Beijing Declaration (1995): Annex I(1)-(3)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/22
- We, the Governments participating in the Fourth World Conference on Women,
- Gathered here in Beijing in September 1995, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations,
- Determined to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of all humanity,
Beijing Declaration(1995)
The Beijing Declaration Annex I, in statements 1 through 3, speaks to momentous occasion of September 1995. It was a time of increased equality – non-linear but dynamic and trending upwards – between the sexes and the time was ripe for an instantiation of further equality of women with men in the global system.
The Beijing Declaration amounts to one of these international statements devoted to the equality of the sexes in a short set of stipulations but marking an important time almost a quarter of a century ago. A time marking the reinvigoration by the United Nations to respect and further women’s rights or women’s human rights through the main international collection, the United Nations and its Member States.
In the first statement of Annex I, we see the governments participating in the Fourth World Conference on Women. Here, the Member States of the United Nations gathered to provide statements on the issues facing women around the world and then the orientation of the international community, of which it should pivot towards, in order to solve the issues or concerns of women on the globe.
The importance of a collective gathering for the rights of women in society cannot be understated, as these are the core issues of our time, where the battlegrounds for the implementation of reproductive health rights become attack by authoritarian atheistic nations bound in authoritarian capitalism such as China or the theonomic (particular brand of Christian theocracy promoted by Christian Dominionists and Christian Reconstructionists) leaning United States, oligarchic plutocracy seen in Russia, or the theocracies of Iran and Saudi Arabia, or the dictatorships bound by family lineage seen in North Korea; each provides an indication of a society’s leadership working hard, constantly, and with huge resources relative to the population of their respective countries to reduce and eliminate the rights of women to own their bodies in reproduction – or of men to own their own bodies in the cases of the military too. The leaders in these nations are, basically, living boffolas – breatharians who only consist of the hot form of sustenance. Women are not equals to them; women are accessories, akin to or equal to property and incubators for life and to be only used for sexual gratification.
In Beijing, China, in September 1995, this marked the 50th anniversary of the United Nations and became an important marker for women’s equality and human rights, where, especially at the founding, the concept of women as equals with the right to vote was an extraordinarily strange and bizarre idea to the peoples of the world because only men – often white, property-own men – were to be leaders in the societal decisions.
Anything else would be considered aberrant in some manner. With this marking of the anniversary, the third statement of Annex I speaks to the determination of the international community – who would presumably amount to the attendees of the Fourth World Conference on Women – to advance the “goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere.”
Now, the goal of equality becomes indisputable except to some modern movements looking to reinvigorate the hypermasculine, sometimes called toxic masculine, version of a male identity, of which the vast majority of men adhere to or strive towards but rarely achieve for any extended period of time, which can create a particular form of torture chamber as the gap widens between the ideal and what is truly achieved by them.
The final statement’s conclusion indicates the main message of import or salience with the entire species having an interest in this: “all humanity.” The means by which all members of the human community benefit from the inclusion of women and girls, and their collective empowerment without consideration for borders or other discriminatory aspects of their lives.
The provision of women’s rights appears to be greatly correlative with the health of the society and the less a society includes these as part of their national strategy and cultural zeitgeist then the more women and girls are marginalized and considered public utilities within the society – and the health of the society tends to decrease, even collapse in some regards as happened under Nicolae Ceaușescu with Decree 770 and too many babies by too few women with little in the way of governmental corresponding provisions for their, and their children’s, health and wellbeing.
It becomes not only a rights imperative but also a national and global health requirement to implement women’s rights and treat women and girls as equal with the men and boys of the world.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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