March 8, 2005
World Marks International Women's Day
Associated Press

Leaders of the fight for women's equality say there is no going back on the revolution that began 30 years ago, though the challenges ahead are immense.

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - Leaders of the fight for women's equality say there is no going back on the revolution that began 30 years ago, though the challenges ahead are immense.

The comments came at a U.N. meeting to evaluate the world's progress toward gender equality. Now in its second and final week, the gathering has drawn delegates from 130 countries and 6,000 representatives from women's and human rights organizations.

Commemorating Tuesday's International Women's Day, Rachel Mayanja, the secretary-general's top adviser on women, warned that "the task ahead is not going to be any less difficult than it has been during the past decades."

She stressed that world leaders cannot view poverty, armed conflict and violence in isolation.

"The eradication of poverty and disease is as important as dealing with the criminal networks that traffic in women and children," she said.

Nafis Sadik, a special adviser on AIDS (news - web sites) to Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) and former head of the U.N. Population Fund, said governments spend more than $900 billion on the military while the world's richest countries spend less than $70 billion on development assistance — and only about $3 billion of that amount goes to gender equality programs.

"What contributes more to security, $3 billion invested in women or the $900 billion squandered on weapons?" Sadik said to loud applause. "It is time for political leaders to stop talking about peace and really start investing in it."

At a commemoration held Friday before most of the ministers and VIPs left, two Nobel Peace Prize winners and the heads of the four U.N. conferences on women since 1975 spoke of progress and challenges ahead. The four conferences built the global women's movement.

Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, last year's Nobel laureate, said women must celebrate their achievements, including her prize, but must fight poverty by championing debt relief and open markets, and tackle climate change and deforestation.

"It is us who will eventually have to convince our governments that women need to be given equal space, to be given an opportunity to exploit their potential, and that it is not a gift for women to participate in decision-making — it is a right," Maathai said.

Rigoberta Menchu, the Indian rights activist from Guatemala who won the peace prize in 1992, said women should be "a beacon of hope" to change systems promoting racism, discrimination, exclusion and the lack of economic opportunity.

"We women have to give the example of being inclusive, of fighting exclusion, of fighting racism," she said. "That is why I'm here."

Helvi Sipila, secretary-general of the first U.N. women's conference in Mexico City in 1975, said in a video message from her home in Finland that women have made "considerable strides toward gender equality" but not enough has been done to advance peace.

"Today ... we must ask ourselves more seriously and with greater determination than ever what we can do in order to end violence, to enhance national and international understanding, and to secure world peace," said Sipila, 89.

Gertrude Mongella, secretary-general of the 1995 Beijing conference and now president of the Pan-African Parliament, recalled that in her final speech in Beijing she said: "A revolution has begun and there's no going back."

Ten years later, she said, women are more visible, gender equality "has become a working concept worldwide," and "women and men are now mobilized to see women's issues as societal issues, whether they like it or not."

"We are here to set a new speed," Mongella said. "We are here to remove the remaining obstacles. ... We are on the right track of our revolution. There is no going back."

Former U.N. assistant secretary-general Angela King, who was Annan's top adviser on women and organized the 2000 U.N. conference that reviewed Beijing, said the challenges of five years ago are the challenges of today.

She said an increasing number of women live in poverty, lag behind in economic advancement, are hurt by globalization, are contracting HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS in greater numbers and are increasingly subject to violence in armed conflicts and through trafficking, she said.

King noted there are only four women prime ministers of independent countries and few women are at peace tables, citing them as the difficulty in changing stereotypes of women's limited roles.

"In 1975, the Mexico conference ignited a spark of awareness among women of their shared hopes and common problems," King said. "With each successive conference, the spark grew.

"Let us pledge today as the United Nations (news - web sites) community, as governments, regions and individuals, that the flame for women's freedom and equality become a shining beacon for action to fully realize gender equality, development and peace."

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