Among the 35,000 plus women gathered in Beijing and Huairou in September 1995, ten were from The Feminist Majority. Here are on-site accounts that Feminist Majority Delegation members posted on The Feminist Majority Foundation Online throughout the conference. |
September 2, 1995 - Elizabeth Spahn
Tribunal on Violations Against Women's Human Rights This tribunal included over five hours of 22 separate testimonies presenting evidence by women from around the world about violations of women's human rights. Four topic areas were covered: violence against women in situations of armed conflict and in the family; economic discrimination and exploitation; violations of health and bodily integrity; and political persecution were addressed. Today's session built on the work begun in 1993 at the World Conference on Human Rights, and continued at the Cairo and Copenhagen World Conferences.
"In this Women's Conference, the United Nations is on trial. Will the U.N. rise to the occasion to protect the human rights of oppressed people, or must we go elsewhere?" asked Charlotte Bomch, Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership.
The U.N. Special Rappotteur on Violence Against Women declared that a grievance becomes a right, and a right leads to a remedy when we break down the wall of privacy that enforces the silence of women.
A blind woman in Pakistan was raped by her employer and his son. Because she could not make a visual identification of them, but could only identify them by voice, her testimony was not admissable under Pakistan law. She herself was then jailed for the "crime of seduction" according to Noeleen Heyzei, Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
One of the most moving of the 22 testimonies came from Algeria, where religious terrorists abducted a 17 yr. old music student as she walked home from school. Held as a domestic and sexual slave for over two months, she was repeatedly raped by the guards. She commented, "The pretty girls were raped by the [leader]. I was not so pretty, so I was given to the guards." About twelve other young girls, two as young as ten years old, were similarly tortured in the same house. "We had no clothes and only one litre of water every two days," the music student continued, "I am free today because of the bravery of the village people." Her testimony was delivered by Z. Zadou of Algeria, who called on the United Nations and the civilized nations of the world to resist these "barbarians."
"If you are quiet, you die. If you say something, you die. Thanks to you and our solidarity, we will live," Zadou said.
Schedule of Plenaries
Statistics on the Status of Women
Copyright 1995, The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing Inc.
