In 1995, delegates from 189 countries gathered in Beijing at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women to discuss the status of women worldwide and adopt a program for action. At Beijing, governments reaffirmed their recognition of reproductive rights as human rights and made commitments to secure these essential guarantees for women all over the world. Ten years later, at the 49th Session of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women, governments met to review their successes and failures in achieving the goals of Beijing. The Beijing+10 review provided an opportunity for NGO representatives from around the world, who monitored and contributed to the governmental discussions, to share their experiences in pushing for implementation of Beijing at home. Below are some legal tools from the Center.
Legal tools for Beijing +10 Review:
Background papers:
From June 5 to 9, 2000, about 2,000 government delegates and 2,000 NGO representatives from more than 180 countries gathered in New York for a Special Session of the UN General Assembly to review implementation of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (also known as "Beijing+5"). The Special Session, entitled "Women 2000: Gender equality, development and peace for the 21st century," was the culmination of over five weeks of negotiations spread over several months. The negotiations related primarily to a document entitled, "Review and appraisal of progress made in the implementation of the 12 critical areas of concern in the Beijing Platform for Action" (the Review Document), a detailed analysis of what has occurred since 1995 and how to move implementation forward. The document constitutes a pledge by the world's governments to undertake the agreed measures to more rapidly implement the Beijing Platform's provisions.
As was the case at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, at the 1995 Beijing Conference, and at the 1999 five-year review of ICPD (IPCD+5), reproductive and sexual rights were the primary targets of right-wing opponents of women's full equality. A small number of right-wing governments and their NGO allies sought to undermine the negotiations, primarily by stalling and blocking consensus on issues such as unsafe abortion and discrimination based on sexual orientation so as to chip away at the Beijing Platform's principles.
Yet despite these tactics, there was clear evidence that progressive positions on women's human rights, including reproductive rights, have become more widely accepted. For example, delegations that had opposed the Beijing Platform's provisions on reproductive and sexual rights five years ago, notably from Latin America, supported more progressive measures to implement those very provisions. However, in cases where the language agreed to in these negotiations simply quoted the Beijing Platform, it did virtually nothing to provide guidance on Beijing's implementation. In addition, women's rights organizations had prioritized the need for more time-bound targets and concrete benchmarks to foster accountability and enhance political will. The negotiations added only a small handful of new time-bound targets to the Beijing Platform's anemic 12 paragraphs.
The Review Document focuses on a number of fundamental reproductive rights issues, in some cases echoing or building on agreements reached last year during ICPD+5. For example, the document stresses reducing maternal mortality and morbidity; addressing the gender aspects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic; developing female-controlled contraceptive methods; ensuring adolescent access to reproductive and sexual health services and information; and addressing unsafe abortion. The Review Document also covers sexual and gender-based violence, calling on governments to address so-called "honor crimes" and forced marriage for the first time in an international consensus document. It also affirms the importance of ratifying new international instruments addressing violations of women's human rights, such as the Rome Statute forming the International Criminal Court and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
UN Committee Calls on Russia to Improve Teen Access to Reproductive Health
