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On the first day, the chairman brought up the question of the definition of gender. Profamily delegates were still concerned, but several of the profamily delegates were worried that a definition of gender might be worse than an ambiguous statement. The majority of delegates from profamily nations and the Holy See agreed to accept the nondefinition which had been proposed by the contact group rather than face the possibility of something worse.
Mercedes Wilson, from Guatemala, was not satisfied and asked that gender be defined as "male and female: the two sexes of the human being." No one supported her. Mercedes was devastated. The feminists were ecstatic.
All pretense of seeking consensus was abandoned in Beijing. Discussion in the main committee skipped from section to section, making it difficult for the lobbyist to prepare. Any issue that was not immediately resolved the way the leadership wanted was referred to a contact group. There were no set meeting rooms for contact groups, and the times of the meetings were often changed. Concerned profamily delegates were forced to run upstairs and down trying to find the meetings.
When they arrived, the meeting might be over and the results declared final.
To make things even more difficult, no translation was offered in the contact groups. This clearly disadvantaged the profamily delegates who came mainly from Latin America, French-speaking Africa, and the Moslem countries. Since the debate was over language, correct translation was crucial. Protests about these abuses were ignored.
The bilingual members of the Coalition for Women and the Family volunteered as translators. In this capacity, they were able to advise sympathetic delegates about the implications behind the language. While efforts were made to ban them from the meetings, most persisted.
In the contact groups, there was no attempt to arrive at a true consensus. Majority ruled unless the majority disagreed with the leadership, and then the decision was postponed. Since the composition of the contact groups was, in many cases, a reflection of nothing more than the ability to find the meeting room, a majority of those present should not have been binding on the entire conference. The consensus system had protected the rights of all countries by including nothing in the document that was offensive to any group of nations. The new system forced the will of those running the conference on everyone else.
Most delegates from the Third World regarded the sexual agenda of the Europeans as totally irrelevant to their cultures. For them, men and women are different, motherhood and family are important. They were willing to tolerate what they regarded as European nonsense because they expected to be rewarded with substantial aid to help the women in their countries: Halfway through the conference, however, it became clear that there would be no money for aid. The rich countries let it be known that they expected the poor ones to divert alreadyscarce resources from health and education to "mainstreaming the gender perspective." After this revelation, the mood turned extremely nasty. One of the African delegates complained, "If there is no money, why are we here?" The coalition used this quote as the headline for a flyer:
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"IF THERE IS NO MONEY, WHY ARE WE HERE?"
Developing nations had been led to believe that if they put up with all the nonsense coming from the EU, they would have money for development.
Now they are told there is no money.
And what is worse, the EU expects the developing countries to use their scarce resources to fund the promotion of its cultural agenda in their own countries.
It will be the same old story, the scarce funds will go to pay "experts" from developed countries, who will tell the people in developing countries how to live their lives.
Poor women can't feed their children the paper they are using for "gender disaggregated statistics."
Developing countries know the impact of illiteracy, polluted water, and poverty on women. They don't need to pay for "gender impact analysis" to tell them that women will benefit from increased spending on development, basic health care and education.
REJECT THE EU'S CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
DON'T SACRIFICE YOUR COUNTRY'S VALUES FOR NOTHING
Coalition for Women and the Family
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The representatives of the European Union blatantly demanded that the document be written their way, stating bluntly what they would accept and what they would not. In the contact groups the group leaders insisted that the participants "make progress," which always meant progress toward accepting the demands of the EU, and "compromise," which meant surrender to the EU.
While the EU claimed to be defenders of women, time and time again the interests of real women were surrendered to ideological considerations. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the debate over prostitution. The Third World countries wanted the platform to condemn "all forms of prostitution."
The EU insisted that the condemnation be limited to "forced" prostitution and child prostitution. And, the EU prevailed.
According to many sources this outcome was imposed by the Netherlands, with the backing of the Nordic nations. Feminists argue that legalized prostitution protects the "well-being" of prostitutes. While this wording was opposed by the majority of delegates, the chairman did not tell the Netherlands to make a reservation.
The ideological extremism was evident in the section on violence against girls, which condemned "paedophilia, forced prostitution and possibly the sale of their organs and tissues, violence and harmful practices such as female infanticide and prenatal sex selection, incest, female genital mutilation and early marriage, including child marriage" (paragraph 41).
It was difficult to understand why a distinction was made between "forced" and "voluntary" prostitution for girls, when there was none made between "forced" and "voluntary" pedophilia, child marriage, and genital mutilation.
The antiprostitution groups lobbied hard for a forthright condemnation of all prostitution, insisting that the sex trade, particularly in Asia, targets poor women and children and spreads AIDS to innocent wives and babies. They accused the EU of protecting the Asian "scum" that traffics in women. The African nations unanimously demanded that prostitution be condemned as a violation of human rights.
Wassyla Tamzali, of the Coalition against Traffic in Women, regarded the substitution of the words forced prostitution for all forms of prostitution as a catastrophe and a step backward from the 1949 U.N. Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. The convention condemned prostitution and traffic in persons because they are "incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community." According to Tamzali, "After Beijing, it is going to be necessary to begin again at zero" ["Retour a la case depart," Vivre, 13 September 1995, p. 2 (author's translation).
The lack of true concern for women was also evident in the discussion of paragraph 110(e), which had been proposed by an oncologist from Slovakia. She suggested the following wording: "Inform women about data which show that hormonal contraception, abortion and promiscuity increase risks of developing cancers and infections of the reproductive tract." When this section came up for discussion in the main committee, the Egyptian chairman refused to call on her, although she stood for thirty minutes waving her flag. After the section had been discussed and her wording deleted, she was recognized and complained bitterly, "There is no way you could not see me. I am tall, six months pregnant."
U.N. AGENCIES
Those concerned with the environment should be asking how many trees have to die to keep the U.N. in nonrecyclable paper. The conference area was literally strewn with booklets and printed matter of all kinds, much of it produced by U.N. agencies. If only the paper, money, and ink used for these materials could have solved the world's literacy problem. In the final days of the conference, I saw a large flatbed truck being loaded with stacks of U.N. materials which had not been distributed. If the U.N. has a financial crisis, cutting off its printing budget would probably go a long way to solving the problem.
The U.N. agencies producing this blizzard of paper had not waited for the Beijing conference to authorize the "mainstreaming of the gender perspective." They had already written it into everything. There were materials on "Gender Issues in Rural Fisheries," "Gender poverty and employment," "Toward a Gender-inclusive Culture through Education," and even "Gender Analysis and Forestry Training." A coalition member who reviewed numerous U.N. publications complained, "These people cannot promote simple projects like literacy or women's health without trying to push contraception and abortion."
In this regard the World Health Organization is the biggest offender, blatantly promoting the legalization of abortion in member nations where it is currently banned. A WHO pamphlet charged that antiabortion laws in the Philippines impinged upon women's "capacity to think and act as independent and rational human beings"; implied that legal abortion was more important to women than employment or education; dismissed postabortion syndrome as an attempt by "anti-abortion activists . . . to shift the debate from moral to scientific grounds"; and called on governments to waive parental permission for "family planning services, including abortion" ["Women's Experience of Abortion in the Western Pacific Region," Women's Health Series, vol. 4 (Manila: World Health Organization, Regional Office for the Western Pacific, 1995), pp. 4, 6, 25].
Another WHO publication aggressively promoted "appropriate information, skills and services" (read contraception and legal abortion) for "young people who are sexually active" in the same section as it admitted that girls are frequently pressured by "older people to have sex" [World Health: The Magazine of the World Health Organization: Executive Summary, 1995, p. 10]. And, one study "among girls aged eleven to fifteen years found that 40 percent reported the reasons for their first sexual intercourse as `forced"' [World Health, p. 14].
In another section, the publication insisted that earning an income was essential to women's good health. A misguided prescription, since overwork, particularly during pregnancy, is a major health problem for women, as other articles in the magazine clearly pointed out. Women whose husbands support them during pregnancy are at far less risk than women who have to work.
Still another WHO publication went so far as to blame "female malnutrition and anemia" on the "religious institution" that embodies "the concepts of exclusive roles for men and women and the conviction, for instance, that women are incapable of ordination because of their sex" (obviously referring to the Catholic church). According to the author, the church's teaching encourages parents to feed the boys rather than the girls [Rebecca Cook, "International Law and Women's Health," Gender, Women, and Health in the Americas (WHO & Pan American Health Organization, 1993), p. 250].
The use of the WHO to promote abortion, teen sex, and attacks on religion undermines respect for the agency. This could have tragic consequences in an age where plagues and diseases fly by jet plane.
U.S. DELEGATION
The U.S. delegation had opposed the inclusion of positive statements about motherhood, family, and spirituality during the PrepCom. In Beijing they had to face the new political realities back home. They had been warned by both Houses of Congress to support motherhood. Just to make sure they didn't forget, Republican Congressman Chris Smith came to Beijing and met with them.
His intervention had the desired effect. The U.S. delegation retreated to the sidelines while Canada and the European Union took the point position. A French delegate made it clear that the Europeans were eager to lead the charge: "In Cairo we took a back seat; now we advance with knives drawn."
The effect of Congressman Smith's visit could be observed during the negotiations. During one of the small group discussions on the risks of adolescent sexual activity, the question was, "Should the statement speak of the risks of all adolescent sexual activity or only `unprotected' and/or `premature' sexual activity?" The profamily nations objected to the word unprotected on the grounds that all adolescent sexual activity contains risks for young women. They wanted the word unprotected replaced with the word premature.
The discussion was so heated at one point, the delegates from the EU said that they would not accept any language which stigmatized teen-age sexual activity. When the Vatican delegate pointed out the physical and psychological risks of early sexual activity, the EU delegate retorted with a comment about married teen-agers. The Vatican delegate replied that they did not encourage teen marriage. The group leader began counting heads trying to force through the word unprotected. When the group leader ticked off the people on her side, she included the American delegate among those who supported "unprotected." The American delegate, who had been silent through the discussion, reminded the group leader that the U.S. hadn't stated its position. It was dear that the group who did not want to stigmatize adolescent sexual activity believed the U.S. delegate was on their side and that the U.S. delegate was being very careful about committing herself publicly.
The U.S. delegation also reversed the position it had taken at the PrepCom and supported the two positive paragraphs inserted by the Holy See-30 [29] and 31 [24]. While seen as a great breakthrough, the paragraphs gave only token recognition to motherhood and spirituality. Paragraph 30 does state, "The social significance of maternity, motherhood and the role of parents in the family and in the upbringing of children should be acknowledged."
In the context of the antimotherhood tone of the rest of the document, this was a significant admission, but it was not reflected in the rest of the document. When profamily delegates tried to introduce the phrase "portraying happy families, nurturing mothers with their children" into a section of the media, it was deleted.
The biggest tragedy in Beijing was that the real problems of women were neglected. Fatana Ishaq Pailani, a stunningly beautiful matron from Afghanistan, tried to draw the attention of the delegates to the plight of the women in her country, who suffer as the civil war continues, fueled by outside groups. All she wanted was food for the refugees, education, and medical care. "No one is fighting for peace," she complained. "The eyes of the world are no longer on Afghanistan, but women are widowed, children are fatherless, sons are dying."
NGOs
The U.N. bureaucracy has granted NGOs various forms of access to the process, including the right of selected NGOs to address the plenary session of the conference, but not all NGOs were equally welcome. Dr. Margaret Ogola, a pediatrician in charge of an AIDS hospice in Kenya, was among those waiting to make an application to address the plenary. When the U.N : person in charge saw Dr. Ogola's résumé, she sent everyone else away and then asked Dr. Ogola if she worked for IPPF.
Without waiting for an answer, she went on to say, "I don't want you to get the feeling that I'm interrogating you, but all these extremist pro-life groups who are unbalancing the proceedings, I'm trying to keep out." Dr. Ogola, who did not reveal her prolife connections, was immediately granted permission to speak.
As part of their lobbying effort, the Coalition for Women and the Family held an open meeting. The presentations were in four languages and included women from around the world. Dr. Ogola expressed the disappointment she said was shared by African women that feminists were indifferent to the problems of poor women: "In Africa, people are dying of malaria, pneumonia and other infection but the Beijing platform only mentions abortion, abortion, and yet again abortion. If they really wanted to help African women and if they took the trouble to speak to them, they would understand that abortion is just about the least thing which African women worry about."
Gwen Landolt, of Real Women of Canada, spoke against the inclusion of "sexual orientation" as a protected category and criticized the Canadian government for ignoring the will of the people by trying to force gay rights on the country. During the question and answer section, lesbians took issue with Mrs. Landolt's comments, and the meeting deteriorated into a shouting match.
SEEING CHINA
After a week of nonstop negotiations with little progress on the most controversial issues, the participants took Sunday off to see the sites. Beijing sits in the middle of a great plain. Straight roads lined with trees lead north to the Great Wall. Once outside the city, the single-story brick houses give way to rich fields of corn and orchards heavy with fruit. As one approaches the wall, the mountains rise sharp and angular, like a Chinese painting.
Tienamen Square lay across town from the conference center. On one side of a Communist monument a giant clock ticks off the seconds until Hong Kong becomes Chinese again--a reminder of China's imperial ambitions. Chinese propaganda newspapers prepared for the conference made it clear that China expects to get Taiwan back, and one senses that China's ambitions do not stop there. Those who expect prosperity to be the first step to freedom should study Chinese history and remember that the present rulers of China are first of all Chinese, walking in the tradition of the emperors, and are only tangentially Communist.
Across a wide boulevard from the square stands the rostrum from which the Chinese elite review the troops. In the center of the rostrum, a massive painting of Mao watches over everything. Beneath Mao the great doors are open to the onceforbidden city. The residence of Chinese emperors for five hundred years has opened its outer courts to Sunday strollers and shoppers, its inner sanctum to foreign tourists.
On the balmy Sunday afternoon, family groups out for a walk invariably consisted of a single pudgy child accompanied by four or five adults, reflecting the reality of two generations of China's one-child policy.
China is raising a generation of "little emperors and empresses," spoiled by two protective parents and four doting grandparents.
The scene reminded me of the only real encounter I had with the ordinary people of China. On the plane to Beijing I sat next to an elderly Chinese woman and her son. When I told her that I had three sons and one daughter, she looked at me as though I was the most favored of women.
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