UN Official Seeing the World from a Gender Perspective

Zou Xiaoqiao is member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and also served as former director of the International Liaison Department of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF). [Provided by Zou Xiaoqiao]

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women which took place in Beijing in 1995, Women of China English Monthly spoke to Zou Xiaoqiao, member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. For the interview she shared her feelings of participating in the conference, and how it has influenced her career and personal life.
 
Zou, who also served as former director of the International Liaison Department of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), explained that the conference is the largest such women-focused event that China has undertaken so far in its history. At the same time, it was also a grand international meeting which attracted the largest number of attendees in the history of the UN at the time.

It is calculated that there were more than 40,000 people at the governmental conferences and the NGO (non-governmental organizations) women's forums combined. They included government officials from 189 countries across the globe, people from UN institutions and representatives from international organizations, NGOs and the media.

For the sake of her work, Zou, not only as a member of Chinese government delegation, attended the negotiations for the subsequent Beijing Platform for Action, which were held in New York. She also participated in the preparatory work related to the NGO women's forums.

Zou said that she witnessed that national governments and women all over the world shared their enthusiasm about gender equality, development and peace. On the other hand, she also found there were difficulties in negotiations because of different national situations, cultures, religions and values.

Fortunately, through unremitting efforts, participating countries reached a consensus and adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It set up a comprehensive global policy framework to promote gender equality, enhance women's empowerment and realize women and children's human rights.

Zou Xiaoqiao attended the Fourth World Conference on Women of the United Nations in Beijing in 1995. [Provided by Zou Xiaoqiao]

Impressive Memories of Fourth World Conference on Women

Zou said that the Fourth World Conference on Women is her most impressive memory of the whole past 30 years in which she has engaged in women's works. She believed that the conference taught global people to see the world from a perspective of gender. It also pushed forward the development of women's causes in China and inspired many grassroots women's organizations to be established, so as to promote gender equality and help vulnerable women.

In the process of preparation for and participation in the conference, Zou realized that there were a considerable number of people in the international community who did not understand China or know the changes and status quo of Chinese women. Therefore, Chinese women and women's federations should strive to further discourse their rights through international women's movements, she said.

Compared with 20 years ago, today's international community pays more attention to gender issues, women's human rights, and the rights of vulnerable women's groups. Concepts confirmed at the conference, such as "women's rights are human rights", "gender mainstreaming" and "enhancing women's power" have been generally recognized and lead to more women benefiting from those changes.

Besides, the UN also attached more importance to gender equality and development issues. For example, the UN General Assembly created the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) in 2010 with a view to providing guidance and suggestions to do with gender equality, the empowerment of women, and gender mainstreaming, for UN member states.

On the other hand, the national governments also took the positive actions to ensure women's participation in politics, rights of education, health and employment, as well as the rights in family and marriage.

Some changes also impressed Zou a lot. For instance, domestic violence was not a simple affair within a family. Instead, it is an infringement, a crime against women's human rights, which has raised more concern from the whole society. Another change is the cognition of gender equality, not only emphasized through equality in amounts, rights and responsibilities, but also emphasized through equality in starting point, process and result.

China's Differences Between 20 Years Ago and Now

Zou Xiaoqiao said that the UN Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) launched a grand ceremony to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in March, and reviewed the implementation situations of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Although it has achieved a lot, male-female equality has not yet come true. It still has a long way to go.

As is known, the conference boosted the development and process of women's causes in China. Furthermore, this year is also the 20th anniversary of the basic national policy of gender equality, which was first proposed at the conference in 1995.

Since then, gender equality has remained a special focus when formulating China's laws and regulations. In addition, China has begun to pay more attention to the special needs for women who are disadvantaged. Another change for China since 1995 is that the conference has promoted gender studies in China—that is, to teach us how to see problems from a gender perspective.

When asked what it has brought to her to be a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Zou said that it made her learn that every country has made great efforts to eliminate gender-based discrimination against women, as well as the activities of promoting women's human rights in the international community. Meanwhile, she has learned about different opinions between East and West, the north and the south, because of different values, cultures, and social economic developments.

Zou said that her successful three-time reappointments as a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women made her feel that China is stronger, and both its position and prestige have gone steadily up. She added that unless she carries the support of a powerful country, she would get nowhere, no matter how determined she is.

(Women of China)