CALGARY – The struggle to fight for global equality, world peace and improved standards of living for women may be lost if people don’t continue to remind their governments of promises made 10 years ago.
A lengthy document called Forward Looking Strategies was signed a decade ago by United Nations member states following an international women’s conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
However, many don’t even know the document exists.
This September more than 30,000 women from around the world are expected to descend on Beijing, China to review progress in the struggle for equality and peace.
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Most affected are women living in the Third World, said Barbara Roberts of Edmonton, a co-ordinator of the Nairobi event. If people don’t turn up the heat on authorities, demands for improved conditions developed in Africa will be forgotten, she said.
Roberts talked about her African experience in a taped message at a preliminary forum, called Beijing-Alberta. It was held in Calgary Feb. 25-26 to explain to Alberta women some of the strategies necessary for the next international women’s conference.
The hill to equality has been steep since the Nairobi conference where more than 15,000 women heard about the needs of women in underdeveloped nations, said Louise Jensen of the Centre for International Alternatives in Edmonton.
On the agenda
The strategies outlined in Nairobi included demands for better child care, higher education standards for women, a fight against poverty, the law and how it affects women, women’s health concerns, aboriginal women’s needs and violence against women and children including the effects of war, said Jensen.
Roberts said Canada signed the strategies document and must be held accountable. As an instructor of women’s studies at Athabasca University, she has researched Canada’s progress in these areas. She found the status of women worldwide has not improved beyond recognition that women’s equality is lagging.
The United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women will be held in conjunction with the non-government organizations women’s forum from Aug. 30 to Sept. 8.
