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Special Session Offers Opportunity for Addressing Gender Inequality
The forthcoming special session of the United Nations General Assembly on women would offer an opportunity for encouraging more effective action and identifying further concrete means and actions of addressing gender inequalities and to implement the Beijing Platform for Action in the next five or ten years, a senior U.N. official said on Friday.
In an interview with the Xinhua News Agency, Angela E.V. King, U.N. Assistant secretary-general and Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, said since the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China, in 1995, globally women have made some remarkable gains: they live longer and healthier lives; are much better schooled; they are more economically active; and in most countries of the world they have the power to vote.
However, Angela King said, women worldwide continue to bear a disproportionate burden of poverty, illiteracy, dislocation, violence, poor nutrition, and ill health.
"They still lag behind in virtually all aspects of life," Angela King noted.
By illustrating this, Angela King took the following key critical areas: Women are the majority of the world's poor and hungry; Women's employment practically increased in all regions of the world, but their wages are 50 to 80 percent of men's; Two thirds of 875 million illiterates are women; Up to 80 percent of refugees fleeing from conflict are women and children; Domestic violence claims too many women's lives; Maternal mortality is still at unacceptable high levels.
As to the obstacles to achieving the goals of gender equality, Angela King said they include discriminatory stereotype, transitional social attitudes, policies, laws, institutional arrangements and lack of political will and resources.
"We know that the task of achieving gender equality is difficult but we also know that there are many opportunities for accelerated progress," she said.
"Gender is increasingly identified as a core concern with regard to every single issue, human rights, growth and development and peace-making," she noted.
"Nations have come to recognize that it is imperative to address the gender dimension in their quest for solutions to the whole range of global problems," she said.
Commenting on the efforts of the Chinese Government for implementing the Beijing Platform for Action, Angela King, who has been to China twice, said China has been embarking on a rather ambitious program for the advancement of women.
Compared with other countries, China has more women in senior positions and China has more women diplomats, she said.
The Chinese Government's plan for the advancement of women is quite comprehensive, and China is a country which not only commits to the commitment in Beijing Conference but also has followed through, Angela King added.
As a follow-up to the Fourth World Conference, the United Nations General Assembly will convene a special session for the five-year review of he Beijing Platform for Action.
The special session will take place in New York, from June 5-9, 2000, under the theme of "Women 2000:Gender Equality, Development and peace for the Twenty-first Century."
It will consider further actions and initiatives for achieving gender equality in the new millennium. At the end of the special session, Governments will issue a political declaration calling for recommitment to the Beijing Platform for Action.
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