International: Roundtable on "Beijing+10 - review, appraisal, implementation"

Speakers: Ms. Rachel Mayanja, Assistant Secretary General and Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Gender Issues Beatrice Maille, Vice-Chair, Commission on the Status of Women Ngo Regional Focal Point Representativas: Gladys Mutukwa (Africa), Alejandra Sardá (Latin America), Zeina Noujaim (Western Asia), Pam Rajput (Asia and the Pacific), Sylvie Peret (Europe and North America) and Mubarak Sharipova (Eastern Europe).

Intervention on Latin America, written by Maria Teresa Blandón and Alejandra Sardá (IGLHRC)

In terms of implementation of the BPA in the Latin American region, women and organizations that have participated in this process consider that:

• Latin American governments have often resorted to a rethoric that affirms the Platform and its value in terms of women´s human rights, but they have also been very reluctant to take concrete actions to overcome the obstacles to its full implementation.
• There have been some achievements in implementing the Platform but in most cases those achievements lack in depth and sustainability. They are to be found mostly in laws that have yet failed to bring significant changes to the lives of most women.

The main obstacles to a full implementation of the Platform in the region are the following:

• In the years since Beijing and B5, the power of religious fundamentalist movements (Catholic and Evangelical) has increased. Many governments have entered into alliances with these groups that advocate for a return to the roles of wives and mothers for women and against all forms of human diversity, particularly in the areas of sexuality and family life. In many countries,the idea and practice of the secular state is being abandoned and as a result of that governments are failing to fulfil their obligations as stated in the BPA, particularly in the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights. And this costs women's lives.
• But the biggest obstacle to the implementation of the BPA in the region is the role that international financial institutions are playing, particularly the IMF, the WB and the OMC. While Latin American governments are always willing to reaffirm how key the BPA is to development and peace, they are even more willing to fulfil the obligations imposed on them by the international financial institutions. Such obligations, and the structural adjustment plans included in them, make it impossible for governments to fulfil their obligations to the poor and to women in particular. But we want to emphatize that our governments are not merely victims of the IMF and the OMC: they lack the political will to put people's human rights and people lives first. When they tell us that there is no money to implement what the BPA says, that is not true. The money is there, but their political decision is to allocate it to foreign debt payments, or to security issues or to corruption.
• The BPA came out of a UN Conference in which civil society had a very high level of participation. It reflects many of the ideas and values for which the women´s movement have fought for decades. We are extremely concerned when we hear that even at this upcoming CSW session, that was supposed to be devoted to reviewing its implementation, the issue that most concerns our government is the Millenium Declaration, the Millenium Summit and the Millenium Goals. Because civil society was, and still is and will be excluded from the Millenium discussions. The Platform stands as one example of a more inclusive and democratic UN. For us, the Millenium process reflects the closing down on civil society space inside the UN, a very dangerous process of isolation on the part of States. As a region that has known for centuries the horrors of dictatorship and has only recently started to try. however imperfectly, to build democratic societies, we urge our governments and all those that make up the Un today, to stop this trend. We want to work together with governments and other social actors ­ including non-fundamentalist communities of faith- to build a democratic and accountable UN, a forum where governments and civil society can stand together for peace, justice and equality, against war, authoritarianism and all forms of fundamentalism.