[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 137 (Wednesday, September 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8550-H8554]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


COMMENDING HILLARY CLINTON AND MADELEINE ALBRIGHT FOR STRONG STATEMENTS 
    ON HUMAN RIGHTS DURING THE U.N. FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the 
House on this very important day. I rise to commend First Lady Hillary 
Clinton and our Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Madeleine 
Albright, for the strong statements that they made at the U.N. Fourth 
World Conference on Women. Mr. Speaker, I rise as one who opposed 
Beijing as the venue for this important conference. I still think it 
was a most unfortunate choice.
  I rise as one who does not think that the United Nations has been 
strong enough in enforcing its own rules in terms of open participation 
for women in the conference. The United Nations did not do enough, 
whether we are talking about the accreditation of women from Taiwan and 
Tibet, or women who are concerned about women's and human rights in 
those countries. The United Nations did not do enough in regard to 
people that the Chinese just did not want into that conference because 
their countries recognize Taiwan; for example, the representatives from 
Niger.
  However, Mr. Speaker, what I really want to call to the attention of 
our colleagues are the strong statements made by the two leaders of our 
delegation. I strongly supported a high-powered delegation to the 
Beijing conference. I strenuously opposed the attendance by First Lady 
Hillary Rodham Clinton. I did so because I thought it was not possible 
for her to attend the conference and make the strong statement that she 
made.
  Indeed, Hillary Rodham Clinton's statements, are the strongest 
statements made on human rights in China, in Asia, and in the world by 
this administration to date. I am very, very proud that the women of 
the Clinton administration are taking such a strong stand on this very 
important issue.
  The First Lady, in Beijing, very courageously stood up and broke the 
silence on sterilization and forced abortions in a country where that 
is the policy. Therefore, I say in the spirit of commendation to the
 First Lady and to Ambassador Albright that when they said they would 
not mince words when they went to China, that they would make the 
statements that would be necessary, they, indeed, did. I commend them 
for that.

  It is shameful, I think, that such an important conference on the 
rights of women and the economic future of women and families was held 
in a country with such an appalling human rights record. The strong 
statements of these members of the U.S. delegation made it clear that 
our Nation must not waiver from its commitment to personal and 
political freedom to equal rights and equal opportunity.
  The First Lady, in her remarks, was eloquent in her defense of the 
principles of women's rights and human rights, and she spent a great 
deal of her time talking about how advancing women's rights would 
strengthen families throughout the world. She emphasized how that 
strengthening families, building families, was what was important in 
strengthening societies throughout the world.
  The First Lady reaffirmed and supported the conference's main themes 
of economic and educational opportunity, health care, and protecting 
women against violence. Again, the First Lady and the Ambassador did 
not mince words of protest over repression, ignorance, abuse, and 
torture while the Chinese Government looked on. We have been told that 
the Chinese Government has not reported on the First Lady's speech, but 
we do know that the word will get out.
  As one who has opposed the First Lady's attendance, I want to commend 
her for her outstanding courage for breaking the silence on human 
rights in China, for breaking the silence on sterilization and forced 
abortion in China. There are many in this body who opposed the 
conference itself. I do not include myself among them, because I 
believe that the conference is a very important one. I think that some 
of those who opposed the conference and opposed the First Lady's 
attendance did so because of China's forced abortion policy.
  I look forward to working with those colleagues, as some of us have 
been working together in the Subcommittee on Foreign Relations of the 
Committee on Appropriations and in other committees of this House, to 
improve the lot of the women in the world by improving their health. 
The First Lady talked about women's health, she talked about violence 
against women, she talked about child survival, she talked about the 
spread of AIDS and how rapidly it is spreading among women in the 
developing countries.
  I look forward to continuing my work with our colleagues on this 
subject, and certainly working with the Clinton administration on those 
areas where more common ground has now been laid by the First Lady, and 
where more opportunity has been presented by this very important 
conference which called attention to these issues.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to place into the Record the 
two statements, by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to the United 
Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, and the remarks before the 
World Health Organization, as well as the statement of our Ambassador 
to the United Nations, Ambassador Madeleine Albright. She was a great 
participant in the conference, she represented our country very 
excellently, as she always does. I am very pleased to put Ambassador 
Albright's very strong statement on human rights, indeed, basic 
freedoms for all people, men and women, in the Record of this Congress.
  The material referred to follows:
Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, U.S. Permanent Representative to the 
    United Nations--Remarks to the Fourth World Conference on Women


 Beijing International Convention Center, Beijing, China, September 6, 
                                  1995

       Honored guests, fellow delegates and observers, I am 
     pleased and proud to address this historic conference on 
     behalf of the United States of America.

[[Page H 8551]]

       My government congratulates the thousands who have helped 
     to organize the conference, to draft the Platform for Action, 
     to inform the world about the subjects under discussion here 
     and to encourage wide participation both by governments and 
     NGO's.
       We have come here from all over the world to carry forward 
     an age-old struggle: the pursuit of economic and social 
     progress for all people, based on respect for the dignity and 
     value of each.
       We are here to promote and protect human rights and to 
     stress that women's rights are neither separable nor 
     different from those of men.
       We are here to stop sexual crimes and other violence 
     against women; to protect refugees, so many of whom are 
     women; and to end the despicable notion--in this era of 
     conflicts--that rape is just another tactic of war.
       We are here to empower women by enlarging their role in 
     making economic and political decisions, an idea some find 
     radical, but which my government believes is essential to 
     economic and social progress around the world; because no 
     country can develop if half its human resources are de-valued 
     or repressed.
       We are here because we want to strengthen families, the 
     heart and soul of any society. We believe that girls must be 
     valued to the same degree as boys. We believe, with Pope John 
     Paul II, in the ``equality of spouses with respect to family 
     rights''. We think women and men should be able to make 
     informed judgments as they plan their
      families. And we want to see forces that weaken families--
     including pronography, domestic violence and the sexual 
     exploitation of children--condemned and curtailed.
       Finally, we have come to this conference to assure for 
     women equal access to education and health care, to help 
     women protect against infection by HIV, to recognize the 
     special needs and strengths of women with disabilities, and 
     to attack the root causes of poverty, in which so many women, 
     children and men are entrapped.
       We have come to Beijing to make further progress towards 
     each of these goals. But real progress depend not on what we 
     say here, but on what we do after we leave her. The Fourth 
     World Conference for Women is not about conversations; it is 
     about commitments.
       For decades, my nation has led efforts to promote equal 
     rights for women. Women in their varied roles--as moshers, 
     farm laborers, factory workers, organizers and community 
     leaders helped build America. My government is based on 
     principles that recognize the right of every person to equal 
     rights and equal opportunity. Our laws forbid discrimination 
     on the basis of sex and we work hard to enforce those laws. A 
     rich network of nongovernmental organizations has blossomed 
     within our borders, reaching out to women and girls from all 
     segments of society, educating, counseling and advocating 
     change.
       The United States is a leader, but leaders cannot stand 
     still. Barriers to the equal participation of women persist 
     in my country. The Clinton Administration is determined to 
     bring those barriers down.
       Today, in the spirit of this conference, and in the 
     knowledge that concrete steps to advance the status of women 
     are required in every nation, I am pleased to announce the 
     new commitments my government will undertake:
       First, President Clinton will establish a White House 
     Council on Women to plan for the effective implementation 
     within the United States of the Platform for Action. That 
     Council will buiild on the commitments made today and will 
     work every day with the nongovernmental community.
       Second, in accordance with recently-approved law, the 
     Department of Justice will launch a six-year, $1.6 billion 
     initiative to fight domestic violence and other crimes 
     against women. Funds will be used for specialized police and 
     prosecution units and to train police, prosecutors and 
     judicial personnel.
       Third, our Department of Health and Human Services will 
     lead a comprehensive assault on threats to the health and 
     security of women--promoting healthy behavior, increasing 
     awareness about AIDS, discouraging the use of cigarettes, and 
     striving to win the battle against breast cancer.
       And, as Mrs. Clinton made clear yesterday, the United 
     States remains firmly committed to the reproductive health 
     rights gains made in Cairo.
       Fourth, our Department of Labor will conduct a grassroots 
     campaign to improve conditions for women in the workplace. 
     The campaign will work with employers to develop more 
     equitable pay and promotion policies and to help employees 
     balance the twin responsibilities of family and work.
       Fifth, our Department of the Treasury will take new steps 
     to promote access to financial credit for women. Outstanding 
     U.S. microenterprise lending organizations will be honored 
     through special Presidential awards and we will improve 
     coordination of federal efforts to encourage growth in this 
     field of central importance to the economic empowerment of 
     women.
       Sixth, the Agency for International Development will 
     continue to lead in promoting and recognizing the vital role 
     of women in development. Today, we announce important 
     initiatives to increase women's participation in political 
     processes and to promote the enforcement of women's legal 
     rights.
       There is a seventh and final commitment my country is 
     making today. We, the people and government of the United 
     States of America, will continue to speak out openly and 
     without hesitation on behalf of the human rights of all 
     people.
       My country is proud that, nearly, a half century ago, 
     Eleanor Roosevelt, a former First Lady of the United States, 
     helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We 
     are proud that, yesterday afternoon, in this very hall, our 
     current First Lady--Hillary Rodham Clinton--re-stated with 
     memorable eloquence our national commitment to that 
     Declaration.
       The Universal Declaration reflects spiritual and moral 
     tenets which are central to all cultures, encompassing both 
     the wondrous diversity that defines us and the common 
     humanity that binds us. It obliges each government to strive 
     in law and practice to protest the rights of those under its 
     jurisdiction. Whether a government fulfills that obligation 
     is a matter not simply of domestic, but of universal, 
     concern. For it is a funding principle of the United Nations 
     that no government can hide its human rights record from the 
     world.
       At the heart of the Universal Declaration is a fundamental 
     distinction between coercion and choice.
       No woman--whether in Birmingham, Bombay, Beirut or 
     Beijing--should be forcibly sterilized or forced to have an 
     abortion.
       No mother should feel compelled to abandon her daughter 
     because of a societal preference for males.
       No woman should be forced to undergo genital mutilation, or 
     to become a prostitute, or to enter into marriage or to have 
     sex.
       No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of 
     religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.
       All of us should be able to exercise control over the 
     course of our own lives and be able to help shape the destiny 
     of our communities and countries.
       Let us be clear. Freedom to participate in the political 
     process of our countries is the inalienable right of every 
     woman and man. Deny that right, and you deny everything.
       It is unconscionable, therefore, that the right to free 
     expression has been called into question right here, at a 
     conference conducted under the auspices of the UN and whose 
     very purpose is the free and open discussion of women's 
     rights.
       And it is a challenge to us all that so many countries in 
     so many parts of the world--north, south, west and east--fall 
     far short of the noble objectives outlined in the Platform 
     for Action.
       Every nation, including my own, must do better and do 
     more--to make equal rights a fundamental principle of law; to 
     enforce those rights and to remove barriers to the exercise 
     of those rights.
       That is why President Clinton has made favorable action on 
     the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women a 
     top priority. The United States should be a party to that 
     Convention.
       And it is why we will continue to seek a dialogue with 
     governments--here and elsewhere--that deny to their citizens 
     the rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration.
       In preparing for this conference. I came across an old 
     Chinese poem that is worth recalling, especially today, as we 
     observe the Day of the Girl-Child. In the poem, a father says 
     to his daughter:

     We keep a dog to watch the house,
       A pig is useful, too,
     We keep a cat to catch a mouse,
       But what can we do with a girl like you?

       Fellow delegates, let us make sure that question never 
     needs to be asked again--in China or anywhere else around the 
     world.
       Let us strive for the day when every young girl, in every 
     village and metropolis, can look ahead with confidence that 
     their lives will be valued, their individually recognized, 
     their rights protected and their futures determined by their 
     own abilities and character.
       Let us reject outright the forces of repression and 
     ignorance that have held us back; and act with the strength 
     and optimism unity can provide.
       Let us honor the legacy of the heroines, famous and unknown 
     who struggled in years past to build the platform upon which 
     we now stand.
       And let us heed the instruction of our own lives. Look 
     around this hall, and you will see women who have reached 
     positions of owner and authority. Go to Huairou, and you will 
     see an explosion of energy and intelligence devoted to every 
     phase of struggle. Enter any community in any country, and 
     you will find women insisting--often at great risk--on their 
     right to an equal voice and equal access to the levers of 
     power.
       This past week, on video at the NGO Forum, Aung San Suu 
     Kyl, said that ``it is time to apply in the arena of the 
     world the wisdom and experience'' women have gained.
       Let us all agree; it is time. It is time to turn bold talk 
     into concrete action.
       It is time to unleash the full capacity for production, 
     accomplishment and the enrichment of life that is inherent to 
     us--the women of the world.
       Thank you very much.
                                                                    ____

    First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton--Remarks for the World Health 
            Organization Forum on Women and Health Security


                   beijing, china, september 5, 1995

       Thank you, Dr. Nakajima.
       Dr. Nakajima, Dr. Sadik, Gertrude Mongella, delegates to 
     the Fourth U.N. Conference on Women, and guests from all 
     corners of the world, I am honored to be here 

[[Page H 8552]]
     this morning among women and men who are committed to improving the 
     health of women and girls everywhere.
       I commend the World Health Organization for making women's 
     health a top priority and for establishing the Global 
     Commission on Women's Health.
       I am proud that in the preparatory meeting for this Fourth 
     World Conference on Women, the United States took the lead in 
     highlighting the importance of a comprehensive approach to 
     women's health. That approach builds on actions taken at 
     previous women's conferences and the recent conferences at 
     Cairo and Copenhagen, whose goals to promote the health and 
     well-being of all people were endorsed by 180 nations.
       Cairo was particularly significant as governmental and non-
     governmental participants worked together to craft a Program 
     for Action which, among other things, calls for universal 
     access to good quality reproductive health care services, 
     including safe, effective, voluntary family planning; greater 
     access to education and health care; more responsibility on 
     the part of men in sexual and reproductive health and 
     childbearing; and reduction of wasteful resource consumption.
       Here at this conference, improving girls and women's health 
     is a priority of the draft Platform for Action. It includes 
     such goals as: Access to universal primary health care for 
     all people--a goal not yet achieved in many countries, 
     including my own. The promotion of breast feeding. The 
     provision of safe drinking water and sanitation. Research in 
     and attention to women's health issues, including: 
     environmental hazards, prevention of HIV/AIDS and other 
     sexually transmitted diseases, encouragement for adolescents 
     to postpone sexual activity and childbearing, and 
     discouragement of cultural traditions and customs that deny 
     food and health care to girls and women.
       Goals such as these illustrate a new commitment to the 
     well-being of girls and women and a belief in their rights to 
     live up to their own God-given potentials.
       At long last, people and their governments everywhere are 
     beginning to understand that investing in the health of women 
     and girls is as important to the prosperity of nations as 
     investing in the development of open markets and trade. The 
     health of women and girls cannot be divorced from progress on 
     other economic and social issues.
       Scientists, doctors, nurses, community leaders and women 
     themselves are working to improve and safeguard the health of
      women and families all over the world. If we join together 
     as a global community, we can lift up the health and 
     dignity of all women and their families in the remaining 
     years of the 20th century and on into the next millennium.
       Yet, for all the promise the future holds, we also know 
     that many barriers lie in our way. For too long, women have 
     been denied access to health care, education, economic 
     opportunities, legal protection and human rights--all of 
     which are used as building blocks for a healthy and 
     productive life.
       In too many places today, the health of women and families 
     is compromised by inadequate, inaccessible and unaffordable 
     medical care, lack of sanitation, unsafe drinking water, poor 
     nutrition, insufficient research and education about women's 
     health issues, and coercive and abusive sexual practices.
       In too many places, the status of woman's health is a 
     picture of human suffering and pain. The faces in that 
     picture are of girls and women who, but for the grace of God 
     or the accident of birth, could be us or one of our sisters, 
     mothers or daughters.
       Today, at least fifteen percent of pregnant woman suffer 
     life threatening complications and more than one-half million 
     women around the world die in childbirth. Most of those 
     deaths could be prevented with basic primary, reproductive 
     and emergency obstetric health care. In some places, there 
     are 175,000 motherless children for every one million 
     families. Many of those children don't survive. And of those 
     who do, many are recruited into a life of exploitation on the 
     streets of our world's cities, subjected daily to abuse, 
     indignity, disease, and the specter of early death.
       There must be a renewed commitment to improving maternal 
     health. The WHO launched in 1987 a Safe Motherhood Initiative 
     to halve maternal mortality by the year 2000. To reach that 
     goal, more attention must be paid to emergency medical care 
     as well as primary prenatal care. Providing emergency 
     obstetric care is a relatively cheap way of saving lives--and 
     along with family planning services is among the most cost 
     effective interventions in even the poorest of countries.
       The commitment of the WHO and its Global Commission on 
     Women's Health to make childbearing and childbirth a safe and 
     healthy period of every woman's life deserves action on the 
     part of every nation represented here.
       One hundred million women cannot obtain or are not using 
     family planning services because they are poor, uneducated or 
     lack access to care. Twenty million of these women will seek 
     unsafe abortions--some will die, some will be disabled for 
     life. A growing number of unwanted pregnancies are occurring 
     among young women, barely beyond childhood themselves. As we 
     know, when children have children, the chances of schooling, 
     jobs, and good health is reduced for both parent and child. 
     And our progress as a human family takes another step back.
       The Cairo document recognizes ``the basic right of all 
     couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the
      number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the 
     information and means to do so.'' Women should have the 
     right to health care that will enable them to go safely 
     through pregnancy and childbirth and provide them with the 
     best chance of having a healthy infant.
       Women and men must also have the right to make those most 
     intimate of all decisions free of discrimination, coercion 
     and violence, particularly any coercive practices that force 
     women into abortions or sterilizations.
       On these issues, the US supports the provisions in the 
     Beijing Platform for Action that reaffirm consensus language 
     that was agreed to at the Cairo Conference about a year ago. 
     It declared that ``in no case should abortion be promoted as 
     a method of family planning.'' The Platform asks governments 
     ``to strengthen their commitment to women's health, to deal 
     with the health impact of unsafe abortion as a major public 
     health concern and to reduce the recourse to abortion through 
     expanded and improved family planning services.''
       Violence against women remains a leading cause of death 
     among girls and women between the ages of 14 and 44--violence 
     from ethnic and religious conflicts, crime in the streets and 
     brutality in the home. For women who survive the violence, 
     what often awaits them is a life of unrelenting physical and 
     emotional pain that destroys their capacity for mothering, 
     homemaking or working and can lead to substance abuse, and 
     even suicide.
       Violence against girls and women goes beyond the beatings, 
     rape, killings and forced prostitution that arise from 
     poverty, wars and domestic conflicts. Every day, more than 
     5,000 young girls are forced to endure the brutal practice of 
     genital mutilation. The procedure is painful and life-
     threatening. It is degrading. And it is a violation of the 
     physical integrity of a woman's body, leaving a lifetime of 
     physical and emotional scars.
       HIV, AIDS, and sexually transmitted diseases threaten more 
     and more women--and experts predict that by the end of this 
     decade more than half of the people in the world with HIV 
     will be women. AIDS, which threatens whole families and 
     regions, demands the strongest possible response. Governments 
     and the international community must address head-on the 
     growing number of women who are being infected.
       More than 700,000 women worldwide face breast cancer each 
     year--and over 300,000 die of it. It's the leading cause of 
     death for women in their prime in the developed world. In the 
     time I speak to you today, 25 women around the world will die 
     of breast cancer. In my own country, it is hard to find a 
     family, an office, or a neighborhood that has not been 
     touched by this disease. My mother-in-law struggled against 
     breast cancer for four years before losing her battle.
       Tobacco use is the number one preventable cause of death. 
     Ninety percent of women who smoke began to smoke as 
     adolescents--leading to high rates of heart disease, cancer, 
     and chronic lung disease later in life.
       As the WHO points out, we also need to recognize and
        effectively address the fact that women are far more 
     likely to be exposed to work-related and environmental 
     health hazards. Policies to alleviate and eliminate such 
     health hazards associated with work in the home and in the 
     workplace demand action.
       Research also indicates that certain communicable diseases 
     affect women in greater numbers. Tuberculosis, for example, 
     is responsible for the deaths of one million women each year 
     and those in their early and reproductive years are most 
     vulnerable.
       When health care systems around the world don't work for 
     women: when our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and 
     coworkers are denied access to quality care because they are 
     poor, do not have health insurance, or simply because they 
     are women, it is not just their health that is put at risk. 
     It is the health of their families and communities as well.
       Like many nations, the United States brings to this 
     conference a serious commitment to improving women's health. 
     We bring with us a series of initiatives which represent the 
     first steps to carrying out this Conference's Platform for 
     Action.
       We are continuing to work for health care reform to ensure 
     that every citizen has access to affordable, quality care.
       We are proposing a comprehensive and coordinated plan to 
     reduce smoking by children and adolescents by 50 percent.
       We are working to address the many factors that contribute 
     to teenage pregnancy, our most serious social problems, by 
     encouraging abstinence and personal responsibility on the 
     part of young men and women; improving access to health care 
     and family planning services; and supporting health education 
     in our schools.
       We are pursuing a public policy agenda on HIV/AIDS that is 
     specific to women, adolescents, and children.
       We are continuing to fund and conduct contraceptive 
     research and development.
       We are addressing the health needs of women through 
     initiatives such as:
       The National Action Plan on Breast Cancer--a public, 
     private partnership working with all agencies of government, 
     the media, scientific organizations, advocacy groups and 
     industry to advance breast health and eradicate breast cancer 
     as a threat to the lives of American women.
       An Expansion of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer 
     Early Detection Program--

[[Page H 8553]]
     which will ensure that women who need regular screening and detection 
     services have access to them, and that those services meet 
     quality standards.
       The inclusion of women in clinical trials for research and 
     testing of drugs or other interventions that probe specific 
     differences between men and women in patterns of disease and 
     reactions to therapy.
       The special health needs of older women will be addressed 
     through educational campaigns about osteoporosis, cancer and 
     other diseases.
       And the US is conducting the largest clinical research
        study ever undertaken to examine the major causes of 
     death, disability and frailty in post-menopausal women.
       Women's health security must be a priority of all people 
     and governments working together. Without good health, a 
     woman's God-given potential can never be realized. And 
     without healthy women, the world's potential can never be 
     realized.
       So let us join together to ensure that every little boy and 
     girl that comes into our world is healthy and wanted, that 
     every young woman has the education and economic opportunity 
     to live a healthy life; and that every woman has access to 
     the health care she needs throughout her life to fulfill her 
     potential in her family, her work, and her community.
       If we care about the futures of our daughters, our sons, 
     and the generations that will follow them, we can do nothing 
     less.
       Thank you for the work you do every day to bring better 
     health to the women, children, and families of this world. 
     Thank you for helping governments and citizens around the 
     world understand that we cannot talk about equality and 
     social development without also talking about health care.
       Most of all, thank you for being part of this historic and 
     vital discussion, which holds so much promise for our future.
                                                                    ____

   First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton--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 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 woman gathered here and at 
     Heirou. . .
      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 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 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 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, 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 
     chefs 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 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 eye of a new millennium, it is time 
     to break our silence. It is 

[[Page H 8554]]
     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 
     rights 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.
       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 blessing on you, your work and all who will benefit 
     from it.
     

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