoverishing and maiming both
the Earth and humanity.“ (WEDO 1992)

- An Infallible Strategy

Drawing from her experience as a US Congresswoman and a skilled lawyer, Bella Abzug
developed in WEDO the Women’s Caucus which was first tried and tested in connection with
UNCED, during its preparation process and then during the Conference itself. In fact,
Women’s Caucus is a well-organized women’s lobbying network comprising women from
dozens of UN member states from all around the world. It proved an unprecedented success at
UNCED and has later been instrumental in ensuring that women’s voices have been heard in

10
WEDO began in 1990 as an International Policy Action Committee of 54 women, with almost one half of the
members from developing countries, nine from Europe and the rest from Canada, Japan, New Zealand and
United States. Along with Bella Abzug, among the initiators were other women who had already been involved
in the organizing of the NGO Forums in Mexico and Nairobi, such as Rosalind Wright Harris, Dorothy Slater
Brown, Margaret Snyder, Virginia Hazzard, Catherine Tinker and several others. The Women's Caucus network
created by WEDO has mobilized thousands of activities all over the world.
 32

all of the UN world conferences held in the 1990s and that issues in women’s interests have
been systematically and effectively promoted. 11

The effective methodology of the Women’s Caucus includes the following methods and ways
of action:

- the women’s network operations start simultaneously with the UN preparations for the
conference in question;
- the women’s network and its affiliated organizations get accredited as observers to the
preparatory Committee and the actual UN conference in question;
- the officially accredited organizations have access to the draft documents and the
preparatory process of final documents of the conference;
- the network participants organize themselves into groups according to their expertise, their
chances to participate and, as appropriate, with respect to the structure of the document
under preparation;
- each successive draft of the main document is carefully studied and supplied with detailed
amendments and alterations, and this version is distributed to all the organizations
participating in the campaign for comments and proposals and to the delegates and the
Conference Secretariat for use as a basis for the lobbying negotiations;
- the official delegates and representatives of the Secretariat are contacted in all possible
situations, and all appropriate channels are utilized to carry out negotiations and present
arguments for the suggested amendments;
- the above applies to each new drafts of the final document throughout the conference
preparation process and the actual conference.
- comprehensive knowledge of and expertise in the subjects concerned, diplomatic and
respectful manners, credibility and patience make the recipe for successful lobbying.

At UNCED, for example, the processing of the texts was an enormous effort because the
conference document swelled into a massive pile totalling almost 800 pages. As of the
preparatory phase, the women divided the work by organizing groups that would each
concentrate on a specific section, read the texts and provide suggestions for alterations which
then would be jointly compiled and approved. As a rule, this process has to be repeated
several times during conference preparations as the conference documents also undergo
constant changes throughout the official process.

Another task as great as this is the process of negotiations through which the suggested
amendments are ‘lobbied in’ since their inclusion is not guaranteed by the fact that they are

11
The core team of the Women's Caucus network created by WEDO often had to spend weeks at the conference
site during the Preparatory Committee sessions and the actual conference. They must possess both language
skills, expertise and lobbying skills and the ability to create relationships with the delegations of like-minded
countries – including their own – and the UN Secretariat, together with the capacity to act as a part of an
extensive network. The possibility of spending weeks at the conference site is also a question of both time and
money. Many women have been able to do this with the backing of their organizations or at their own expense,
but the expenses of women from developing countries in particular have been covered with funding and grants
collected in cooperation from donor governments, foundations and institutions .
 33

written down with expertise and in the UN language. The amendments must be pushed
forward through negotiations with either official delegates or the representatives of the
Secretariat because NGO representatives do not have the right to speak in the official
subcommittees and working groups. The success of such a large-scale lobbying operation
requires plenty of "like-minded" collaboration partners in both the delegations and the
Conference Secretariat. Creating these collaborative relationships is crucial to the process and
requires expertise and credibility.

The success of the lobbying is also vitally dependent on the willingness of the
Secretary-General of each conference to cooperate with the women’s unofficial networks. The
Secretary-General of UNCED Maurice Strong (Canada), the Secretary-General of the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and Director of the UN
Population Fund (UNFPA) Nafis Sadik (Pakistan), the Secretary-General of the World
Summit for Social Development (WSSD) Juan Somavia (Chile) and naturally the
Secretary-General of the Beijing Conference Gertrude Mongella (Tanzania) were all very
favourable to collaboration with the women’s networks in all of these UN world conferences
held in the 1990s. They, together with several delegations, expressed their satisfaction at the
fact that women suggested significant improvements to the texts.

At the world conferences held during the UN Decade for Women the governments had already
adopted the principle whereby all organs and bodies of the UN system have the duty to
"mainstream the gender perspective", i.e., to take into account throughout the UN system the
implications and impacts of their decisions and policies on women and men, respectively
(Pietilä and Vickers 1996:107-116). The proposals expertly prepared by women’s caucuses
were extremely helpful to the application of this principle and therefore genuinely welcome.

As a result of the women’s strategy, the UNCED Agenda 21 underwent great changes during
the preparatory process and during the Conference. The preliminary drafts of the document
mentioned women in less than a handful of places – all in the ‘poverty’ section or in the
context of women and children as ‘vulnerable groups’ or victims. In the final version of
Agenda 21 the issues and concerns of women were introduced in hundreds of places, most
notably in paragraphs which deal with environmental policy, the use of natural resources,
consumer policy and sustainable development.

At the end of the UNCED, Maurice Strong gave full credit to the women’s lobby when he
said, "I think we have moved the cause of women and the awareness of their importance a
tremendous step forward, thanks to the women who have been with us all the way to Rio …
and they’ve got to continue after Rio."

The Chair of WEDO, Bella Abzug, revealed that the central rule which made women’s action
so effective was that "…support for continuing to be the best organized and most unified and
effective group can come from being the best informed." She went on to say that "…the
story of the global women’s movement is, however, still a work in progress. Mothering earth
will take many hands and minds" (WEDO unpublished manuscript, 1993).
 34

- Diving into the Mainstream of World Conferences

With the development of the systematic and comprehensive strategy to influence

intergovernmental conferences, the approach itself also became comprehensive. Even the very
concept of equality received a new substance; mere statistical and technical equality on men’s
terms in a men’s world is no longer the aim – women demand that their views and objectives
be taken equally into account in the issues addressed by the conferences. Women have
provided the conferences with totally new aspects which would never have been provided by
men.

The UN has organized a series of large world conferences in the 1990s. 12 All of the topics of
these conferences were highly important for women. Consequently, in connection with the
conferences, the joint advocacy of women’s interests continued systematically from one year
and conference to another; women literally dived into the mainstream of the
intergovernmental process.

This was already clearly visible at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993.
Because the preparations for a world conference normally take a couple of years, the
preparatory campaign for the Conference on Human Rights was already underway alongside
the preparation for UNCED. This campaign was lead by another US-based organization, the
Center for Women’s Global Leadership headed by the dynamic Charlotte Bunch.

The campaign was launched with a world-wide petition demanding that the UN Conference
take women into account in human rights issues in general and address violence against
women in particular. The petition was circulated in late 1991 and signed by 250,000 people
from 120 countries. The petition campaign worked in two ways: It alerted women all over the
world to awareness of their own human rights and mobilized them to influence the UN
Conference, together with disseminating information on the fact that there actually was a
conference underway, something that almost got ignored by public attention.

The international Human Rights Tribune published a speech by Charlotte Bunch and gave
credit to the women’s campaign, describing it as a great success story for the entire
Conference on Human Rights. The campaign was a vital contribution to the publicity received

12
The main UN World Conferences held in the 1990s:
- UNCED, UN Conference on Environment and Development Rio, 3 – 14
June 1992
- WCHR, World Conference on Human Rights Vienna, 14 – 25 June
1993
- ICPD, International Conference on Population and Development Cairo, 5 – 13 Sept
1994
- WSSD, World Summit for Social Development Copenhagen,6 – 12 March 1995
- FWCW, The Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing, 4 – 15 Sept
1995
- HABITAT II, UN Conference on Human Settlements Istanbul, 4 –15 June
1996
- World Food Summit Rome, 13-17 November
1996
 35

by the Conference in general and forced the governments of the UN Member States to take
women’s human rights into account at the fourth and last meeting of the Preparatory
Committee, if not earlier (Human Rights Tribune 1993).

Violence against women was brought up so visibly and audibly at the Vienna NGO Forum
that it has thereafter not been possible to silence the issue in the public debates. A special
chapter on women’s human rights was included in the Programme of Action adopted by the
Conference, and the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence against Women later in the same year. The Conference also sped up the appointment
by the UN Human Rights Commission in 1994 of a Special Rapporteur to investigate and
report on violence against women and to provide the Commission with proposals regarding
the issue.

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in

September 1994 evaluated the developments in population issues since the first Population
Conference held in Bucharest in 1974 and dealt, amongst other things, once again with the
issue of women’s right to decide on the number and spacing of their children, an issue which
had created controversy for years, despite the fact that it had already been accepted as a basic
human right in several programmes and conventions.

Since the fundamental question is how many people can be supported sustainably and
humanely on the Earth, environmental and population issues are inseparable. Women’s
opportunities to control the number of their children and to produce food for their families are
the key questions in this context. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) was the body within the
United Nations system responsible for the ICPD preparations, and its Director Nafis Sadik
was appointed as the Secretary-General of the Conference. The operations of the Women’s
Caucus were once again co-ordinated by WEDO whose work continued directly from the
point reached in Rio.

A major task in Cairo was to ensure that the decisions pushed through by women in Rio and
Vienna were not watered down or withdrawn. This "advocacy" was so successful in Cairo that
the Population Conference, too, has been reflected upon as another major step forward when it
comes to women’s and girls’ right to control their own lives and their status in the family.

The Cairo document was the first one in which the governments recognize and acknowledge
the fact that people have a gender right from birth and that boys and girls are treated
differently from the very beginning of their lives. Therefore, there is need to place special
emphasis on the girl child’s right to be born, get enough care and food, have access to
education, and not to be targets of sexual abuse and victims of exploitation in pornography or
prostitution.

The document also calls for men’s equal responsibility for family planning and duties such as
participating in child-care and household duties. Men are also made responsible for the
implementation of these practices since they still hold the overwhelming power in most
societies and almost all walks of life.
 36

It has been argued that the Programme of Action adopted by the ICPD speaks feminist
language. No wonder the Holy See and a group of the most patriarchal governments felt they
had the worse of it in the consensus in which the Programme was finally adopted. In her
closing words Nafis Sadik was happy to state that "This Programme of Action has the
potential to change the world. (…) this Programme of Action over the next twenty years will
bring women at last into the mainstream of development.“ (A/CONF.171/13/Add.1)

The World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) held in Copenhagen in March 1995 was a
cry for social development and human values in the 1990s world of hard market forces where
social structures are breaking down both in the industrialized and the developing countries.
The WSSD brought up the issue of increasing poverty in the midst of plenty and wanted to
make the heads of states commit themselves to a policy towards the eradication of poverty. It
has also been known for ages that the majority of the poor in the world are women and the
majority of women in this world are poor. The feminization of poverty is still continuing in
poor and rich countries alike.

One of the initiators and the Secretary-General of the WSSD was Juan Somavia, whose career
as a builder and advocate of social development dates back to President Allende’s Chile and
the progressive atmosphere of the UN in the 1970s. Afterwards he described "the Social
Summit as a deep cry of alarm … and a moral and ethical challenge to governments, business,
media, trade unions, political parties, religious traditions, intellectuals, civil society in general,
and all of us individually" to give social development "the highest priority both now and into
the 21st century" (Somavia 1995).

The Women’s Caucus was on the move in Copenhagen, too. Once again, they ensured that the
achievements of the three previous world conferences were not watered down or deleted. Mr
Somavia himself was naturally very pleased with the contributions of women supporting the
objectives of the Conference, and he collaborated constructively with them right from the
beginning.

"The Copenhagen Summit was the international community’s most forthright

acknowledgement that the problems faced by women lie at the heart of the global agenda," the
UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali agreed in his assessment of the WSSD after the
Conference (United Nations 1995b: Blue Book, para. 236.)

During the Summit, on International Women’s Day, 8 March, the women’s task force
launched a campaign titled 180 Days/180 Ways Women’s Action Campaign ’95 to mobilize
women to distribute information on the outcomes of Vienna, Cairo and Copenhagen and to
prepare for the Fourth World Conference on Women which was due to be take place in
Beijing in six months. The campaign involved events all day long and in the evening
thousands of women marched in a torch procession "on the way to Beijing" through
Copenhagen from the city hall to Holmen, the site of Forum ’95.

6. The Beijing Conference – A Grand Consolidation

 37

It has been seen above that the topics of all of the UN world conferences in the 1990s have
been closely connected with each other and with women’s lives. Nature and the environment,
human rights, sexuality and family planning, social development and poverty as well as
human settlements all form the contents of women’s lives all over the world. These
conferences have also given impetus to wide-scale mobilization and rising awareness of
women in many ways worldwide, something of which only glimpses could be given in this
paper.

Ever since December 1990 it had been known that the Fourth World Conference on Women
(FWCW) would be held in 1995. This awareness served as a background force giving
direction to the work of the preceding conferences and particularly women’s activism in
connection with them. It was known that in 1995 the entire process would be summed up and
checked against women’s hopes and aspirations. In December 1992 the UN General Assembly
accepted China’s invitation and confirmed that the Fourth World Conference on Women
would be held in Beijing on 4–15 September 1995.

However, the gathering of the world’s women in Beijing, the capital of China, proved a lot
more complicated a project than had been anticipated. The problems were both political and
practical: Political reasons were often presented as technical problems and practical
organizational problems were turned into and interpreted as political problems.

As soon as the 1992 decision to organize the FWCW in Beijing had been made, a major
debate arose over whether holding a world conference in Beijing would mean support for the
Chinese Government which many regarded as totalitarian and violator of major human rights.
The events of Tiananmen Square in 1989 were fresh in the memory. Women deliberated over
the best way to support change in China and in the lives of Chinese women: Should we go
there and participate in the conference, which would bring the diversity of women’s thoughts
and views to the doorsteps of the Chinese, or should we boycott the Chinese government by
staying at home?

Registration for the Beijing NGO Forum had to be sent to both the NGO Forum Facilitating
Committee in New York and the China Preparatory Committee in Beijing by April 1995. By
early 1995 the New York office had received almost 40,000 registrations and the majority of
those registered were organizing their trips through travel agencies, provided that they would
be granted a visa by the Chinese government. Originally, a large sports stadium in central
Beijing had been reserved for the NGO Forum, a site regarded as very appropriate by
representatives of the UN and with the capacity to hold tens of thousands of people.

At the beginning of 1995, however, the Chinese government announced that the stadium
would not be available "for technical reasons" and that the NGO Forum would be held in the
small neighbouring town of Huairou, some sixty kilometres (about 40 miles) from the centre
of Beijing. However, it appeared that there were insufficient meeting facilities let alone
accommodation in Huairou, not to mention the fact that the transport connections were almost
non-existent. The Chinese assured that all the necessary premises would be built and transport
problems solved by autumn.
 38

Delays in visas also posed problems. About ten weeks before the conference was due, the
Chinese Preparatory Committee announced that the government had cancelled all the hotel
reservations in Beijing and that those wishing to participate in the NGO Forum – and be
granted a visa for China – should renew their reservations through the Beijing Preparatory
Committee no later than 15 July. Apparently this cut the number of participants by almost ten
thousand.

Similar problems had been experienced with the Kenyan government in 1985 as they realized
that thousands of feminists from all over the world would be arriving at the Nairobi Forum
’85. The Kenyan government tried to cancel the entire Forum and, having failed to do so,
suggested that it be transferred to another country or postponed till another time. This also
failed but, instead, Forum ’85 was a great success for the world’s women and it did not cause
the fall of the Kenyan government either!

- The Greatest Success of All Time!

Despite all the problems, the Beijing Conference became a massive success both in terms of
its size and its results. The official conference was participated in by the delegations of 189
governments, more than in any other UN conference before. All in all, the intergovernmental
conference had some 17,000 participants, with 6,000 government delegates, more than 4,000
NGO representatives accredited to the conference, about 4,000 journalists and media
representatives together with a great number of international officials from all of the
organizations in the UN system.

The NGO Forum also broke all the records, despite the fact that it was held in Huairou, far
away from Beijing, where meeting facilities were hopelessly small, hotels uncompleted and
on top of it all, whose streets and alleys were turned into mud baths every other day by
torrential rains. Some 30,000 participants arrived from all over the world and 5,000 from the
host country China. The journalists, visiting official delegates, lecturers, performers, the
Chinese police and security officers included, at least forty thousand people swarmed around
in Huairou every day.

Notwithstanding the countless insufficiencies, those present at the NGO Forum regarded the
event as something to remember always. The global diversity of women, hundreds of
well-known women who could be seen and heard live – Hillary Clinton, Helvi Sipilä and Jane
Fonda amongst the best known – and hundreds and thousands of interesting and colourful
events, meetings, personal encounters, new friends, reunions with old friends and the
atmosphere of mutual sisterhood was an unforgettable experience for the first-timers in
particular but also for those who had been to the previous fora.

It was also easy to see in the Forum why it was so worthwhile to organize this UN conference
and the related events in China. Firstly, this allowed for over 5,000 Chinese participants to
attend, interact, discuss and hear what the women from other countries had to say. Had the
 39

conference been held elsewhere, it is quite likely that, only a handful of carefully picked
women would have been able to participate.

In addition, an enormous number of young Chinese women and men worked at the conference
and therefore got a chance to observe, establish contacts and gather impressions – something
for which their opportunities would otherwise have been nil. The coverage of the Conference
by the Chinese media provided a constant flow of information to the Chinese society at large.
Such large-scale exposure of the Chinese people to an international event was no doubt, a
comparative advantage derived from holding the Conference in China.

The 4,000 NGO representatives accredited to the official conference had been provided with
good working and meeting facilities in the immediate vicinity of the Beijing conference site.
The facilities were used daily by 40 - 50 issue caucuses each observing and lobbying their
own section of the basic documents. Many of them had already participated in every
Preparatory Committee session, studied the successive drafts of the final document and
worked on it in the different preparatory stages for two years.

On the official conference site the work of these issue caucuses was coordinated by the
Linkage Caucus comprising of 1,300 women from 73 countries. At eight o’clock every
morning there was the great "morning assembly", a meeting of the Linkage Caucus where the
UN Secretariat gave an update on the progress of the conference proceedings and the
representatives of different caucuses on the progress of the lobbying regarding each issue. The
joy experienced by the caucuses as they managed to push an amendment through was shared
by all in these meetings. The more difficult the issue the greater the joy of accomplishment!

Around 85 percent of even those recommendations that were not approved at the Preparatory
Committee’s meetings and were still in square brackets at the start of the Conference –
including the concept ‘gender’ – were adopted for inclusion into the final document by the
assembled government delegations (WEDO 1995).

- PFA – an Agenda for Women’s Empowerment

The official document adopted by the Beijing Conference is called the Beijing Declaration
and Platform for Action for Equality, Development and Peace, commonly abbreviated as
PFA. First and foremost the PFA provides an introduction to and assessment of the global
situation from women’s viewpoints. Then it specifies twelve critical areas of concern for
which it sets strategic objectives and proposals for actions to be taken for the achievement of
these objectives. These critical areas of concern are poverty, education and training, health,
violence against women, armed conflicts, economy, power and decision-making, institutional
mechanisms, human rights, the media, the environment and the girl-child.

The Beijing Mission Statement states that "The Platform for Action is an agenda for women’s
empowerment." Thus, the emphasis is no longer merely on achieving equality and eradicating
discrimination but on the empowerment of women so that they become full and equal partners
in all policies and decision-making processes in their communities. Equality with men in a
 40

male-dominated culture and society alone is not enough. Women need to be empowered to
bring their own views to policy-making and the development of society and to set their own
priorities in accordance with their inherent values.

In the final analysis, the Beijing PFA is a grand consolidation of all the decisions that had
already been made by the preceding World Conferences on Women and the World
Conferences on environment, population, human rights and social development held during
the 1990s. According to pre-Beijing projections, it would have been regarded as a good
outcome if the gains made could be maintained and not watered down, given the alliance of
conservative forces.

But the Beijing PFA proved to be much more than this. It compiles the previously adopted
decisions into a coherent Platform for Action, supplements and specifies them and brings them
forward. The PFA defines women’s reproductive rights more specifically than the Cairo
document. It calls for men’s equal responsibility as sexual partners and partners sharing family
responsibilities and demands that these objectives be taken into account in early childhood up
in the home and at schools. One of the largest chapters of the PFA deals with violence against
women. It is the first ever programme adopted by governments that addresses discrimination
against and the exploitation, abuse and other problems of girl-children thoroughly and in great
detail. It demands that these issues be taken into account and rectified everywhere.

On adopting the PFA the governments committed themselves to the effective mainstreaming
of the gender dimension throughout all of their operations, policies, planning and
decision-making. They assumed the obligation to look at the issues from both women’s and
men’s perspective before making decisions. The concept of ‘mainstreaming a gender
perspective’ appears through the entire PFA. The governments also adopted the obligation to
carry out gender impact assessment which applies to every single government bill or political
decision. The clause to this effect is specifically recorded in connection with every strategic
objective in the PFA:

"In addressing (the issue), Governments and other actors should promote an
active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies
and programmes so that before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the
effects on women and men, respectively." (Platform for Action, 1996: paragraphs
79, 105, 123, 141, 164, 189, 202, 229, 252, 273)

After the Beijing Conference the whole United Nations system has reconfirmed its
commitments to implementing the Beijing PFA in all its policies and programmes. The
most important documents in this context today are the Report of the Secretary-General
(E/1997/66) and the Agreed conclusions 1997/2 by ECOSOC on "Mainstreaming the
gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system"
(A/52/3, pp.27-35) on 18 July 1997. These Conclusions define the concept of gender
mainstreaming and give instructions to the entire system with its multitude of institutions
on mainstreaming the gender perspective into all policies and programmes. It also
provides particularly for gender mainstreaming in the integrated follow up to global UN
conferences.
 41

Within the UN system - as we have indicated earlier - there are today several bodies and
institutions in charge of gender-related activities and functions of the UN, the most important
being INSTRAW as an autonomous agency, UNIFEM in autonomous association with
UNDP, and the Division for the Advancement of Women within UN Secretariat.

Recently there has also been established a new, very important organ, the Inter-Agency
Committee on Women and Gender Equality for enhancing the cooperation and coordination of
the UN system in the implementation of the Beijing PFA and gender-related recommendations
emanating from other recent UN conferences. Furthermore, all these institutions and bodies
assist and facilitate the work of CSW which is the political organ in charge of gender
mainstreaming and all other gender-related issues in the UN.

Outside the UN, i.e., in the UN Member States all around the world, there are the women and
men as citizens and activists on whose awareness, initiative and activism depends how well
their governments do remember their promises made in adopting the programmes and
resolutions within the UN. Today there are also such influential global civic networks as
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), International Women’s
Rights Action Watch (IWRAW), the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, and WEDO - to
mention just the most powerful and renowned ones - which coordinate and facilitate the
activities of the hundreds and thousands of NGOs and citizen's groups which are keeping their
eyes on the intergovernmental bodies to make them accountable for their work.

- Reorganization and Reorientation of Women’s World

During the process of developing increasingly systematic and comprehensive strategies for
lobbying and influencing the intergovernmental conferences at the macro-level, the
approaches of women’s international networks and activism have also become more holistic
and the perspective of women’s international activism is changing. Equality is changing from
being an objective to becoming a base requirement which is crucial for equal participation of
women in setting targets and priorities and making decisions. However, the mainstreaming
must not result in "malestreaming", women’s integration into the men’s world. In order to act
as an engine for change, women must speak in their own voice, on the basis of their own
experiences and values and eventually transform patriarchal structures.

The recent years have also experienced the creation of plenty of new international women’s
organizations and networks which promote women’s international cooperation and
participation in politics for the particular purpose of gathering women, including women in
governments and official systems, to influence government actions within the UN system and
international cooperation. Here we will look closer at four of them, which’ activities are
directly related with the UN process for advancement of women and the World Conferences in
recent years.

Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), a network established by a
group of women researchers from developing countries before the Nairobi Conference in
 42

1984, has acted as a herald of the new direction. Their first analyses on the past and presents
development from women’s perspective, Development, Crises and Alternative Visions: Third
World Women’s Perspectives, became an immediate classic of development analysis when it
was released in Nairobi in 1985 (Sen and Crown 1985). The first edition was published in
Norway and never reached the market as every copy of it was distributed free of charge in
Nairobi. Ever since, DAWN has served as a network of women researchers from the
developing countries with thousands of allies and supporters around the world.

DAWN disassociated itself from the whole western development thinking from the beginning.
Their point of departure is feminism as a political movement which "has at its very core a
process of economic and social development geared to human needs through wider access to
economic and political power. Equality, peace and development, by and for the poor and
oppressed, are inextricably interlinked with equality, peace and development by and for
women." ( DAWN Report, 1985, 14)

Another important network is the International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW),
which was established in 1986 after the third world conference on women in Nairobi. It
monitors the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, which was adopted by the UN in 1979. Countries that ratify
the Convention undertake the legal obligation to take all appropriate measures to improve the
status of women and change the customs and laws that impede women’s advancement.

Today IWRAW is a global network of activists, scholars and organizations that focus on the
advancement of women’s human rights. It publishes a quarterly newsletter, Women’s Watch,
which is distributed to over 5,000 subscribers all over the world and has become an
indispensable tool for all who want to follow and participate in the international women’s
watch over the implementation of the Convention. The site of IWRAW is the Humphrey
Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Over the years IWRAW has created very constructive working relationships and mutual
understanding with CEDAW, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women, to which the States Parties are obliged to report every fourth
year on their activities and achievements in implementing the Convention. From its early
years IWRAW has organized seminars for women from Member States to be trained to follow
up the juridical process connected with the implementation of and monitoring the Convention.

The cooperation between CEDAW and IWRAW has now been developed into regular
five-day pre-sessional working group meetings before every session of CEDAW where the
official members of CEDAW and NGO-representatives meet. In this working group the
NGO-representatives, particularly from the States Parties whose turn to report to the
Committee is at hand, can respond to their respective governments’ reports. This practice will
become even more effective in the future when the pre-sessional working group meetings will
be organized several months in advance prior each CEDAW Committee session with a view to
ensuring that the NGOs can submit information in time to be used by the Committee in
preparation of questions for the forthcoming respective country reviews.
 43

Nowadays it is also becoming a frequent practice that the national women’s organizations
submit their "shadow reports" to the CEDAW Committee - either directly or through IWRAW
- when the time is due for their respective governments to present their official periodic
reports. As more NGOs are getting involved in the reporting process and in interaction with
the Committee, the NGO community has gained more expertise in preparing information for
presentation. They provide reports that thoroughly analyse the government’s Convention
implementation efforts and point out the gaps and misstatements in the government reports.
Due to training and assistance given by IWRAW to women’s organizations, this has become a
powerful tool in the hands of women for advancement of women’s rights in their countries
(IWRAW 1998).

In connection with the preparations of the World Conference on Human Rights we saw
already , what a decisive role the Center for Women’s Global Leadership had in the
mobilization and giving publicity to the Conference. This Global Center has since 1990
fostered women’s leadership in the area of human rights through women’s global leadership
institutes, strategic planning activities, international mobilization campaigns, global education
endeavours, publications, and resource center. Center works from a human rights perspective
with an emphasis on violence against women, sexual and reproductive health and
socio-economic well-being.

The Global Center monitors especially the work of the UN Commission on Human rights and
facilitates the activities of the Women’s Human Rights Caucus during the sessions of both the
CHR and CSW. Since 1993 the Center has organized annually the Women’s Global
Leadership Institute, a two week intensive course for about 25 women at a time seeking to
strengthen women’s leadership in movements around the world that are working for human
rights from the perspective of women’s lives. In connection with the CHR session the Center
has last two years conducted also a Women’s Human Rights Advocacy Training.

Together with UNIFEM, UNICEF and hundreds of international and national human rights
organizations and groups the Global Center organizes every year a global 16 Days of Activism
Campaign from November 25 to December 10, the Human Rights day. In 1998 the campaign
was dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights with
a special theme “Imagine a world where all women enjoy their human rights“ .This campaign
seem to have reached really global dimensions indicated, for instance, by the list of events in
last year from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Peru, India, Philippines, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Trinidad and Tobago, Croatia, United States, England, Israel, Japan etc. The
same period has already been observed also by many other organizations and movements like
UNIFEM national groups, the new men’s movement, White Ribbon, etc. campaigning for
elimination of violence against women as the goal.

When it comes to influencing intergovernmental decisions and the UN system in particular,

the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) stands out as the most
significant network and coordinator in the 1990s. WEDO defines itself as "… an international
advocacy network actively working to transform society to achieve a healthy and peaceful
planet, with social, political, economic and environmental justice for all through the
 44

empowerment of women in all their diversity and their equal participation with men in
decision-making from grassroots to global arenas" (WEDO 1998b).

As mentioned earlier, WEDO brings together and coordinates the activities of a great number
of organizations from all over the world. The First World Women’s Congress for a Healthy
Planet arranged by WEDO in Miami in 1991 had women from 83 countries as participants.
The Second Congress for a Healthy Planet in Beijing right before the UN Conference brought
together more than a hundred new and old international – mainly women’s – organizations.
The majority of these organizations had been established during the past decade in developing
countries or in the former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1990s
(WEDO 1996d).

The network coordinated by WEDO has carried out invaluable work in disseminating
information on the UN conferences to women around the world and in mobilising them for
global cooperation. The constant expansion and deepening of women’s participation has been
achieved through countless campaigns, small and large gatherings, festivals, fairs and
tribunes, etc. The events have during these years been organized by partners of the network in
their respective countries and internationally, across the borders.

NGO events directly linked to the preparations of the Beijing Conference included the
Women’s Global Strategies Meeting organized by WEDO in Glen Cove, USA, in 1994, which
created the 180 Days/180 Ways Women’s Action Campaign to mobilize women in preparation
for Beijing; the Second Nordic Forum organized by the Nordic Women’s Organizations and
Governments, with 16,000 participants in Turku, Finland, in 1994; all the women’s trains on
the way to Beijing; the Peace Train organized by WILPF from Helsinki, the UN/NGO Liaison
Service train from Vienna, the Beijing Express organized by UNDP as a training train and
possibly others, together with countless smaller events around the world.

The 180 Days/180 Ways Women’s Action Campaign alone is known to have mobilized over
500 international and national organizations in 80 countries into activating women to call for
their own empowerment and find out about the Beijing Conference and the reasons why it was
worth attending.

The change in women’s international orientation is manifested in the fact that even women in
the North have started to become more critical and turn their eyes on their own governments’
policies and economies in the North. North-South development assistance is no longer enough
– nor has it ever been –solidarity and sisterhood is required above all. This calls for new
orientation by women in the North; talk about agents for change must be turned into action,
into political activity in the North. The new orientation should attempt to create changes in the
policies and actions of rich countries vis-à-vis the rest of the world and global process. The
North is the site of global economic power system and the companies of which this global
structure consists.

- Governments Accountable to the World’s Women

 45

Everything that takes place within the UN system is founded on cooperation between
governments and their decisions. Consequently, the implementation of these decisions also
depends on the governments, on the commitment of each one of them to realize in practical
terms in their own countries the decisions made together within the UN system. This is both
the strength and the weakness of the UN: The UN system has no authority to go and
implement the decisions directly in any country, nor the power to force any government to
comply with the decisions. The only exceptions are the decisions of the Security Council
which, in accordance with the UN Charter, are obligatory to every Member State.

Ultimately, the practical implementation of UN decisions depends on the extent to which the
citizens in each Member State are aware of the decisions adopted by their government on their
behalf in the UN and on the extent to which the citizens can make their governments
politically accountable for the implementation of these decisions. Therefore, it is crucially
important that women are aware of the "promises" made by their governments in Rio, Vienna,
Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing when adopting the programmes at those world conferences.
Likewise, Governments are also responsible and accountable to their citizens, male and female
alike, for the implementation of the decisions they have adopted at international platforms.

The Beijing PFA reminds us of this by emphasizing government accountability to the world’s
women in several paragraphs. "The success of the Platform for Action will require a strong
commitment on the part of Governments, international organizations and institutions at all
levels. It will also require … the establishment or strengthening of mechanisms at all levels for
accountability to the world’s women" (PFA, Chapter 1, Article 5). Women can make the
governments face their responsibility and accountability only if they know what the PFA and
other programmes entail and what the implications of the promises are.

After the Beijing Conference, WEDO undertook the task of ensuring that the governments do
not forget the commitments they made in adopting the PFA unanimously. Since WEDO has
contacts, both official and unofficial, in almost every UN Member State, it has been possible
to gather information on the progress of the implementation of the PFA in each country.
Information has also been requested through the respective missions to the UN. The
information received from the official sources has been checked against that received from the
NGOs.

WEDO compiled its first report on how governments were turning words into action as early
as six months after Beijing, in time for the 1996 session of CSW (WEDO 1996a). The report,
published in September 1997, included as many as 112 countries announcing that they had
drawn up a national action plan and another 21 had a draft plan. Information was received
from 163 countries, which speaks for WEDO’s efficiency (WEDO 1997). Interestingly,
WEDO has usually received information from more countries than the UN itself, although the
UN also obliges the member governments to provide reports.

In the three years since Beijing, WEDO has published follow up reports every six months.
This kind of a follow-up process on the UN decisions is unprecedented in its stringency. This
is the way the world’s women are holding the governments accountable for their promises
(WEDO 1998a). Although the decisions made by a world conference are not legally binding
 46

to the governments, they can be regarded as politically binding when the document is adopted
unanimously without a vote, as was the case with the PFA.

In Bella Abzug’s words: "We did not get everything that we want… But it is the strongest
statement of consensus on women’s equality, empowerment and justice ever produced by the
world’s governments. It’s a vision of a transformational picture of what the world can be for
women as well as men, for this and future generations" (WEDO 1995).

7. Epilogue – Will the World Change?

The extent and significance of women’s impact on UN operations in the 1990s has made it
impossible to be ignored any more. Women act through official channels and lobbying alike,
and they systematically observe the implementation of decisions. This constitutes determined
civic activism across national borders and past national governments.

As indicated at the beginning of this paper, the roots of women’s activism can be traced back
to the days of the League of Nations when women’s organizations already found it worthwhile
to provide their support to intergovernmental cooperation for the prevention of wars and
securing peace. With the founding of the UN, women had a crucial role in the formulation of
the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was the determination and
vision of the early women activists that led to the establishment of CSW so early in the history
of the UN. Although the new wave of women’s activism did not appear until the early 1970s,
it has grown rapidly ever since and reached the proportions witnessed in connection with the
1990s world conferences.

During the UN Decade for Women, women acquired knowledge of and experience in how
they can – and cannot – have influence within the UN system. During the preceding decades
the main objective had been equality between men and women and the advancement of the
rights and status of women. The theme of the UN Decade for Women was "Equality,
Development and Peace", which can be interpreted as meaning that equality is the prerequisite
for women’s equal participation in decision-making regarding development and peace. The
objective adopted in the 1990s is that the gender perspective must be built - mainstreamed -
into all planning and decision-making, to the effect that before decisions are taken or plans are
implemented, an analysis is always made of the effects on women and men respectively.

Women’s participation in international events and UN operations has continuously increased

not only qualitatively but also quantitatively. The women involved in the League of Nations
and the founding of the United Nations comprised a handful of strong, highly educated and
self-assured individuals. As the number of women gathering together in connection with the
UN world conferences has grown from about 6,000 in Mexico City in 1975 into the real
women’s world conference with almost 50,000 participants in Beijing in 1995, so has the
increasing experience and involvement of a multitude of women been manifested ever more
convincingly.
 47

Improved economic conditions, communications and a higher level of education and

knowledge have provided more and more women with the opportunity to take part in these
events. However, this has also required strong motivation and faith in the importance of
participation; this has sprouted from the individual experience of empowerment and growing
strength through actions in common.

- Momentum from the South

For decades the majority of women participating in women’s international gatherings were
mainly from the western middle-class background, representing the white minority of the
world. The emphasis of the activism and dynamics of the international women’s movement
has now shifted to the South. Ever since the Nairobi Conference, the proportion of women
from developing countries has increased in all UN conferences and their parallel events. Their
enthusiasm, motivation and preparedness for action are now providing new inspiration and
faith for the women of the North too.

The women’s world also manifests the richness of the cultures of humanity, the diversity of
customs and traditions, contrary to the uniformity of the hegemonic business masculinity. In
all cultures, women are the carriers and transmitters of the heritage, both for the better and the
worse. Through cultures we can also find the elements of commonality and sisterhood, as
there are common denominators in women’s basic experiences around the world.

The realization that it is worth women’s while to enter the international arena to jointly push
forward the objectives that had not been met at the national level dates back to the days of the
League of Nations. Since Nairobi in 1985, women’s efficiently co-ordinated efforts have
resulted in the adoption – even unanimously – by the intergovernmental conferences of global
programmes whose objectives and obligations placed on governments go a lot further than the
national government policies. Internationally adopted conventions and recommendations are
excellent tools for pressuring governments into their implementation at the national level in
every country.

The most far-reaching document is the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action which was
unanimously adopted by 189 governments in the capital of a conservative superpower.
Covering all aspects of life, the PFA sets objectives whose implementation will require a great
deal from each government. Its implementation and utilization will provide a lot of work for
years, even in the most advanced countries. This miracle was created thanks to years of
cooperation between women, almost 1,500 skilful lobbyists in the corridors of the conference
site together with another 35,000 women (and men) keeping watch over the process at the
NGO Forum in Huairou and all over Beijing.

But what will take place in practice in the UN Member States? Will the programmes written
by women and adopted by the governments be implemented, will the culture change, will
inequality, discrimination and violence against women soon be a thing of the past in every
corner of the world?
 48

- Every Government is Accountable

The weakest point of women’s strategy, however, can be found at the national level in every
country. Although tens of thousands of women from around the world pushed through the
programmes aimed at the great change, they are still only a small fraction of all women. The
potential power of these programmes and resolutions is still not known to the great majority of
women. Therefore they are not empowered to use them as effective tools in each country for
changing their lives and the lives of others.

An immense amount of work is required in every country in order to prevent the decisions
adopted by the governments in the UN from being left to gather dust on the shelves. It is our
task as those committed to gender equality to ensure that governments will not forget their
commitments. We can question the governments’ credibility unless they meet the objectives
they have adopted. And when governments change, the new government should be made
aware of the commitments made. International commitments remain valid in spite of
governments coming and going.

There will not be another UN world conference for a long time. There is enough work with the
implementation of the decisions made by the previous ones. The Programme of Action
adopted by the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) reaches well
into the 21st century, whereas the Beijing Platform for Action formally applies only to the
years 1996–2000.

The UN General Assembly will follow up the implementation by the Member States of the
programmes adopted this decade every five years. The first high-level plenary review to
appraise and assess the progress achieved in the implementation of the Nairobi
Forward-looking Strategies and the Beijing Platform for Action and to consider further
actions and initiatives will take place as a Special Session of the General Assembly, “Women
2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century“, on 5-9 June 2000.
Women’s networks, WEDO and CSW monitor the implementation of the programmes
adopted by the Beijing and other conferences annually.

The implementation of the programmes must, however, take place separately in each country,
and this is something where every one of us can accept part of the responsibility to influence.
The programmes must be translated into the language of each country to allow everybody a
chance to study them. It is crucial that they are also ‘operationalized’, transformed into
practical action in schools, organizations, political parties and all of the respective institutions.
It is our responsibility to make the governments accountable for the implementation of their
decisions. Without citizens’ activism and contribution – and in this case without women’s
activism and contribution – UN decisions will not be implemented in practice, no matter how
good they are.
 49

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----------1992. Women’s Action Agenda 21. Official Report, World Women’s Congress for a
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--------- 1995. News & Views 8 (3–4).

 52

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--------- 1996b. Beyond Promises. Governments in Motion. One Year After the Beijing
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53
Annex I

The first session of the United Nations General Assembly in London, 12 February 1946:

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD

“An Open Letter to the women of the world from the women delegates and advisers at the first
Assembly of the United Nations:

“This first Assembly of the United Nations marks the second attempt of the peoples of the
world to live peacefully in a democratic world community. This new chance for peace was
won through the joint efforts of men and women working for common ideals of human
freedom at a time when the need for united effort broke down barriers of race, creed and sex.

“In view of the variety of tasks which women performed so notably and valiantly during the
war, we are gratified that seventeen women representatives and advisers, representatives of
eleven Member States, are taking part at the beginning of this new phase of international
effort. We hope their participation in the work of the United Nations Organization may grow
and increase insight and in skill. To this end we call on the Governments of the world to
encourage women everywhere to take a more active part in national and international affairs,
and on women who are conscious of their opportunities to come forward and share in the work
of peace and reconstruction as they did in war and resistance.

“We recognise that women in various parts of the world are at different stages of participation
in the life of their community, that some of them are prevented by law from assuming full
rights of citizenship, and that they therefore may see their immediate problems somewhat
differently.

“Finding ourselves in agreement on these points, we wish as a group to advise the women of
all our countries of our strong belief that an important opportunity and responsibility confront
the women of the United Nations: first, to recognise the progress women have made during
the war and to participate actively in the effort to improve the standards of life in their own
countries and in the pressing work of reconstruction, so that there will be qualified women
ready to accept responsibility when new opportunities arise; second, to train their children,
boys and girls alike, to understand world problems and the need for international cooperation,
as well as the problems of their own countries; third, not to permit themselves to be misled by
anti-democratic movements now or in the future; fourth, to recognise that the goal of full
participation in the life and responsibilities of their countries and of the world community is a
common objective toward which the women of the world should assist one another."

Signed by:

Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, USA

Mrs Lefaucheaux, France, Miss Minerva Bernardino, The Dominican Republic, Mrs Dalen,
Norway, Mrs Verwey, The Netherlands,
Twelve other woman delegates to the General Assembly
 2

Annex II

Year by Year Progress of the Convention on

the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(Figure 3. from the Making Women Matter , page 127.)