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UN: 25 Years After Landmark Women's Rights Conference, Pushback Threat
Present

Margaret Besheer

   NEW YORK - Leaders and activists warned Thursday of a global pushback
   against women's rights, 25 years after a landmark conference in Beijing
   that set out an ambitious agenda for women's equality.

   "We need to start now, with your excellencies' commitments at this
   commemoration, to recapture and 'fast forward' from the modest gains
   made since 1995 that are now under threat," Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka,
   executive director of U.N. Women, told leaders joining the virtual
   conference. "We need big bold steps, not incremental ones."

   She said that while the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action had
   led to major advances -- including 274 legal and regulatory reforms in
   131 countries -- significant gaps remained, including in achieving
   gender parity in representation from the boardroom to the peace table,
   as well as in wages.

   "It's time to bring an end to discriminatory laws, norms and
   homophobia, to end men's violence against women and girls, and make a
   concerted effort to put women at the heart of climate justice," she
   added.

   Twenty-five years after the Beijing conference, advocates noted that no
   country has achieved full gender equality.

   In 1995, when the declaration was signed in Beijing, there were 12
   female heads of state of government. Today, there are only 22 among 193
   countries.

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