One year has passed since the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held last September in Beijing, China. At the conference, governments from 189 countries agreed to implement programs to improve women’s lives, health, safety, employment, and education. While some governments have set up new programs or expanded existing programs to help women, apparently very little new funding has yet gone into women’s programs.

The United States has for the first time set up a President’s Interagency Council on Women to implement programs based on the Women’s Conference Platform for Action. The Feminist Majority Foundation submitted recommendations to the Interagency Council’s National Action Agenda, a blueprint for moving the U.S. towards the goals of the Women’s Conference by the year 2000.

The National Action Agenda was launched on September 28 at a national teleconference, hosted by newscaster Judy Woodruff and featuring Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, former vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, and others. The teleconference was broadcast to 450 local sites around the United States. At each site, local women held workshops on issues affecting them, then joined with other women around the country to watch the teleconference.

The Feminist Majority Foundation’s recommendations included:

reducing U.S. foreign aid to countries that violate women’s human rights;

prohibiting U.S. armed forces from soliciting prostitutes abroad and prohibiting U.S. citizens from organizing overseas sex tours and pornography rings;

scheduling a Senate vote on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a United Nations ‘equal rights’ treaty;

pursuing ratification of a federal Equal Rights Amendment in every session of Congress;

passing civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination against sexual minorities;

setting a goal of gender balance in police agencies;

researching whether women are harder hit by downsizing and layoffs;

including data on women’s unpaid work in economic analyses;

passing the Fair Pay Act and utilizing gender-neutral job evaluation systems to achieve pay equity;

analyzing the impact of the federal budget on women; reducing poverty by job creation and funding for child care and health care;

and expanding reproductive health care services.

One positive action the United States has taken is that for the first time, the US Defense Department is taking a stand against child prostitution. The Defense Department will educate service members, officers, and military chaplains about the ‘health, legal, diplomatic, and moral dangers’ of child prostitution. In addition, for the first time a 1994 law that imposes a fine and/or imprisonment on U.S. citizens who travel to foreign countries to engage in sexual acts with children, would apply to military personnel. This action falls close to the anniversary of the raping a Japanese schoolgirl in Okinawa, Japan last year by three marines.

In addition, the United States may for the first time begin counting women’s unpaid work, such as housework, child care, and agricultural work. The Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor are consulting about the best way to estimate the economic value of unpaid work. Measuring unpaid work will give a more accurate idea of women’s contribution to the economy, and help women win fair pay in waged jobs.

The Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) conducted a survey of countries to find out what had been accomplished in the past year. The WEDO report stated that very little money was being spent around the world on new women’s programs. However, Bella Abzug, President of WEDO, noted that "in the 20 years I’ve been working with women’s groups, I have never seen this kind of outburst of passion and mobilization from women, as well as from the governments who feel they have to respond."

The ruling party in South Africa, the African National Congress, overcame opposition and approved a bill legalizing abortion for the first time. Colombia and Malaysia enacted laws to eradicate domestic violence. Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand have started asking census questions to count unpaid work. The Egyptian government banned female genital mutilation in government health facilities and by all government health workers. The Indian parliament has drafted a bill to give women 1/3 of the seats in Parliament.

In other countries, women’s groups used the energy of the Women’s Conference to propel change. A ‘Mothers for Mayor’ campaign in Cameroon has doubled the number of women mayors Ñ from 400 to 800. Women around the world continue to work for banning land mines, increasing ‘micro-lending’ to poor women, and for labor rights of women who work at home.

For more information about the Feminist Majority Foundation’s recommendations to the National Action Agenda, see our Web site: .