On
26 October, Soroptimist International UN Representative Bette Levy moderated a
panel entitled ‘UN Women and Beijing+20’. 20 years after the Beijing Platform
for Action, and many women are still campaigning for the principles and commitments
it outlined to become a reality. Unfortunately, many more women do not even know
the Beijing Platform for Action exists!

At
this interactive panel event, Bette played her part in an important opportunity
to educate women and girls about the importance of Beijing+20 and what it means
to them.

 

Photo: Panellists (left to right) Houry Geudelekian, Bette Levy, Judith Lorber, Lopa Banerjee and Susan O’Malley stand with 1995 UN Conference on Women’s and NGO Forum memorabilia. Photo by Dan Schlesinger.

“UN
Women is trying very hard to spearhead a re-awakening of the women’s movement”,
explains Bette, we need “to become strong and powerful feminists and to be
proud of it. 2015 is a key year because we see the convergence of Beijing+20, the
10 year anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and the creation of
the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. We as women must stay together and
stay strong about not letting Beijing+20 be overshadowed or let this be an
opportunity to roll back the progress made in Beijing Platform for Action.”

The
Beijing Platform for Action remains the most progressive internationally agreed
document on equality and the rights of women. There is a real and significant
risk that more conservative countries will try to push back some of the
developments they agreed to and ratified at the Women’s conference in 1995.

 

Photo: SI UN Representative Bette Levy (centre) poses for a UN Women campaign ‘Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture It!’

Women
and girls still face the difficulty that whilst states may agree to something to
achieve equality in principal it is often left up that country to fit it into
their laws. Often, this results in nothing being done.

Even
traditional ‘friendly’ governments are known to trade off women’s rights for
other political actions. the Chief of Civil Society Section for
UN Women and panellist Lopa Banerjee, shared with the audience that
countries who have signed documents like CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) do not implement them. The USA still has not signed CEDAW!

"The
most interesting and frank part of the discussion was about the reality of how
deeply political the rights of women and girls are”, explains Bette, “women’s
rights are easily traded off by even friendly governments for other political
actions. The push on climate change shows how this can happen. Instead of
embracing the rights of women and girls, they have become a bargaining chip.”

 

Photo: (left to right) Bette Levy, SI UN Representative and NGO
CSW/NY Executive Committee Member; Houry Gendelekian, NGO CSW/NY and
Armenian Releif Society; Lopa Benerjee, Chief of Civil Society Section,
UN Women; Susan O’Malley, NGO CSW/NY and International Federation of
Business and Professional Women; and Judith Lorber, President of the
East End Temple Sisterhood. Photo by Dan Schlesinger.

This
means that the same issues and problems are still being discussed at the UN
now. Panellist, Judith Lorber (President of the East End Temple Sisterhood)
reflected upon what it was like being at the largest Women’s Conference. She
reminded the audience that governments did not want civil society to be there,
but that it is important that women and girls at the grassroots are heard.

“We
had some great questions from an audience totally naive about the UN”, reports
Bette, “it is important for people to get active and to make their friends and
family aware of what is at stake in the world and right here in their backyard”.

Photo: Beijing+20 Celebration at CSW in New York.