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Statement
of the Asia Pacific NGO Forum On Beijing+10
Amidst growing turmoil, insecurities,
and crises caused by neo-liberal globalization,
war, militarisms and extremisms, as
these interplay with persistent patriarchy,
we, more than seven hundred women
from various women’s movements in
the Asia Pacific, gathered in Salaya,
Nakornpathom, Thailand, strongly and
fully re-affirm our commitment to
the Beijing Platform for Action.
We celebrate the Beijing Platform
for Action as a strategic document
for women’s empowerment, human rights,
and development that has catalyzed
women to organize, act and search
for alternatives. With the Platform,
women’s movements have deepened understanding,
expanded recognition, and broadened
definitions, perspectives and strategies
for women’s human rights, empowerment
and development, as well as for transnational
networking and solidarity.
However, we recognize the enormous
and complex challenges still facing
women in the Asia Pacific Region.
Among these are:
- the uneven gains from varying
interpretations and inconsistent
implementation of the Beijing Platform
for Action, Beijing +5 Outcomes
Document, ICPD Program of Action
and CEDAW, due to lack of political
will and commitment of governments,
institutions and other decision
makers;
- the consequences of backlash
against women’s choices, autonomy
and overall gender equality;
- shifts in the macro environment
that have systematically eroded
women’s status, kept women and their
families in chronic poverty and
restricted the “policy space” needed
by governments to effectively work
for equality, development and peace.
At the global level, we are deeply concerned
about the diversion of energies and
resources from the Platform to the narrow
framework of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), the attainment of which,
in fact, depends on women’s empowerment
and gender equality.
We deplore the rise of unilateralism,
neo-conservatism, and corporate power
in global governance, institutions
and processes. We deplore the persistence
of state violence in the name of national
and international security and in
some states, the criminalisation of
political dissent. We deplore the
fact that in every part of the region,
social movements, women NGOs and women’s
human rights defenders are at risk
from persistent and new forms of extremist
and fundamentalist forces. These forces
play on ethnic, communal, caste and
religious identities and seek to eliminate
democratic spaces, pluralisms and
voices of dissent. We deplore how
these same factors work to repress
women’s sexuality, reproductive rights
and bodily integrity. We deplore women’s
co-option into such political projects
of social disciplining, exclusion,
and control.
At this forum ten years after Beijing
and in the midst of these major challenges,
we declare our resolve
- to carry on the spirit and realize
the intent of Beijing and to celebrate
our gains over the last ten years
- to protect one another as defenders
of women’s human rights and peace,
and
- to assert ourselves as equal
partners in the creation of a just,
democratic, humane and peaceful
world.
We recognize the efforts of governments
and the UN system to realize the objectives
of the Beijing Platform for Action.
We strongly urge them to safeguard the
gains, secure the commitments, and ensure
full and effective implementation.
We, in turn, will strengthen our
efforts, continuing to draw on our
diverse experiences and creativities,
our struggles and hopes, our constructive
debates. In solidarity with marginalized
groups, we commit ourselves to work
with other social movements in enlarging
our struggle for a better world for
future generations!
Salaya, Nakornpathom, Thailand,
3 July 2004
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