Statement by Ms. Louise Arbour UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Beijing 2005: Tenth Anniversary Commemoration of the Fourth World Conference on Women

Plenary Session
”Towards Gender Equality and Common Development”
(Beijing, 29 August 2005)


Thank you [Ms. Chairperson],

Distinguished colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour and a pleasure to be here in Beijing today to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the largest conference the United Nations has ever held.

Last March, I participated in the forty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York to review the synergies between national level implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). As the Secretary-General said in his statement, which I had the honour to read earlier today, the Commission concluded that while much progress has been made at the national level on the implementation of the Declaration and Platform for Action, much, - too much – remains to be done.

Women continue to suffer pervasive human rights violations. While advances have been made in the adoption of standards and the recognition of rights, the reality of the lives of so many women shows that implementation of standards and commitments at the national level is very weak.

The success of Beijing ten years ago was that it elevated discussion of gender equality to such a position that no-one in authority could claim ignorance as to the importance of the issue or the very real nature of their legal commitments to enforce the rights of women everywhere in the world. The challenge now is to move more decisively from an era of rhetorical engagement to one of implementation and enforcement. Only by doing so will we do justice to those whose remarkable work we are here today to celebrate.

At the World Summit, which will take place in New York in a few weeks, we expect world leaders to renew and strengthen their commitment to the achievement of the goals they set at the Millennium Summit, and to do so while placing even greater emphasis on the intrinsic connection between peace, development and full respect for human rights.

As the Secretary-General said in his report In Larger Freedom, “[w]e will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights”.

In other words, the Millennium Developments Goals cannot be achieved without adopting a human rights approach to development efforts. A human rights approach means that it is made clear that human rights are respected because they are exactly that: rights, legally binding and enforceable.

One of these goals, namely promoting gender equality and empowering women, means improved respect for their human rights. It is thus surely no coincidence that the Millennium Declaration singled out CEDAW among all human rights treaties. I note with pleasure, in this context, the particular contribution that experts from our host country today have made to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

But the achievement of the other goals set by world leaders five years ago will also require greatly improved respect for the human rights of women. The underlying issues they tackle must also be addressed as human rights violations:
· Maternal mortality seen through the lens of human rights becomes not only an unaddressed health problem, but a serious violation of the right to life. Maternal mortality, or child mortality, can only be improved by putting the human rights of women at the heart of all programmes and policies addressing sexual and reproductive health issues;
· HIV can only be stopped by addressing the discrimination that renders women vulnerable and their right to be protected against violence;
· Poverty can only be reduced by ensuring that women are not denied their equal right to own or inherit property, or to get access to productive resources;
· Remaining disparities in access to education can only be eliminated with specific action to tackle the social and cultural traditions and prejudices that discriminate against girls. Girls’ education has to be seen for what it is: it is not an option, nor a privilege. For every girl, everywhere, it is a right.

Sustainable development can only be achieved with real progress in eliminating discrimination against women. That requires the effective implementation of the provisions not just of CEDAW but of all core human rights treaties. It also requires renewed and relentless efforts to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Women need, and are entitled to, legislation that is free of, and protects them effectively against, all forms of discrimination. Women need, and are entitled to, specific action to turn into reality their right to participate equally in decision-making in all spheres of free societies. This requires women to be among the leaders of business as well as public administration and elected legislatures.

Women, in short, need, and are entitled to, the full enjoyment of all their economic, civil, social, political and cultural rights. And they need, as we all do, an effective judicial system capable of providing protection and redress against violations of their rights – including the right to be safe from violence.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As with much of the United Nations system, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is currently on the midst of an ambitious, but long overdue, reform initiative. To this end, we have laid out a Plan of Action, one that sets out far-reaching objectives to increase our ability to support all genuine efforts to implement human rights at the national level. This Plan of Action articulates how we may best strengthen the United Nations human rights office to make it more dynamic and field-oriented, with greater, more effective, more solution-oriented, engagement with countries and closer partnership with the rest of the United Nations system. We want to be able to assess our overall success in terms of the tangible results we achieve in people’s lives. Keeping women’s human rights at the centre of this evolving human rights agenda will be crucial to its success, and I am committed both to increasing the efforts and attention of my Office to women’s rights, as well as to securing from Member States the crucial resources necessary to permit us to put these commitments into action. We want to be able to contribute to ensuring that the legally-binding obligations set out in CEDAW, together with the promise of equality for women contained in the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, become a reality for all women, everywhere.

It is in that spirit that I urge you all of you to continue ensuring that human rights remain at the centre of the women’s agenda, as women must remain at the centre of the human rights agenda.

Thank you.