The Beijing Platform for Action is a lot. But it is a good tool when advocating women´s rights. It is just a matter of finding the good SRHR writings. The platform shows that there is a global support for women´s rights even though there are some problems implementing it. There is a lot of talk and I have heard so many speakers just during the first two days of CSW saying that governments need to walk the talk, and yes that would be good!
Silvia, Sweden (RFSU)
I think the fact that 15 years down the line, the Beijing Platform for Action is still as relevant and important to women's lives today is telling about the kind of commitment nation states actually have towards gender equality, women's empowerment and women's human rights.It seems to me as though the rhetoric remains just that and without women's rights movements, we wouldn't even have made the little progress we have. If, when I was a 15-year-old, we could put down in black and white the importance of women having control over their sexuality, it strikes me as incomprehensible why we are not able to action this even by 2010.
Arushi, India (SARO)
The CSW to me involves being prepared to forge alliances on among others, choices regarding our sexuality/ies and reproductive health so as to ensure that women’s rights are given due attention as indivisible human rights applicable to all women regardless of age, race, sexual orientation and religious belief.
What (Beijing Platform for Action) and (CSW) means to me in summary.
Being
Prepared to
Forge
Alliances
on
Choices regarding our
Sexuality/ies and Reproductive health to ensure that
Women’s rights are given due attention.
Yvette, Kenya (ARO)
For me, Beijing means that the women of my generation, which includes my wife, nieces and my sisters, will have better opportunities in life than my own mother and grandmother who both had ten children each and by force of circumstance remained as housewives for much of their lives. With Beijing, I think that the women of today can aspire to greater things and be the persons they want to be. That will make this world a better place for both women and men, including myself.
Romeo, Philippines (ESEAOR)
I’ve never known my world without opportunities. As a young youth activist, my possibilities have never seemed limited in Barbados, or even the Caribbean. A more critical analysis undermines this superficial belief. The Beijing Platform for Action shows all the flaws and superficial fixes that many governments have hidden behind. The BFPA is like a highlighter across the face of gender programs that are inadequate and antique, it proves that there is still much work to be done in women’s issues.
LaToya, Barbados (BFPA)