Member States of the Caribbean Community have expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Special Session on Women 2000, Gender development, development and Peace for the 21st century. The Special Session is also known as Beijing +5 as it comes five years after the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China in 1995.
The Region is satisfied with the document from the New York Meeting, the “Outcomes Document” as it maintains all the commitments of the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA). The Beijing PFA outlines 12 areas in which world governments undertook to take the necessary action at the national level to secure gender equality.
The 12 areas are women and poverty; education and training of women; women and health; violence against women; women and armed conflict; women and the economy; women in power and decision- making; institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women; human rights of women; women and the media; women and the environment and the girl child.
The “Outcomes Document” also safeguards the five priority areas for the Caribbean. These priority areas were drawn from the Beijing PFA and are regarded as those of greatest concern to the Caribbean with regards to the advancement of gender equality. These areas are the persistent and increasing burden of poverty on women, inequality in women’s access and participation in the definition of economic structure and the production process itself; inequality in health and related services, all forms of violence against women; inequality between men and women in the sharing of power and decision- making and the Girl Child.
Minister of Social Services in Guyana, including Womens Affairs and Gender and Development Ms Indra Chanderpaul, says her government will be guided by the Beijing PFA
“Guyana is committed to the Platform and we will continue to build programmes based on those commitments contained therein and from which the Caribbean has identified its priority areas,” she said stressing that the “Outcomes Document” is intended to reaffirm those commitments.
The Director of the Women’s Bureau in Guyana, Ms Hazel Hally Burnett informed that there were attempts in some quarters to open the Beijing PFA to renegotiations but the Caribbean was firm in its position that this would not be done.
“The Region was in New York to report on what we have done since Beijing and also to reaffirm the gains made in Beijing. We have done what we came to do,” she added.
In reinforcing the satisfaction of the Caribbean with regards to the New York Meeting, the Coordinator of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), and also a member of the Trinidad and Tobago official delegation, Ms Nelcia Robinson, said the Region had to drawn upon the necessary expertise for guidance.
“With the help of the CARICOM Secretariat,we were able to secure the assistance of experts and this was good for the Region. In addition, CARICOM helped to coordinate the Caribbean effort and was instrumental in getting the Region to speak with one voice,” said Ms Robinson.
Among the experts whose services the Secretariat drew upon were Dr. Barbara Bailey, of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies and Joycelyn Dow of Women Environmental Development Organisation (WEDO)
The Caribbean, while articulating a liberal agenda, was called upon to play peace makers between fundamentalists and some liberals as was the case at the Fourth World Conference on Women
“We have been in this process for a long time and the peace-making role is something to which we have become accustomed.. Furthermore, it augurs well for us in terms of our standing in international fora,” Ms Hally Burnett added.
For the purpose of negotiating specific aspects of the “Outcomes Document” the Caribbean, as a part of the UN’s sub region of Latin American and the Caribbean, formed an alliance with some Latin American countries, particularly Venezuela, Chile and Colombia. The Region, negotiated on some issues such as the call for the recognition of cultural individualism as a part of the wider Group of 77 (G77).
The “Outcomes Document” reaffirms the Beijing PFA and seeks to reinforce the commitments made by world governments in Beijing five years ago to enact and implement policies and programmes to achieve Gender Equality, Development and Peace.
