World Conferences on Women
Mexico City 1975
The first UN Conference on Women coincided with the International Women’s Year and served to remind the international community that discrimination against women continued to be a persistent problem in much of the world. The following goals were established:
- Full gender equality and the elimination of gender discrimination
- The integration and full participation of women in development
- An increased contribution by women in the strengthening of world peace.
A World Plan of Action was adopted at the Mexico City Conference. This document offered guidelines for governments and the international community to follow over the next ten years to accomplish the three key objectives set by the General Assembly. The Plan of Action set minimum targets, to be met by 1980, that focused on securing equal access for women to resources including education, employment opportunities, political participation, health services, housing, nutrition and family planning.
Whereas women were previously perceived as passive recipients of support and assistance, they were now viewed as full and equal partners with men, with equal rights to resources and opportunities. A similar transformation was taking place in the approach to development, with a shift from an earlier belief that development served to advance women to a new consensus that development was not possible without the full participation of women.
Copenhagen 1980
At the second UN Conference on Women, it was determined that there was a discrepancy between universal legal rights and women’s ability to exercise these rights. The barriers were:
- Lack of sufficient involvement of men in improving women’s role in society
- Insufficient political will
- Lack of recognition of the value of women’s contributions to society
- Lack of attention to the particular needs of women in planning
- Shortage of women in decision-making positions
- Insufficient services such as co-operatives, day-care centers and credit facilities to support the role of women in national life
- Overall lack of necessary financial resources
- Lack of awareness among women about the opportunities available to them
Nairobi 1985
The Third UN Conference on Women sought to assess the achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women. Although the women’s movement had now become an international force unified under the banner of the “Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace”, delegates were confronted with shocking reports. Data gathered by the United Nations revealed that improvements in the status of women and efforts to reduce discrimination had benefited only a small minority of women. Improvements in the situation of women in the developing world had been marginal at best.
The Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies (NFLS) to the Year 2000 was a blueprint for improving the conditions of women through the end of the century. It broke new ground as it declared all issues to be women’s issues.
Women’s participation in decision making and the handling of all human affairs was recognized not only as their legitimate right but as a social and political necessity that would have to be incorporated in all institutions of society. The NFLS established the following categories as measures for achieving equality at national levels:
- Constitutional and legal steps
- Equality in social participation
- Equality in political participation and decision-making
It was now recognized that women’s equality, far from being an isolated issue, encompassed every sphere of human activity. Therefore, a women’s perspective, including active involvement all issues, not only women’s issues, was essential if the goals and objectives of the Decade for Women were to be attained.
Beijing 1995
A fundamental transformation took place in the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women. This was the recognition, from the Vienna Conference on Human Rights, that women’s rights are human rights. There must be a shift of focus from “women” to the concept of “gender”, recognizing that the entire structure of society, and all relations between men and women within it, had to be re-evaluated.
The Beijing Conference unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and Beijing Platform for Action, which were, in essence, an agenda for women’s empowerment. These stand as milestones for the advancement of women in the twenty-first century. The Beijing Platform for Action specified twelve critical areas of concern, whose solutions were considered to be necessary to women’s advancement:
- Women and poverty;
- Education and training of women;
- Women and health;
- Violence against women;
- Women and armed conflict;
- Women and the economy;
- Women in power and decision-making;
- Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women;
- Human rights of women;
- Women and the media;
- Women and the environment;
- The girl child.