Religious allies block agreement

UN WOMEN'S CONFERENCE

TERESA POOLE

Peking

Global agreement on women's sexual and reproductive rights proved impossible yesterday in Peking, when a much-vaunted Platform for Action on women's rights was adopted at the close of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women.

More than 40 countries, mostly Catholic and Islamic, lodged "reservations" against parts of the text, attacking sections on a woman's right to control her sexuality and reproductive health, as well as a reference to the "family" taking different forms.

The divisions over sexual and family matters could not be papered over, even as delegates heralded the "consensus" Platform and the summary Peking Declaration on women's development. The number of reservations was similar to that at the Cairo conference last year on population and development, where similar battlelines were drawn. But the wide remit of the Peking conference meant it was possible to achieve broad agreement on poverty, education, discrimination against girl children and the need for the economic and political empowerment of women.

The Platform, which is not binding, is a blueprint for the advancement of women over the next 10 years. It deals with subjects including violence against women, women and the media, land-mines, the value of unremunerated work, environmental hazards and the use of rape as a weapon of war. The Declaration affirms that women's rights are "an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of all human rights".

Final negotiations took until 5am yesterday morning. Last-minute gains by conservative states removed any mention of "sexual orientation" as a cause of discrimination from the Platform. They also blocked an attempt by the European Union to restate in the Declaration adefinition of women's sexual rights. As a concession to Western liberal states, a paragraph on the role of cultural and religious factors in defining human rights was made more equivocal, saying that it is "the duty of states, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms."

This message was delivered by Norway's Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, in an hard-hitting address to the conference. Abuses like genital mutilation "do not become sacrosanct or elevated beyond the realm of politics, just because that practice can be said to be part of a 'cultural pattern'," she said. Ms Brundtland did not fear to offend her Chinese hosts. "We are familiar with the terrible discrimination against girls, even before birth. What has obscurely been described as 'pre-natal sex selection' and the fatal neglect of infant girls are tragic testimonies," she said.

Ms Brundtland dismissed complaints from the Vatican that the gathering had an anti-family bias. "The allegation that this conference is against motherhood and family is plainly absurd," she said. In another assault on the Vatican, the President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, told the conference: "The Church is trying to prevent the Peruvian state from carrying out a modern and rational policy of family planning."

The Vatican lodged one of the strongest reservations against the conference documents, saying: "The Holy See's participation in the consensus can be only a partial one." It disassociated itself from the entire section on health, stating it represented "a totally unbalanced attention to sexual and reproductive health in comparison to women's other health needs". It also "expressed concern" about the entire section on human rights, which it said demonstrated "excessive individualism".

Argentina, Malta, Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador supported the Vatican's position on sexual and reproductive rights. Islamic countries which voiced similar reservations included Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen, Sudan and Oman.

Money was the only issue to create as much friction as sex. The European Union and the United States resisted attempts by the Third World to underwrite commitments in the Platform. No firm promises of new funds were made. Indeed, the new president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, warned that existing aid programmes were threatened by budget cuts in the West. Referring to promises to fund $6bn (pounds 4bn) in World Bank loans to the world's poorest countries, he said: "If that is cut, as it may well be, by a third or a half, we will have $2bn or $3bn less to spend worldwide on issues that directly affect the subject of this conference."

How the most contentious issues were settled

SEXUAL RIGHTS

The ground-breaking paragraph 97 in the Platform for Action reads: ''The human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. Equal relationships between women and men in matters of sexual relations and reproduction including full respect for the integrity of the person, require mutual respect, consent and shared responsibility for sexual behaviour and its consequences.''

A statement on the right to control sexual and reproductive health was removed from the Peking Declaration after objections from Catholic and Islamic countries.

ABORTION

In another forward move, the Platform agrees that states will ''consider reviewing laws containing punitive measures against women who have undergone illegal abortions''. Otherwise, the Platform does not go further than the Cairo population conferenceon abortion and contraception. It recognises the right of women and men to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning as well as new and additional resources to the developing countries from all available funding mechanisms, including multilateral, bilateral and private sources''. It admits ''additional resources from within the UN regular budget ... will also be necessary''.

Aid agencies lobbied strongly for acknowledgement that macro-economic policies imposed by the North had sometimes exacerbated women's poverty. The Platform recognises that ''there are some structural adjustment programmes that have been poorly designed and implemented, with resulting detrimental effects on social development''.

RELIGION

Secular and religious states hotly debated the role of fundamentalism in women's inequality. The Platform reads: ''Religion, thought, conscience and belief may, and can, contribute to fulfilling women's and men's moral, ethical and spiritual needs ... However, it is acknowledged that any form of extremism may have a negative impact on women and can lead to violence and discrimination.''

INHERITANCE

Muslim countries objected to an assault on the traditional practice of favouring sons over daughters. The Platform states that governments should eliminate ''the injustice and obstacles in relation to inheritance faced by the girl child so that all children may enjoy their rights without discrimination, by, among others, enacting, as appropriate, and enforcing legislation that guarantees equal right to succession and ensuring equal right to inherit, regardless of the sex of the child''. It does not include the right to equal proportions.

UNPAID WORK

There was much debate on whether to quantify women's unpaid work. Governments agreed to develop methods ''for assessing the value, in quantitative terms, of unremunerated work that is outside national accounts ... with a view to recognising the economic contribution of women and making visible the unequal distribution of remunerated and unremunerated work between women and men''.