Beijing Plus Ten

The Beijing Plus Ten Conference starts today in New York which is the ten year review of the Beijing Conference in 1995. The Beijing Conference raised awareness of the international status of women’s rights and attempted to bring about legislative change by way of a document called the Beijing Platform for Action, that were a set of principles and strategies of action to help enforce change around women’s issues.
After ten years, there is a lot to discuss. According to one article on Voice of America several of the sponsers of the conference (including the World Bank) believe that we have made progress in the area of women’s issues. On the contrary, groups such as Amnesty International believe that issues such as violence against women have continued uninterrupted since the last conference. Furthermore, Kyung-wha Kang, the chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women (the folks facilitating the review), said the issue remains the biggest obstacle to the advancement of the world’s women.
Kang also discusses that the goal of the conference it to create a strong document to reinforce the standards set in 1995. But that goal is already stirring some controversy with reports that the United States is pushing for the inclusion of an anti-abortion plank.
Shocker. We will keep you posted about the happenings of the Conference.