It was a week of heated debate and late night negotiations, and tempers flared on many fronts. But, in the end, the conference produced some gains for women's rights. Human trafficking, which mainly affects women and girls, was seriously addressed for the first time. The practice of "honor" killings - where men murder women they believe have "shamed" the family in various ways (including being a victim of rape) - was almost universally condemned, and language in the document urges governments to prosecute such crimes. (Sadly, many still don't.) Specific goals for ending the "gender gap" in primary and secondary education by the year 2015 were set.

In other issues, however, time stood still. Although conservative states did not succeed in rolling back gains made at the Beijing Conference in 1995, neither was any progress made on a number of contentious issues - including access to safe abortion, sex education for teenagers, and equal rights of inheritance for women. Conservative countries also resisted attempts to define sexual rights for women and end discrimination against homosexuals.

On the issue of economic discrimination, it was the U.S. and other Western governments' turn to block advances. The U.S. blocked an attempt by Cuba and Iraq to condemn sanctions against those countries as harmful to women, finally agreeing on compromise language that "in some countries, advancement of women is adversely affected by unilateral measures not in accordance with international law." The U.S., along with other developed nations, disagreed with many of the paragraphs regarding economic development, particularly the language dealing with the marginalization of women under globalization, or any concrete targets for foreign aid.

In the end, I think we can put this conference in the "plus" column for women - but only barely. When we have to spend more time defending past gains than we do achieving new ones, it's clear that the fight for global women's human rights is far from won. And, given the tenacity of the opposition to even basic human rights for women in some countries, the outcome of the struggle is far from certain. We must continue to press for reforms and progress, and to fight any attempt to reverse the hard-won gains of the Beijing Platform for Action, and the conference document of Beijing+5.

Convincing the Congress to ratify the U.N. Convention Against All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), as called for in the Beijing Platform, would be a good place to start. The fact that the U.S. is one of the few U.N. members that have not done so is not only an embarassment, it is an insult to the women of this country.

Karen

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