[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 137 (Wednesday, September 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              WOMEN STILL TREATED AS SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS

  (Mrs. SCHROEDER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, the United Nations owes the women of the 
globe a great apology.
  Every 10 years there is an international U.N. Women's meeting, and 
the United Nations could have cared less about what the host did to 
make this meeting as inconvenient and as awful as possible. In fact, 
the Secretary General of the United Nations could not even bother to 
come. He predicted he was going to have a fever all 12 days that this 
meeting was going to be going on.
  Now, the message that sends to all countries is that the United 
Nations is putting this on only because it is politically correct, but 
they do not really care, and the Secretary General cannot really bother 
to come.
  I find that tragic, and I am very grateful the First Lady went and 
tried to put together anything that we could, because these issues are 
very, very critical.
  There will not be another international meeting for 10 years, and to 
have allowed China to play with it this way is outrageous.
  I think the House leadership owes American women also an apology, 
because the delegation sent from this body to the women's meeting could 
not have a woman chair. A woman could only be a cochair. They had to 
send a male along, too, and one who does not have a good record on 
women's issues.
  I find that very troubling, and the message from all of this is, 
``Women, our time still has not come yet.'' When will be treated as 
first-class rather than the second-class citizens the United Nations 
relegated us to as we see this meeting in Bejing proceed?


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