[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 136 (Tuesday, September 5, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12625-S12627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




MRS. CLINTON'S SPEECH TO THE UNITED NATIONS FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON 
                                 WOMEN

   Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, earlier today, First Lady 
Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at the United Nations Fourth World 
Conference on Women. I urge my colleagues to read this important and 
thoughtful speech.
  The First Lady spoke eloquently about the main themes of the 
Conference--women's education, health care, economic empowerment and 
human rights. These are issues that matter to every family in America 
and around the world. If we don't address these issues, all our talk 
about family values is meaningless.
  In addition, Mrs. Clinton did not shy away from addressing China's 
serious human rights violations--or their meddling in the content and 
management of the Conference.
  I commend the First Lady for participating in this important 
Conference and ask that her speech be printed in the Record.
  The speech follows:

  First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's Remarks for the United Nations 
                    Fourth World Conference on Women


                   beijing, china, september 5, 1995

       Mrs. Mongella, distinguished delegates and guests:
       I would like to thank the Secretary General of the United 
     Nations for inviting me to be part of the United Nations 
     Fourth World Conference on Women. This is truly a 
     celebration--a celebration of 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 

[[Page S 12626]]
     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 
     Hairou . . . the homemakers, nurses, teachers, lawyers, 
     policymakers, 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 own 
     lives and the lives of their families.
       What we are leaning 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 own 
     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% 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, 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 also are 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 who have 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 chiefs so that they can be at home during the day 
     with their kids .  .  .  and for women everywhere who simply 
     don't have 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 also must recognize that women will never gain full 
     dignity until this 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 it 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 
     Hairou 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 born 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 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.

[[Page S 12627]]

       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.
       God's blessings on you, your work and all who will benefit 
     from it.

                          ____________________