[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 142 (Wednesday, September 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8888-H8890]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IT IS TIME FOR ACTION ON WOMEN'S ISSUES
(Mrs. MORELLA asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, last week I, and three of my colleagues,
attended the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women. As Conference
Secretary-General Gertrude Mongella of Tanzania said, ``The problems
(of women) are not different from country to country. They only differ
in intensity.'' And she is exactly right.
Women the world over are concerned about the prevalence of
violence in their lives, the quality of their children's
schooling, the challenges of pregnancy and childbirth, and
economic security for themselves and their families.
This conference presents an important opportunity to
strengthen the world's families, to increase the numbers of
women in decisionmaking positions in government and business,
and to ensure access for girls and women to education and
health care.
This conference is not about adding genders, redefining
families, denigrating motherhood, or tearing down capitalism.
And it is certainly not about ignoring China's dismal record
on human rights--if anything, the conference has focused the
world's attention on the terror the Chinese people,
particularly women, suffer day in and day out.
Mrs. Clinton clearly spoke to this issue when she addressed the
conference. She stressed that women's rights are human rights, that
human rights are women's rights. I submit her entire speech for the
Record.
As the conference concludes this week, let us put the words of the
Platform for Action into action, let's turn the rhetoric into words.
Mr. Speaker, I submit the following speech for the Record.
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks for the United Nations
Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China
Mrs. Mongalla, 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.
[[Page H 8889]]
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
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 woman'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 woman
are free from violence, 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, cafe, 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 woman.
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 woman 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 woman and man 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 whey 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.
Woman 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.
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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 observance 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 woman 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 head 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.
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