What you think about the Beijing Platform for Action and your experience here at the Commission on the Status of Women?

LaToya Cadogan-Williams

What the Beijing Platform for Action Means to me?

I’ve never known my world without opportunities. As a young youth activist, my possibilities have never seemed limited in Barbados, or even the Caribbean.

A more critical analysis undermines this superficial belief.

The Beijing Platform for Action shows all the flaws and superficial fixes that many governments have hidden behind. The BfPA is like a highlighter across the face of gender programs that are inadequate and antique, it proves that there is still much work to be done in women’s issues.

Dabniela

La plataforma de  acción Beijing  para mí es:  la única forma de eliminar los obstáculos que la cultura patriarcal nos pone a las mujeres y que  el compromiso de implementar la plataforma es un medio esencial para resignificar y garantizar nuestra participación activa en las sociedades,  en sociedades  inclusivas que busquen la igualdad de géneros; pero una igualdad real y no una que sólo se quede en el papel; por eso es importante que desde los  gobiernos hayan compromisos reales que trasciendan y que no se queden en un informe que hay que leer cada año en la ONU; ahora con ésto, también puedo decir que es nuestro compromiso como sociedad civil el estar dando veeduría a estos procesos, que existen y podemos utilizar para presionar, pero que lamentablemente muchos no conocemos…

Silvia Ernhagen (RFSU)

The Beijing Platform for Action is a lot. But it is a good tool when advocating women´s rights. It is just a matter of finding the good SRHR writings. The platform shows that there is a global support for women´s rights even though there are some problems implementing it. There is a lot of talk and I have heard so many speakers just during the first two days of CSW saying that governments need to walk the talk, and yes that would be good!

Romeo (ESEAOR)

For me, Beijing means that the women of my generation, which includes my wife, nieces and my sisters, will have better opportunities in life than my own mother and grandmother who both had ten children each and by force of circumstance remained as housewives for much of their lives. With Beijing, I think that the women of today can aspire to greater things and be the persons they want to be. That will make this world a better place for both women and men, including myself.

Arushi Singh (SARO)

I think the fact that 15 years down the line, the Beijing Platform for Action is still as relevant and important to women's lives today is telling about the kind of commitment nation states actually have towards gender equality, women's empowerment and women's human rights. It seems to me as though the rhetoric remains just that and without women's rights movements, we wouldn't even have made the little progress we have. If, when I was a 15-year-old, we could put down in black and white the importance of women having control over their sexuality, it strikes me as incomprehensible why we are not able to action this even by 2010.

Meghan

I was 16 years old when women from around the world gathered in Beijing to demand progress on gender equality.  15 years later, I am conscious of how I have benefited from their commitment to the full realisation of women's rights.  Because of their efforts and tenacity, I am able to be a part of a new generation of women who are determined to have our voices heard at the highest level.

Carlos Macazana Quispe Peru (INPARES)

Beijing  15, constituye una oportunidad para que los Estados miembros rindan cuentas ante la ONU y el mundo sobre su compromiso y deber de garantizar los derechos económicos, sociales, culturales y políticos de las mujeres. Transcurridos 15 años de esta Declaración, los Estados tienen que concretar acciones que permitan construir y garantizar condiciones políticas y sociales que aseguren derechos tan esenciales e importantes para la vida de las mujeres como el del acceso a la salud sexual y reproductiva y la educación sexual integral; especialmente para las mujeres jóvenes de tal forma que puedan decidir de manera informada y autónoma sobre su sexualidad y un mejor futuro para cada una de ellas.

From the Clare Women’s Network

1

Enough is enough
Equality for women now
Change is the way
Women need fair play

2

Violence against women globally is a violation of women’s human rights: it could be your sister, your daughter, your mother, you: can you close your eyes?

The Clare WN is a network of grassroots women in community development in Co.Clare Ireland

From the Limerick Women’s Network (LINK)

Why are women still fighting for human rights in 2010?

Open the box: grassroots women’s organisation and participation is critical globally

More women in positions of power

Equality now—no more broken promises

No stopping women! 

LINK is a network of community based grassroots women’s organisations in Limerick City Ireland

From the St Michael’s Estate FRC Women’s Leadership Course, Inchicore, Dublin

For women in the South from women in the North: we empathise with your struggle, your fight and hope for change and equality symbolises your strength and courage. In solidarity we stand with hope for change for women all over the world. 

St Michael’s Estate FRC  is an urban grassroots community organisation working for the rights of working class women in Dublin

Cesaire Pooda (ARO)
 
CSW: one of hundreds of international agreements. This year, 8000 peoples from various bacgrounds and profiles are once again gathered within the specific framework of Beijing +15 over the implementation of the Beijing declaration. The global goal of this declaration is very appealing and makes a lot of sense. Having observed the way this gathering is being conducted, it seems that each delegate came here with his own agenda, trying to push it. This leads to a key question each of us should answer: are the addition of agendas contributing to the Global Beijing Agenda?

Yvette Kathurima

The CSW to me involves being prepared to forge alliances on among others, choices regarding our sexuality/ies and reproductive health so as to ensure that women’s rights are given due attention as indivisible human rights applicable to all women regardless of age, race, sexual orientation and religious belief.

What (Beijing Platform for Action) and (CSW) means to me in summary.

Being
Prepared to
Forge
Alliances
on
Choices regarding our
Sexuality/ies and Reproductive health to ensure that
Women’s rights are given due attention.

Humberto Yllescas Quiroz
INPPARES

Beijing es un hito en la historia de los Derechos Humanos, en la lucha hacia la igualdad de entre hombres y mujeres, tanto en las Legislaciones como en las oportunidades. Nos recuerda que mas allá que en documentos o en el pensamiento colectivo se crea como algo fundamental, si es que no se traduce al día a día de las mujeres, termina siendo simplemente declarativo.
CSW, nos ha brindado la oportunidad de escuchar los avances en los gobiernos, donde destacan sobre todo los europeos, lo que es una lección para nuestros países donde el trabajo que desempeñan las mujeres no es valorado en su real dimensión y por el contrario, muchas veces, es menospreciado y relevado a segundo nivel.
Es por ello, debemos exigir a los gobiernos de nuestros países implementen programas y proyectos, con presupuesto suficiente, que contribuyan a mejorar la calidad de vida de las mujeres en educación, salud, derechos humanos, desarrollo social, empleo, condición social y jurídica, participación política, que incluyan mecanismos de transparencia y rendición de cuentas para la vigilancia ciudadana.