Women’s Groups Say US Delegation “Playing Politics with Women’s Lives”

Organizations Representing Millions of Women Worldwide Urge U.S. to Stop Blocking Consensus on Women's Human Rights

CLICK HERE to read the NGO Statement Urging the US to Withdraw its Proposed Amendment

NEW YORK, March 3, 2005 – Scores of women’s organizations today accused the United States of “playing politics with women’s lives” for continuing to press for changes in a UN conference document and distracting delegates from working to advance women’s rights.

RELATED RESOURCES

NGO Contact Names & Info Media Calendar of Events 3/3/05 NGO Statement Urging the US to Withdraw its Amendment 3/1/05 NGO Statement Opposing the US-Offered Amendment

In a joint statement, the groups reacted to an equivocal U.S. statement of position on Wednesday that they had hoped would end a controversy over language that has dogged the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) since it began a two-week review of women’s progress in the past decade.

“The continued U.S. refusal to join the global consensus affirming the Platform for Action is a betrayal of women worldwide,” the statement said, referring to the outcome document of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. “We are outraged that the united voices of women from every corner of the planet are not enough to persuade the U.S. delegation to abandon its isolationist stance.”

The U.S. delegation has proposed an amendment to a draft CSW Declaration of Policy specifying that Beijing documents “do not create any new international human rights, and that they do not include the right to abortion.” On Wednesday, Ellen Sauerbrey, U.S. Ambassador to the CSW, said it was now clear that no Beijing participants had intended to create new rights, and other U.S. officials indicated privately that the amendment would be withdrawn. But on Thursday U.S. delegation members continued to seek support for it.

“The United States tried with its amendment to inject a domestic anti-woman agenda into an international agreement – playing politics with women’s lives,” the groups said in their statement. “It distracted government and world attention from the urgent need to reinvigorate the implementation of the Beijing consensus that is lagging in too many countries.” The groups said they would continue to push governments to reaffirm the Beijing Platform for Action without conditions and “to fulfill the promises they made” in Beijing.