"The challenges which women face in the 21st century are the challenges we face now because the changing of a calendar date doesn't change the lives of women in this world." (Linda Burney keynote speaker )
The Asia Pacific Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century symposium opened at the Kasetsart University today (Tuesday 31 August) with nearly 500 women attending from different countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
The women, most of whom are representing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will spend the next four days presenting their assessment of how their respective governments have implemented or not implemented the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), the major output document that 189 governments signed during the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China in 1995.
The keynote speaker at the symposium was Australian Aboriginal activist Linda Burney who told the gathering that the biggest challenge women face in the immediate future is adequate political representation not just in the community sector but more importantly in the government sector. She said that in order for women's issues to taken seriously, women have to increase their numbers in parliament.
Ms Burney also told the gathering about the plight of the country's indigenous population. She outlined alarming statistics which tell a story of high rates of imprisonment and infant mortality in Australia's indigenous communities, as well as life expectancy which is 20 years less than the rest of Australia's population. Ms Birney said that while non-indigenous Australians are beginning to face the truth about the country's history the Prime Minister John Howard has refused to officially give an apology to indigenous people on behalf of the nation. Instead a carefully worded "statement of regret" was accepted by the Australian Government last week.
Her call was repeated by Fijian delegate Amelia Rokotuivuna who said that in our region there is no country which is not having to contend with the rights of indigenous people. She said we have to remind ourselves that women's movement is not only about our rights as women. "It's about justice." she said. "If any other group's equality and justice is stolen, our rights and equality as women are also stolen."
After the opening ceremony, representatives from five subregions, namely, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia and the Pacific presented the subregional reports on the implementation of the BPFA. In these reports, emerging issues such as the regional financial crisis, globalisation, women with disabilities, the elderly, and new threats to peace were identified.
On the financial crisis and globalisation, the South Asian representative raised concern about the role of international finance and trade organisations. She stressed that the crisis has led the women's movement to search for alternative socio-economic paradigms. However, governments cannot cite the financial crisis as the only and most critical factor as to why governments were not able to implement the BPFA. Adequate legal guarantees and institutional processes must be put in place in order for governments to honour the commitments they made in Beijing.
In the Pacific, it was noted that some progress have been made in terms of putting more emphasis to gender equity, more coherent women's development programmes, recognition of women's rights and the value of their economic and political participation. The Pacific represntative also stressed that women's NGOs have been the driving force in achieving this progress. Still, however, governments in this subregion are more inclined to support general women's programmes than to put into effect equal employment legislation or constitutional guarantees against sexual discrimination. Meanwhile, the representative from Australia who made her presentation as part of the Pacific subregional report expressed solidarity with the women of the region who continue to suffer rape and torture, particularly the women of Bougainville, East Timor, Burma, Sri Lanka and minority groups in Indonesia. She called on the Untied Nations to take actions to stop these atrocities and provide redress to these women for this abuse of their human rights. The representative from New Zealand who also presented as part of the Pacific subregion noted that there have been gains since the Beijing conference. The most significant of which is the 25% increase in funding by the New Zealand government for institutional mechanisms for women's advancement. Some of these funds have been used to conduct a time-use survey to determine the amount of work and economic contribution that women in New Zealand are making which are often undervalued or not accounted for at all.
In East Asia, increasing militarism has been identified as one of the emerging issues since after the Beijing Conference. The report from this subregion noted in particular the changes in the laws governing Japan's Self Defense Forces, the amendments to the Japan-United States Security Guidelines, the holding of Republic of Korea-Japan military exercise for the first time and the decision of the United States and Japanese governments to invest in research in the "Theater Missile Defense."
At the end of the subregional presentations, flags of the participating countries were identified and acknowledged. At this point a member of the Japanese delegation came up to say that many women's groups in Japan refuse to acknowledge their flag because it is a symbol of aggression against other Asian countries. This came in the light of a new bill In Japan that was introduced to recognise the present flag as Japan's national flag. There have been reports that Japanese school teachers are forced to put up this flag and if they refuse, they are reprimanded. Also at this point, a representative from Tibet stood up and asked the audience to applaud those women from the region whose flags were not presented because they have been occupied by other countries as in the case of East Timor. This issue on the flags could be an indication of other issues that might emerge in the coming days of the Symposium.
