PRESS BRIEFING BY DIRECTOR OF DIVISION FOR ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY DIRECTOR OF DIVISION FOR ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN

Despite the lateness of the hour, negotiations were ongoing as delegations attempted to reach consensus on an outcome document for the General Assembly special session on women, the Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women told correspondents in a question-and-answer session following today's noon briefing at Headquarters.

At the moment, the participants were dealing with global and political divisions, Yakin Erturk said. "So we're holding our breath…we were here until 4:30 this morning and it may be that we are here to greet the morning again tomorrow."

[The General Assembly special session, "Women 2000: Gender, Equality and Peace for the Twenty-first Century”, began Monday at United Nations Headquarters. The session was envisioned as a review of the positive actions, lessons learned and the key challenges remaining in the full implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action adopted in 1995 at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. The proposed outcome document would be the session’s final declaration on worldwide efforts to achieve gender equality.]

While there was a concern that the proposed outcome document would be considered "Beijing minus 5", or a retreat from the strong declaration of earlier women's summits, Ms. Erturk said that all Member States were committed to not losing the ground that had been previously gained. There were, in fact, several areas in which the proposed outcome document showed real strengths in going beyond the language of Beijing in an attempt to address more effectively the objectives of the Platform for Action.

She said that there were other more difficult and "political" areas where Beijing language had been retained. Some areas that had been agreed upon which embraced the language of Beijing included reproductive rights, marital rape and inheritance rights. Paragraphs that dealt with the role of religious organizations in the implementation process had also been successfully negotiated.

It was important to note that the objective of the special session was not to replace the Platform for Action, Ms. Erturk said. "Our basic document and guideline in the efforts to achieve gender equality is still the Platform for Action." The new proposed outcome document merely tried to identify strategies and means through which implementation could be enhanced.

It would also look at specific thematic areas where new challenges had emerged during the last five years, she continued. While implementation had solved some problems, time had exposed some contradictions as well. For example, while the global agenda for women's rights had increased the number of women attaining a high level of education, on the other hand, the job market had not matched that growth. "So the new document would be a sort of road map to guide governments, non-governmental organizations and civil society in their attempts to accelerate implementation", she said.

Several correspondents wondered where the document would be available once negotiations had concluded.

Women’s Division Briefing - 2 - 9 June 2000

Once it was finalized, the document would be available on the Web site for the Division of Advancement of Women, Ms. Erturk said. It was important to note, however, that because of the initial end-of-day deadline, the work on some of the paragraphs would not be complete and any changes made to the document after 6 p.m. yesterday would be issued separately. Translation into the official languages would also occur at that time.

What would happen if the participants did not meet tonight's deadline? a correspondent asked.

"I don’t have an answer for you there", Ms. Erturk said, "because we refuse to address that". At the moment, Member States had three options for dealing with impasses in their negotiations: to reach a consensus; revert to Beijing language if no consensus could be reached; or delete the most difficult paragraphs altogether. It was important to note that a deletion was not a step backward, it merely meant that no action would be taken in a particular area. It could also mean that the language being considered would reach far beyond Beijing and required further negotiations. She hoped that those three options would provide guidelines sufficient for the participants to complete the entire document.

There were numerous areas that remained to be addressed, she said. Generally, the "action" paragraphs still being negotiated dealt with issues related to sanctions, sovereignty and unilateral measures. "These are some of the difficult areas where Member States need to work further to come up with agreed language." In other parts of the document, there were difficulties in the area of women's diversity or sexual orientation.

North-South relations, sanctions and globalization issues were just a few of the divisions the participants faced. "I am happy to say that many of these issues have been resolved", she said, "but now we're dealing with the really difficult areas".

Turning to paragraphs concerning the important areas of reproductive and sexual rights, Ms. Erturk said that there was already agreed language from Beijing as well as “Cairo +5”, the follow-up conference on social development. As long as those rights were characterized as health related, those paragraphs had been successfully negotiated. Paragraphs that went beyond such agreed language posed difficulty, however.

A correspondent asked about the status of paragraphs concerning genital mutilation and honour murders. Would the participants consider language that went beyond Beijing, or would a consensus of those issues remain pending?

The area of violence had received greater attention since Beijing, Ms. Erturk said, whether in terms of rape, or the traditional practices of genital mutilation or what she preferred to call "dishonorable killings". The outcome document would give greater weight to the ability to deal with those "very strong" and universal forms of violence against women.

Another area that had received more attention during the special session and the negotiations on the outcome document had been the issue of time-bound targets, Ms. Erturk continued. One of the obstacles that many Member States reported as having faced in their implementation of the Beijing objectives had been the lack of time-bound targets as well as the lack of monitoring mechanisms.

Women’s Division Briefing - 3 - 9 June 2000

Now was the time to develop very specific and concrete measures, specifically in areas such as illiteracy, violence and maternal mortality, to better gauge what percentages of the targeted goals had been met. That would be a "strong emphasis" of the outcome document. She also felt that there would be greater emphasis placed on the need to ensure gender mainstreaming in all budgetary processes.

On the issue of human rights, Ms. Erturk believed that when the entire document was completed, there would be "sufficient reference" to ensuring human rights for women. The document would also most likely urge Member States to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Optional Protocol. "So human rights has become one of the all- encompassing approaches to women's issues and gender equality since Beijing", she continued. Those rights now included a consideration of education, health and development as they related to gender equality and the overall rights of women.

Ms. Erturk also felt that the outcome document would strongly reflect the positive effects of broad participation by non-governmental organizations. Governments had repeatedly emphasized that government-non-governmental organizations partnerships had enabled implementation efforts to move forward. The outcome document would also define non-governmental organizations in the context of new partnerships that would continue to enhance the implementation process.

Turning to women and the economy, Ms. Erturk said that women were now far more integrated into the formal and informal economy than they had been five years ago.

How did this integration affect the Beijing review process and how would it be reflected in the outcome document? a correspondent asked. "We can look at this in the framework of globalization, which has been a major theme addressed by the outcome document", Ms. Erturk said. Globalization, which was a controversial issue in itself, had been a major sticking point for many of the participants during the current negotiation process. But it was definitely one of the most important perspectives, which had guided the deliberations.

A correspondent wondered what the next step was -- after the document had been completed and the special session closed, would there be any sort of follow- up summit? "While it may not be reflected in the outcome document", Ms. Erturk said, "there will definitely be some follow-up component". The process would be ongoing. Also, the Commission on the Status of Women, the organization that had been tasked with follow-up, would consider the outcome document when it took up its work next year.

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