By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 2 (IPS) - As the George W. Bush administration tries to influence other nations to endorse its antagonistic views on abortion, feminist scholars and activists from the Arab and Muslim world warn that the U.S. move could cause irreparable damage to their years-long struggle for equality.
”The U.S. delegation is trying to undermine our efforts for equal rights,” said Maha Abu Dayyeh-Shamas, a Palestinian activist from Jerusalem, who is attending a two-week international meeting here to assess governments' actions to protect women's rights in the past 10 years.
”We are extremely concerned about the U.S. position,” she told IPS. ”They are trying to divide our societies.”
The U.S. delegation is currently circulating an amendment to the proposed declaration of the review meeting, which insists that while reaffirming the Beijing Platform for Action agreed at a 1995 conference in China, the delegates ”do not create any new international human rights, and that they do not include the right to abortion.”
Reading the proposed text as undue interference in their agenda for global equality, women's groups argue that since the Beijing document does not include the specific right to an abortion, there is no need to make changes in it. The document leaves it to governments to take legal steps in support or against adoption.
”It's a very carefully worded document,” says Jessica Neuwirth, president of Equality Now, an international umbrella organisation representing hundreds of women's groups in over 160 countries. ”The U.S. government is taking this opportunity to impose its own agenda, but no, we don't need any changes.”
Explaining her country's position, Ellen Sauerbrey, a U.S. diplomat, said Monday that Washington wanted the declaration to state that the Beijing commitment to ”reproductive health services is not a guarantee to the right to abortion.”
The Beijing document, which covers a wide range of economic, social, political, cultural and reproductive rights of women, was adopted in 1995 by 180 governments, including the United States. Regarding reproductive rights, it leaves the question of legalising abortion up to national governments.
Activists charge that the U.S. is putting excessive pressure on delegates from the Muslim and Arab countries to endorse its proposal. But so far it has been able to secure backing from only two Muslim nations, Egypt and Qatar, which are close U.S. allies in the Middle East.
”Every day, there are ups and downs,” says Karin Ronge, a German activist from the Women for Women's Human Rights, a Turkey-based rights group, about the ongoing negotiations. ”But right now, there are only few countries behind the U.S. We hope the (Beijing Platform) document is not changed.”
While keenly watching the outcome of the closed-door negotiations, other civil society leaders share Ronge's observation.
”So far, most of the Muslim delegates are not supporting the U.S.,” said Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the U.S.-based Centre for Women's Global Leadership.
However, she fears that the U.S. move could encourage male-dominated governments not only in Muslim world, but also in predominantly Christian countries, to reverse the gains women have made in recent years.
That's exactly what Shamas also anticipates, albeit from a different perspective.
”It's pushing us backwards,” she said. ”We will be afraid to speak out again, because we will be accused by the conservative elements in our societies of being westernised.”
Since the conference in Beijing in 1995, growing pressure from women's movements forced a number of governments in the Muslim countries to repeal discriminatory laws, although various forms of violence, including rape and genital mutilation, and discrimination continue to exist
While some activists do not openly advocate abortion rights, others vigorously argue that giving birth or not giving birth is a fundamental human right that all women must be able to exercise.
”We are not addressing the primary issue here,” said Vickie Michael Dick, who helps women victims of trafficking in Britain. ”We have millions of women in Africa and elsewhere living with HIV. Do you want us to give birth to children with HIV?”
And what about women who are raped?
”Why should they give birth to an illegal child?” asks Arifa Mazhar, executive director of Pakistan-based Potohar Organisation for Development Assistance, a group helping rural women. ”If she's going to die or live, it must be her decision to choose.”
The proposed U.S. amendment has also disappointed the 45-member U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which organised the two-week meeting being attended by more than 100 government delegations, including 80 ministers and 6,000 activists.
”Beijing platform is a policy document,” Kyung-wha Kang, chairperson of the Commission, told reporters early this week. ”I do not think it should be seen as creating any new human rights.”
Activists fear that if the U.S. does not adopt flexibility in its approach, the situation might force a vote on the language of the draft declaration -- a move that the U.S. could portray as victory because it would be the first time that the international community lacked consensus on the Beijing Platform for Action.
Aware that a divided opinion could weaken women's efforts for equality in many Muslim and non-Muslim societies, Karin suggests ”stronger alliances” between the NGOs in Muslim world with women's groups in the West.
”It also important to back the progressive Muslim governments, which refused to make changes in the draft declaration” she said.
To Bunch, women's efforts for equal rights will go on regardless of the outcome of the review meeting. ”We have to continue the struggle until our rights are realised,” she said.
-->>See more IPS information: Women: leading de way
