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In September 1995, China hosted the United Nations (UN) Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China’s capital. Due to numerous restrictions placed on the conference participants by the Chinese government, nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were forced to convene as a separate forum in Hairou, a suburb of Beijing. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton of the United States gave a speech at the official proceedings on September 5, in which she described the ongoing challenges that women face and subtly chastised the Chinese officials who had made a divided conference necessary. Excerpts from her speech appeared in the 1996 Collier’s Year Book.
This is truly a celebration—a celebration of the contributions women make in every aspect of life—in the home, on the job, in the community, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens, and leaders.…
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However different we may appear, 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.…
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 and nurses, the teachers and lawyers, the policy makers and women who run their own businesses.…
… 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 do as well. That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on this planet does have a stake in the discussion that takes place here.…
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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, 70 percent of the world's poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write. We 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 bank lending offices, and banned from the ballot box. Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.…
The international community has long acknowledged, and recently reaffirmed at Vienna, that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of 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 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 nongovernmental 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.…
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 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 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.…
Source: Collier’s Year Book, 1996.
Appears in
United Nations; Clinton, Hillary Rodham
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