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This is truly a
celebration--a celebration on the contributions
women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on
the job, in their communities, as mothers, wives,
sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens and
leaders.
It is also a coming
together, much the way women come together every day
in every country. We come together in fields and in
factories. In village markets and supermarkets. In
living rooms and board rooms.
Whether it is while
playing with our children in the park, or washing
clothes in a river, or taking a break at the office
water cooler, we come together and talk about our
aspirations and concerns. And time and again, our
talk turns to our children and our families.
However different we
may be, there is far more that unites us than
divides us. We share a common future. And we are
here to find common ground so that we may help bring
new dignity and respect to women and girls all over
the world--and in so doing, bring new strength and
stability to families as well.
By gathering in
Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues
that matter most in the lives of women and their
families: access to education, health care, jobs,
and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal and
human rights and participate fully in the political
life of their countries.
There are some who
question the reason for this conference. Let them
listen to the voices of women in their homes,
neighborhoods, and workplaces.
There are some who
wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter
to economic and political progress around the globe.
Let them look at the women gathered here and at
Huairou--the homemakers, nurses, teachers, lawyers,
policy makers, and women who run their own
businesses.
It is conferences
like this that compel governments and peoples
everywhere to listen, look and face the world's most
pressing problems.
Wasn't it after the
women's conference in Nairobi ten years ago that the
world focused for the first time on the crisis of
domestic violence?
Earlier today, I
participated in a World Health Organization forum,
where government officials, NGOs, and individual
citizens are working on ways to address the health
problems of women and girls.
Tomorrow, I will
attend a gathering of the United Nations Development
Fund for Women. There, the discussion will focus on
local--and highly successful--programs that give
hard-working women access to credit so they can
improve their lives and the lives of their families.
What we are learning
around the world is that, if women are healthy and
educated, their families will flourish. If women are
free from violence, their families will flourish. If
women have a chance to work and earn as full and
equal partners in society, their families will
flourish.
And when families
flourish, communities and nations will flourish.
That is why every
woman, every man, every child, every family, and
every nation on our planet has a stake in the
discussion that takes place here.
Over the past 25
years, I have worked persistently on issues relating
to women, children and families. Over the past
two-and-a-half years, I have had the opportunity to
learn more about the challenges facing women in my
country and around the world. I have met new mothers
in Jojakarta, Indonesia, who come together regularly
in their village to discuss nutrition, family
planning, and baby care. I have met working parents
in Denmark who talk about the comfort they feel in
knowing that their children can be cared for in
creative, safe, and nurturing after-school centers.
I have met women in South Africa who helped lead the
struggle to end apartheid and are now helping build
a new democracy. I have met with the leading women
of the Western Hemisphere who are working every day
to promote literacy and better health care for the
children of their countries. I have met women in
India and Bangladesh who are taking out small loans
to buy milk cows, rickshaws, thread and other
materials to create a livelihood for themselves and
their families. I have met doctors and nurses in
Belarus and Ukraine who are trying to keep children
alive in the aftermath of Chernobyl. The great
challenge of this conference is to give voice to
women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed,
whose words go unheard.
Women comprise more
than half the world's population. Women are 70%
percent of the world's poor, and two-thirds of those
who are not taught to read and write. Women are the
primary caretakers for most of the world's children
and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not
valued --not by economists, not by historians, not
by popular culture and not by government leaders.
At this very moment,
as we sit here, women around the world are giving
birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing
clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on
assembly lines, running companies, and running
countries.
Women are also dying
from diseases that should have been prevented or
treated; they are watching their children succumb to
malnutrition caused by poverty and economic
deprivation; they are being denied the right to go
to school by their own fathers and brothers; they
are being forced into prostitution, and they are
being barred from the ballot box and the bank
lending office.
Those of us with the
opportunity to be here have the responsibility to
speak for those who could not.
As an American, I
want to speak up for women in my own country--women
who are raising children on the minimum wage, women
who can't afford health care or child care, women
whose lives are threatened by violence, including
violence in their own homes. I want to speak up for
mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe
neighborhoods, clean air and clean airwaves; for
older women, some of them widows, who have raised
their families and now find that their skills and
life experiences are not valued in the workplace;
for women who are working all night as nurses, hotel
clerks, and fast food chefs so that they can be at
home during the day with their kids; and for women
everywhere who simply don't have enough time to do
everything they are called upon to do each day.
Speaking to you
today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks
for women around the world who are denied the chance
to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property,
or have a say about the direction of their lives,
simply because they are women.
The truth is that
most women around the world work both inside and
outside the home, usually by necessity.
We need to understand
that there is no formula for how women should lead
their lives. That is why we must respect the choices
that each woman makes for herself and her family.
Every woman deserves the chance to realize her
God-given potential. We must also recognize that
women will never gain full dignity until their human
rights are respected and protected.
Our goals for this
conference, to strengthen families and societies by
empowering women to take greater control over their
own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all
governments--here and around the world--accept their
responsibility to protect and promote
internationally recognized human rights.
The international
community has long acknowledged, and recently
affirmed at Vienna, that both women and men are
entitled to a range of protections and personal
freedoms, from the right of personal security to the
right to determine freely the number and spacing of
the children they bear.
No one should be
forced to remain silent for fear of religious or
political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.
Tragically, women are
most often the ones whose human rights are violated.
Even in the late 20th century, the rape of women
continues to be used as an instrument of armed
conflict. Women and children make up a large
majority of the world's refugees. And when women are
excluded from the political process, they become
even more vulnerable to abuse.
I believe that, on
the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our
silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing,
and the world to hear, that is no longer acceptable
to discuss women's rights as separate from human
rights. These abuses have continued because, for too
long, the history of women has been a history of
silence.
Even today, there are
those who are trying to silence our words. The
voices of this conference and of the women at
Huairou must be heard loud and clear:
It is a violation of
human rights when babies are denied food, or
drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken,
simply because they are girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and
girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.
It is a violation of human rights when women are
doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to
death because their marriage dowries are deemed too
small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual
women are raped in their own communities and when
thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic
or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading
cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44
is the violence they are subjected to in their own
homes.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls
are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice
of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are
denied the right to plan their own families, and
that includes being forced to have abortions or
being sterilized against their will.
If there is one
message that echoes forth from this conference, it
is that human rights are women's rights, and women's
rights are human rights. Let us not forget that
among those rights are the right to speak freely and
the right to be heard.
Women must enjoy the
right to participate fully in the social and
political lives of their countries if we want
freedom and democracy to thrive and endure.
It is indefensible
that many women in non-governmental organizations
who wished to participate in this conference have
not been able to attend--or have been prohibited
from fully taking part.
Let me be clear:
Freedom means the right of people to assemble,
organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the
views of those who may disagree with the views of
their governments. It means not taking citizens away
from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating
them, or denying them their freedom or dignity
because of the peaceful expression of their ideas
and opinions.
In my country, we
recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of women's
suffrage. It took 150 years after the signing of our
Declaration of Independence for women to win the
right to vote. It took 72 years of organized
struggle on the part of many courageous women and
men. It was one of America's most divisive
philosophical wars. But it was also a bloodless war.
Suffrage was achieved without a shot fired.
We have also have
been reminded, in V-J Day observances last weekend,
of the good that comes when men and women join
together to combat the forces of tyranny and build a
better world.
We have seen peace
prevail in most places for a half century. We have
avoided another world war. But we have not solved
older, deeply rooted problems that continue to
diminish the potential of half the world's
population.
Now it is time to act
on behalf of women everywhere.
If we take bold steps
to better the lives of women, we will be taking bold
steps to better the lives of children and families
too. Families rely on mothers and wives for
emotional support and care; families rely on women
for labor in the home; and increasingly, families
rely on women for income needed to raise healthy
children and care for other relatives. As long as
discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace
around the world--as long as girls and women are
valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked,
underpaid, not schooled and subjected to violence in
and out of their homes--the potential of the human
family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will
not be realized.
Let this conference
be our, and the world's, call to action.
And let us heed the
call so that we can create a world in which every
woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy
and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every
family has the hope of a strong and stable future.
Thank you very much.
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