Remarks for the United Nations
Fourth World Conference on Women
Beijing, China
September 5, 1995
Mrs. Mongella, distinguished delegates and guests:
I would like to thank the Secretary General of the United Nations for
inviting me to be part of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on
Women. This is truly a celebration -- a celebration of the contributions
women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in their
communities, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers,
citizens and leaders.
It is also a coming together, much the way women come together every day
in every country.
We come together in fields and in factories. In village markets and
supermarkets. In living rooms and board rooms.
Whether it is while playing with our children in the par, or washing
clothes in a river, or taking a break at the office water cooler, we come
together and talk about our aspirations and concerns. And time and
again, our talk turns to our children and our families.
However different we may be, there is far more that unites us than
divides us. We share a common future. And we are here to find common
ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and
girls all over the world -- and in so doing, bring new strength and
stability to families as well.
By gathering in Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues that
matter most in the lives of women and their families: access to
education, health care, jobs, and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal
and human rights and participate fully in the political life of their
countries.
There are some who question the reason for this conference. Let them
listen to the voices of women in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to
economic and political progress around the globe. ...Let them look at the
women gathered here and at Hairou...the homemakers, nurses, teachers,
lawyers, policymakers, and women who run their own businesses.
It is conferences like this that compel governments and peoples
everywhere to listen, look and face the world's most pressing problems.
Wasn't it after the women's conference in Nairobi ten years ago that the
world focused for the first time on the crisis of domestic violence?
Earlier today, I participated in a World Health Organization forum, where
government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working on ways
to address the health problems of women and girls.
Tomorrow, I will attend a gathering of the United Nations Development
Fund for Women. There, the discussion will focus on local -- and highly
successful -- programs that give hard-working women access to credit so
they can improve their own lives and the lives of their families.
What we are learning around the world is that, if women are healthy and
educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence,
their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as
full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish.
And when families flourish, communities and nations will flourish.
That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every
nation on our planet has a stake in the discussion that takes place here.
Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to
women, children and families. Over the past two-and-a-half years, I have
had the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing women in my
own country and around the world.
I have met new mothers in Jojakarta, Indonesia, who come together
regularly in their village to discuss nutrition, family planning, and
baby care.
I have met working parents in Denmark who talk about the comfort they
feel in knowing that their children can be cared for in creative, safe,
and nurturing after-school centers.
I have met women in South Africa who helped lead the struggle to end
apartheid and are now helping build a new democracy.
I have met with the leading women of the Western Hemisphere who are
working every day to promote literacy and better health care for the
children of their countries.
I have met women in India and Bangladesh who are taking out small loans
to buy milk cows, rickshaws, thread and other materials to create a
livelihood for themselves and their families.
I have met doctors and nurses in Belarus and Ukraine who are trying to
keep children alive in the aftermath of Chernobyl.
The great challenge of this conference is to give voice to women
everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard.
Women comprise more than half the world's population. Women are 70
percent of the world's poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught
to read and write.
Women are the primary caretakers for most of the world's children and
elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued -- not by economists,
not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.
At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving
birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses,
planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running
countries.
Women also are dying from diseases that should have been prevented or
treated; they are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused
by poverty and economic deprivation; they are being denied the right to
go to school by their own fathers and brothers; they are being forced
into prostitution; and they are being barred from the ballot box and the
bank lending office.
Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility
to speak for those who could not.
As an American, I want to speak up for women in my own country -- women
who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can't afford
health care or child care, women whose lives are threatened by violence,
including violence in their own homes.
I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe
neighborhoods, clean air and clean airwaves... for older women, some of
them widows, who have raised their families and now find that their
skills and life experiences are not valued in the workplace... for women
who are working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, and fast food chefs so
that they can be at home during the day with their kids... and for women
everywhere who simply don't have time to do everything they are called
upon to do each day.
Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for
women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see
a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their
lives, simply because they are women.
The truth is that most women around the world work both inside and
outside the home, usually by necessity.
We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead
their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman
makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to
realize her God-given potential.
We also must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until
their human rights are respected and protected.
Our goals for this conference, to strengthen families and societies by
empowering women to take greater control over their own destinies, cannot
be fully achieved unless all governments -- here and around the world --
accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally
recognized human rights.
The international community has long acknowledged -- and recently
affirmed at Vienna -- that both women and men are entitled to a range of
protections and personal freedoms, from the right to personal security to
the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they
bear.
No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or
political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.
Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are
violated. Even in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to
be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a
large majority of the world's refugees. And when women are excluded from
the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.
I believe that, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our
silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to
hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as
separate from human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women
has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are
trying to silence our words.
The voices of this conference and of the women at Hairou must be heard
loud and clear.
It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or
drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are
born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold
into the slavery of prostitution.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with
gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries
are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped
in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to
rape as a tactic or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death
worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to
in their own homes.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized
by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right
to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have
abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is
that human rights are women's rights... And women's rights are human rights.
Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely.
And the right to be heard.
Women must enjoy the right to participate fully in the social and
political lives of their countries if we want freedom and democracy to
thrive and endure.
It is indefensible that many women in non-governmental organizations who
wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend --
or have been prohibited from fully taking part.
Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of people to assemble,
organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who
may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking
citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them,
or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful
expression of their ideas and opinions.
In my country, we recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of women's
suffrage. It took 150 years after the signing of our Declaration of
Independence for women to win the right to vote. It took 72 years of
organized struggle on the part of many courageous women and men.
It was one of America's most divisive philosophical wars. But it was
also a bloodless war. Suffrage was achieved without a shot fired.
We have also been reminded, in V-J Day observances last weekend, of the
good that comes when men and women join together to combat the forces of
tyranny and build a better world.
We have seen peace prevail in most places for a half century. We have
avoided another world war.
But we have not solved older, deeply-rooted problems that continue to
diminish the potential of half the world's population.
Now it is time to act on behalf of women everywhere.
If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we will be taking
bold steps to better the lives of children and families too. Families
rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care; families rely
on women for labor in the home; and increasingly, families rely on women
for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives.
As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace around the
world -- as long as girls and women are valued less, fed last,
overworked, underpaid, not schooled and subjected to violence in and out
of their homes -- the potential of the human family to create a
peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.
Let this conference be our -- and the world's -- call to action.
And let us heed the call so that we can create a world in which every
woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved
and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and
stable future.
Thank you very much.
God's blessings on you, your work and all who will benefit from it.
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