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To young people encouraged to use "lust and desire as resources," contraception and abortion are necessities and parental consent a major obstacle. Therefore, it was not surprising that the EU should fight against all. references to parental rights. The coalition made up a number of flyers to inform delegates of the importance of parental rights:
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WHY IS THE E.U. OPPOSED TO PARENTS' RIGHTS?
E.U. delegates have repeatedly defended sexual relations for unmarried adolescent girls.
The E.U. wants to prevent concerned parents from protecting their daughters from:
Sex education teachers like the Swedish and Danish sex educators at an NGO Forum workshop in Huairou, who said they promote "lust and desire" to adolescents;
Women's health clinics who will give girls condoms and abortions without their parents' knowledge;
Lesbians who will teach them lesbianism is normal and their parents are judgmental.
Why does the E.U. think it knows what is best for Moslem girls, Latin American girls, and African girls?
TELL THE E.U. TO LEAVE OUR DAUGHTERS ALONE
RESTORE PARENTAL RIGHTS
Coalition for Women and the Family
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The Youth Caucus, which was strongly influenced by WEDO and the Lesbian Caucus, countered with a flyer that opposed parental rights, which read in part:
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EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN BEGINS WITH YOUNG WOMEN
Support the rights of the girl child and young women.
Adolescents have right to information and education essential for their well-being, as recognized in the Convention on the Rights of the child.
PROTECT WOMEN's RIGHTS
Parents must respect the evolving capacities of the girl child and young women in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Access to education information and services is a health issue.
The belief systems of parents must not undermine the rights of the girl child and young women to sexual health and reproductive health information and services.
Delete the repetitive passages overstating the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents.
EXAGGERATING PARENTAL RIGHTS DISEMPOWERS WOMEN
Youth Caucus
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The coalition lobbied hard, but it was difficult to convince delegates from the Third World that their families were at risk. Many had been convinced that sex education was necessary to prevent the spread of AIDS. Coalition members pointed out that these programs have been tried in the U.S. and unwed pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases have increased because contraceptives all have established failure rates.
Third World delegates could not understand why the developing countries would be pushing these programs if they were failures. Coalition members explained that the real goal of the programs was to break down moral and religious values and encourage sexual experimentation and activity among children of all ages, and in this they were succeeding.
Olivia Gans of Abortion Victims of America found it effective to ask delegates from Africa to guess how many abortions were done in the U.S. in a year. The delegates would respond that since in America no one was poor and there was sex education and access to contraception, they would guess 200 to 300. They were shocked to discover the number was 1.5 million.
A Sudanese delegate demanded of a French delegate, "Why are you so angry, you have all those rights you want us to accept .... Please show me a little window of your paradise, because all I see in your world is increased promiscuity among young people, increased divorce, increased abortion, homosexuality, venereal diseases .... I don't see your paradise."
When the contact group on parental rights met, the profamily contingent, having been tricked in the past, was present in force. As the majority, they agreed to the following wording: "Recognizing the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents and other persons legally responsible for adolescents to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the adolescent and in conformity with the Convention on the Rights of the Child appropriate support and guidance, in sexual and reproductive matters."
Two days later, the chairman from Canada produced copies of a totally different version. Mercedes Wilson protested, "When the western countries have a majority, you just close the case and report it to the main committee. When we, from the developing countries have majority, you want to continue negotiating. What kind of dictatorial process is this?"
The Canadian chairman of the contact group replied that she had discussed the language with several delegates and they had agreed to the change. Mercedes checked with other profamily delegates who had been involved in the original negotiations and all denied that they had been asked about or agreed to the new language. Another contact meeting was scheduled and appeared to be deadlocked, but the chairman waited until Mercedes was forced to leave the meeting to attend a prescheduled press conference where she presented the letter from Mother Teresa to the conference. The Canadian chairman then pushed through the new wording, which read:
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Taking into account the rights of the child to access to information, privacy, confidentiality, respect and informed consent, as well as the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents and legal guardians to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, appropriate direction and guidance in the exercise by the child of the rights recognized in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in conformity with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In all actions concerning children, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration. (paragraph 108e)
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This is no longer parental rights language, but children's rights language. If children have the right to privacy and confidentiality, parents have no rights where it really matters. Who decides the best interests of the child? Abortion providers, bureaucrats pushing contraception and abortion, sex educators. Many people had opposed the Convention on the Rights of Child on the grounds that it would be used to subvert parental rights. Here was clear proof that their concerns were justified.
Mercedes expressed her anger at the process:
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We came here to find consensus. How can there be consensus when one side expects the other to sacrifice their religion, their values, their sovereignty? It would have been better if we had divided into two groups. Let all those who want sex for unmarried girls, and explicit sex education and condoms and abortions, single mothers, lesbian marriage, and all women forced to work outside the home stand up on one side. And all those who stand up for the family based on marriage between a man and woman, motherhood, parental rights, protection of girls from sexual exploitation and the defense of human life from conception on the other. Then we could have had two documents and the people of the world could decide which document really represents the women of their country.
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The only bright light in this darkness was Mother Teresa's statement, which the coalition translated into five languages and distributed to the delegates. Mother Teresa spoke directly to the issues being debated:
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I do not understand why some people are saying that women and men are exactly the same, and are denying the beautiful differences between men and women. All God's gifts are good, but they are not all the same .... No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of "freedom" can take the place of love. So anything that destroys God's gift of motherhood destroys His most precious gift to women-the ability to love as a woman .... Those who deny the beautiful differences between men and women are not accepting themselves as God has made them .... I have often said, abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace in the world today, and those who want to make women and men the same are all in favor of abortion.
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SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Lesbians make up less than 1 percent of the world's women, but they seemed to dominate the lobbying in Beijing. The Lesbian Caucus offered various amendments to the Platform for Action. In addition to calling for "sexual orientation" to be included with race, religion, and other protected categories, their amendments called for a "transformation of society" that would "remove gender hierarchy" and for education programs to "address violence against women including pressures to conform to heterosexual norms." They wanted "family" replaced with "various forms of families." They also wanted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women to be amended to "establish freedom of sexual choice for adult women as an inalienable human right."
During the PrepCom the lesbians had won support from various European Union nations and Canada to have the words sexual orientation added to four paragraphs of the document. Although the words were bracketed, the advocates of lesbian rights were hopeful that they could prevail. If some delegates had been under the impression that "sexual orientation" referred to a form of sex education, by the time the issue was debated everyone knew that "sexual orientation" meant granted protected status to homosexuals and lesbians.
The lesbians received preferential treatment from the conference organizers. Profamily women who conducted a silent protest at the U.S. press conference had their credentials confiscated and were placed under house arrest. But, when the thirty members of the Lesbian Caucus unfurled a large purple banner reading, "Lesbian rights are human rights," during the plenary session on 8 September, no action was taken against them.
Knowing the issue would be contentious, the leadership delayed the discussion of this issue until the very end. The chairman said that the negotiations would begin at seven o'clock in the evening, but the session did not begin until eleven o'clock. Actual negotiations on "sexual orientation" did not start until two o'clock in the morning.
The Islamic and African delegates were not deterred by these tactics. One of them said, "We know what they are trying to do. They are waiting for us to get so sleepy and tired that we will go home and then they can pass these controversial issues that would be so destructive to our nations. So we are not leaving and we will remain in this chair until they begin, even if we have to stay here all night."
When the negotiations finally began, delegation after delegation rose to demand the removal of the phrase "sexual orientation." The speakers said they had come to Beijing to discuss the problems of hunger and poverty and not to legalize illegality. When, in spite of all the maneuvering, it became clear that there was no way the prolesbian forces could rig a consensus, Chairman Patricia Licuanan, from the Philippines, ruled that since the term had not been aired in the U.N. before, and given the strong opposition, the term should not appear in the text. Canada and the U.S. both requested twice that the language be reconsidered. It was five o'clock in the morning when the meeting ended.
WEDO labeled the opposition to sexual orientation "an historic display of public bigotry." In spite of the overwhelming repudiation of the term by the delegates, WEDO claimed that they had actually won.
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The Platform for Action does not use the words sexual orientation anywhere in the 135-page document or declaration. However, most groups consider the pathbreaking Beijing conference debate on the subject of nondiscrimination, based on sexual orientation and the affirmation of human rights of all females, to have been a significant victory for gay and lesbian rights. ["A Brief Analysis of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action," WEDO]
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The entire EU and 16 other countries including Canada, South Africa, and the U.S. issued interpretive statements on paragraph 48 [46] noting that they understand that the term other status includes discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
A member of the coalition commented as the conference drew to an end that .the proceedings were the equivalent of date rape. The EU and its allies, unable to get what they wanted by persuasion, resorted to force, and then claimed they had the consent of their victims.
RESERVATIONS
The coalition members harbored a secret wish that at least one country would refuse to join the consensus, but they realized that no diplomat could risk even the appearance of opposing women's rights and equality. Therefore, as the end approached, coalition members began to lobby the delegates to make strong reservations during the final session. The following flyer was distributed in three languages:
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WE DO NOT CONSENT
The Platform of Action which will leave the Conference of Beijing is a direct attack on the values, cultures, traditions and religious beliefs of the vast majority of the world's people in both the developing and developed world. While there is much in the Platform that is good and necessary for the advancement of women, the positive portions are overshadowed by the negative. The document doesn't respect human dignity, seeks to destroy the family, totally ignores marriage, minimizes the importance of motherhood, seeks to impose depraved sexual attitudes, promotes homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual promiscuity, and sex for children and seeks to destroy the authority of parents over the children.
We, as citizens of the developed countries wish to apologize to the people from the less developed world and to stand in solidarity with them in defense of family, motherhood, and parental rights. We are ashamed of the way our countries have supported a process of forced "consensus" by denying translation, ignoring delegates from small nations, and stone-walling delegates who objected.
We stand in solidarity with delegates from developing countries who have defended family, motherhood, and parental rights. We promise you that when we return to our countries we will fight to change the policies which are oppressing yours and to let our people know the truth about how you were abused in Beijing.
No objective person looking at this process, where representatives of the rich countries have bludgeoned the delegates from poor countries into submission, could call it consensus.
We wish that the delegates from the less developed world would stand up and say, "No. No, we do not consent to this travesty." But we are realistic. We know how difficult this would be. We know we are asking poor countries to surrender the little they have. Perhaps, somewhere in the world there is one country so poor that there is nothing the rich countries can take away from it, who will have the courage to speak publicly the truth about this Platform for Action.
It is tragic that the developing countries have to hide behind national sovereignty to defend universal principles of respect for the family, motherhood, marriage, morality, and chastity, as though these were peculiar backward customs.
We have seen how they have treated the reservations made in Cairo and other conferences, nevertheless reservations are the only way left to protest these abuses.
If you feel you have no choice but to join the consensus, do not give up your last chance to protest,
PLEASE MAKE STRONG RESERVATIONS IN THE PLENARY
Member from Developed Countries of the NGO Coalition for Women and the Family.
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The delegates from developing countries responded positively to this flyer. Some of them came back and asked for additional copies for their fellow delegates. Others thanked the coalition members for their help. The .promoters of the "gender perspective" may have manipulated the process, but they had not won hearts or minds. Profamily participants mourned the fact that an unrepeatable opportunity to address the real problems of women had been wasted.
The platform generated a record number of reservations, as country after country took exception to the antifamily provisions, making hollow any claim that consensus had been achieved. In a moment of unusual candor, the delegate from Malawi expressed the hope that taking reservations would not prevent them from getting funding from the rich nations.
As the conference drew to an end, Gertrude Mongella declared the proceedings a complete success. She reacted defensively when a reporter asked her to respond to charges made by some NGOs that the Platform for Action is antifamily and antimotherhood. "Is education and eradicating illiteracy antimotherhood? Is calling for peace anti-motherhood?" [Li Xing, "Mongella predicts complete success," World Women, 14 September 1995, p. 1]. She did not point to sections of the platform which supported full-time mothers or women's work in the home because there were none.
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