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 4, 1995 - Elizabeth Spahn
Pakistani Prime Minister Asks Muslim Women to Fight Propaganda of Mullahs Beijing, China, Sept. 4 - The official United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women opened today with the usual tight security and logistical confusion. Pakistan's Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto delivered a strong and inspiring speech, challenging fundamentalist restrictions on the roles of women as outmoded social prejudice, which has no basis in the Islamic religion. Referring repeatedly to her own life and experiences, she electrified the audience with her passionate defense of modern women.
"I speak as a woman, and as a mother. I speak also as the first woman ever elected to head an Islamic nation. I speak to destroy the myth that the woman's place is in the house, and that it is socially incorrect for a woman to work and also be a mother. The Holy Prophet himself married a working woman."
"We must distinguish between Islamic teaching and social taboos. Islam forbids injustice to people, to nations and to women. Women are human beings in our own right and not chattel."
"The cries of the girl child call out to us. This Conference needs to chart a course to ensure that the girl child is as welcome as the boy child." Bhutto said referring to practices of female infanticide and prenatal sex selection.
"We must campaign against domestic violence. In Pakistan, we have developed a mass media campaign to inform women that domestic violence is a crime."
"Women are also too often tortured by their in-laws, including the mothers in law. The dowry system is a social ill and we must raise our voices to object."
"More women than men live in poverty, and 70% of all the children denied primary school education are female."
"A woman cannot ultimately control her life and her future without financial independence, without work. Without education and without employment, women cannot be equal."
"If my father had not educated me, and left me without independent financial means, then I could not stand here before you today."
"We have established a Women's Bank in Pakistan to fund women's enterprises."
"It gladdens my heart to see women working in rural areas.
"The twin realities for the improvement of women's lives are population control and economic empowerment."
"Each decade brings its own small improvement. In my youth women stayed at home, veiled from head to toe, and were only allowed to see each other at weddings. Today, women travel freely outside the home, and even abroad, wearing only a head scarf."
"I have seen many changes in my life and hope to live to see even more."
"Many of these changes flow from CEDAW, which Pakistan signed last month." As Dante said: "The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral during a time of moral crisis." No neutrality is possible now.
"The end of the Cold War should have been a time of peace, instead we have regional conflicts. It is women who are most directly affected, particularly the use of rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing."
"The importance of the traditional family should not be underestimated or disregarded in the platform."
"But repressive forces always stand ready to exploit the moment, we are here to reclaim the past and to creat our future."
Schedule of Plenaries
Statistics on the Status of Women
Copyright 1995, The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing Inc.
