Beijing Meeting Affirms Sexual Rights of Women

Overcoming objections from the Vatican and several Islamic states, delegates to the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women formally adopted Friday a plan of action for the next decade that strongly affirms a woman’s sexual rights, including her right to defend herself against violence and sexually transmitted disease.

The Vatican, Iran, Sudan and more than 35 other countries registered reservations about several sections of the non-binding “Platform for Action.” The Vatican rejected the entire chapter related to women’s reproductive health.

Controversial sections of the platform sought by gay and lesbian activists opposing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation were dropped at the last minute from the final draft.

However, more than 180 countries and delegations, including the Vatican group, joined in the platform produced by the largest international women’s conference in history.

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“We found many things to affirm in the document,” said Mary Ann Glendon, the Harvard law professor who served as the Vatican’s chief delegate to the conference. “The Holy See is proud to associate itself with these parts of the document.”

Set in the restrictive environs of the Chinese capital--where delegates and journalists were often harassed and followed by state security agents--the conference nevertheless was hailed as an important step forward by leaders in the international women’s movement.

Closing-day speaker Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Norwegian prime minister, criticized the “zealous security” imposed by Chinese authorities. But Brundtland embodied the empowered, confident atmosphere of the conference when she described the political evolution in her own country.

“When I first became prime minister 15 years ago,” she recounted, “it was a cultural shock to many Norwegians. Today, 4-year-olds ask their mommies: ‘But can a man be prime minister?’ ”

American author and pioneer feminist Betty Friedan described the gathering, which began Aug. 30 with the meeting of 20,000 grass-roots activists in the Beijing suburb of Huairou and ended Friday, as “the coming to maturity of the women’s movement as a global force of great power--a counterforce to the politics of greed and hate. It cannot be stopped, obviously not by the government of China.”

While the “Platform for Action” is not a legally binding treaty, it stipulates that each government should meet with independent advocacy groups before the end of 1996 to outline implementation of a national plan of action.

“Like many U.N. documents, it is symbolic,” said Hasan Fadous, a U.N. spokesman. “But the symbolism runs deep and far. It creates a kind of social force.”

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The mass gathering of men and women in Beijing, negotiating in six languages ways to improve the standing of the world’s women, also created a kind of spiritual force.

Bella Abzug, the U.S. feminist leader, was a key organizer of the non-governmental organizations that flocked to Beijing.

“Nearly 30,000 women came here. That means we can influence millions,” she said Friday.

The Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration, its shorter preamble, struck a fine balance between often-conflicting cultures and religious traditions to break new ground.

For example, the platform affirms a woman’s right to choose the timing and spacing of her children, and--for the first time in a U.N. document--the right to refuse sexual relations to protect herself from abuse or disease, even within marriage. It recognizes children’s right to privacy when seeking sexual health information and services, but acknowledges parents’ rights and duties to provide moral guidance.

The action plan also made advances in economic areas, urging countries to recognize women’s unpaid labor--such as farm work or housework--and include it in calculations of the gross national product, or GNP, of each country. It asked each country to devote 0.7% of its GNP to a development fund.

The most strident debate centered on one paragraph of the document codifying women’s “right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination or violence.”

Vatican delegate Glendon criticized the health section of the platform as a “narrow, impoverished discourse on rights.”

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“Surely this international gathering could have done more for women and girls than to leave them alone with their rights,” Glendon said.

But the platform won full support from most predominantly Roman Catholic countries of Europe and Latin America.

In the other featured address concluding the conference, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori attacked the church for blocking family-planning programs in his country.

“The church is trying to prevent the Peruvian state from carrying out a modern and rational policy of family planning,” Fujimori said.

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Government Giving

Here are some of the commitments made by governments at the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women:

* United States: Establish a White House Council on Women to implement goals of the Beijing conference’s “Platform for Action”; launch a six-year, $1.6-billion campaign against domestic violence and other crimes against women.

* India: Increase investment in education to 6% of the gross domestic product, with major focus on women and girls.

* Germany: Convene a national follow-up conference; spend $40 million over four years on legal and social counseling in developing countries.

* Tanzania: Increase primary school enrollment from 18% to 100% by the year 2000.

* World Bank: Commit $4.5 billion over five years to girls’ education.