Two thousand women from “non-government” organizations were at the World Conference on Human Rights and its unofficial Forum, both held in Vienna in June.
Now we are taking part in the women’s caucus, from which a thoroughly international lobby group was formed. Identifying themselves with a short strip of purple ribbon, they met early in the morning as the government delegations did and then often late into the night. Some were drafting the wording for clauses which were up for negotiation; others distributed it to official delegates who were anxious for the most part, to avoid any commitment.
At any such UN conference the Forum or “People’s bit” is quite separate from the official business. Although in Vienna both were in the pyramid-shaped conference centre. The contrast was immense. The low-ceilinged basement used by the Forum was given over to hundreds of workshops, argumentative planarians stalls, posters, photos of massacres and a pile of shoes from people killed in Bosnia. Above this, in lofty halls, grey-suited diplomats many of them representing governments which remained in power by abusing their own people decided what was acceptable.
The routine procedure for any World Conference is the preparatory phase of two years or so when a drafting committee discusses a draft Declaration and programmed of Action, Women had taken part in this process, delivering a whole new section which included the UN Human Rights Centre making itself “generation sensitive” and eh Commission on Human Rights appointing a special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.
So as the conference drew to a close, the dwindling numbers of women hanging around the doors of the Drafting Committee were there partly to make sure that nothing bad happened to this section. It was also to follow the progress of discussion through the document so that, if necessary, they could suggest rephrasing sentences in order to strengthen them. Their informants were mainly the NGO people who had been made official delegates by some of the governments; the best alliances were with Mali and Canada. At one point the women heard that Iran and Ireland had joined forces to opposed wording on discrimination by religion.
The lobbying was worth it, with women’s rights now entrenched into the international work on human rights until recently considered mainly a man’s affair. Even more time and effort will be needed to put them into practice. |
