“Reproductive rights involve more than the right to reproduce. They involve support for women in activities other than reproduction: in fact liberating women from a system of values which insists that reproduction is their only function.”
- Dr. Nafis Sadik (Former) Executive Director United Nations Population Fund -
The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing of September 1995, was a follow up of three prior conferences; Mexico City (International Women’s year, 1975), Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985).
The principal themes of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing were the advancement and empowerment of women in relation to women’s human rights, women and poverty, women and decision-making, the girl-child and violence against women. The resulting documents of the Conference are the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Both documents aimed at achieving greater equality and opportunities for women.
The Beijing Declaration
The Beijing Declaration romulgates the international community’s dedication to empowering women and furthering their advance. The conference’s literature gave a good deal of focus to the importance to the international community as a whole to merge the great gender gap. This must be done through promoting societal and cultural change so that women’s rights can be embraced and practices and attitudes detrimental to women can be released.
The Beijing Platform for Action
The Platform for Action is a guide of action for women's empowerment. It aims at accelerating the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women. It deals with removing the obstacles to women's public participation in all spheres of public and private lives through a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural and political decision-making. This means that the principle of shared power and responsibility should be established between women and men at home, in the workplace and in the wider national and international communities. Equality between women and men is a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice and is also a necessary and fundamental prerequisite for equality, development and peace.
The Platform for Action upholds the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
