Women’s rights then and now: “Women’s voices are about transformations” - Interview with Roberta Clarke

#ForAllWomenandGirls is a rallying call for action on the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Roberta Clarke, former UN Women staff member and Commissioner on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights shares on attending the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and explains that the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is a transformative and analytical framework, very much relevant still today.

“Women's voices and women's actions are important for the transformation that we need. We should not give up on that. We should not give up on the hope for transformation!”

1.    What inspired you to attend the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995?

For me and for others in my feminist activist generation, this conference was a continuation of a multilateral process that was building consensus around the need to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls, end patriarchy and socio-economic inequality as global priorities. Before Beijing were the world conferences in Mexico, Copenhagen, and in 1995, Nairobi.  The impetus to participate was the opportunity to be in Beijing where the strands of research and experience would come together in solidarity for a strong normative framework.

By 1985, because of the Women in the Caribbean Project, there was qualitative data on the status of women in the Caribbean. That project, led by Joycelin Messiah, (who later became the head of UNIFEM Caribbean Office), explored women’s experiences and perceptions of the factors that shaped their realities as women, in the private and public spheres. That work fed into the Nairobi conference which had such an emphasis on women’s right to development. And one of the conveners of the Nairobi Conference was Dame Nita Barrow who also later became the first woman Governor-General of Barbados.

Roberta Clarke at the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, China (centre, back row) with Caribbean delegates. Roberta Clarke supplied photo

From the activist perspective, the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA) had been formed with an explicitly intersectional focus, based on the understanding that gender, race, ethnicity and social status all were relevant in understanding the textures of women’s lives and shaping the politics pf resistance and change.

CAFRA was a genuinely Caribbean formation with membership from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Suriname, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, all CARICOM countries and this regionalism informed the preparation for the Fourth World Conference on Women, including the organisation of feminists to support member state preparations.

One of the takeaways from that is that there was a high degree of trust and respect between the State Institutions - Gender Bureaus and Ministries - the women's movement and CARICOM.

Caribbean organisations were mobilised attend because CAFRA had chapters all across the region and resources were there for that mobilisation to happen. There was also a global South movement. DAWN was formed - Development Alternatives with Women in a New Era by women such as Gita Sen (India) and Peggy Antrobus (Barbados) critiquing the dominant global neoliberal macro-economic agenda.

What stays with me from my attendance, was the preparation of the global women’s movement, its connectivity and therefore the dynamism, all with common purpose.

Roberta Clarke, then Regional Director, UN Women Caribbean Sub Regional Office at IWD 2012.
UN Women Photo/Sharon Carter-Burke

2.    How significant was the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the time, and how did the global women’s rights movement change after the conference?

The Declaration has a very overarching critique of inequalities. Even back then, there was the analysis of the impact of over- production and over-consumption on the environment, Environmental degradation and unsustainability - these are concepts in the BPFA.

The BPFA centred women’s rights and state accountability for eradicating discrimination through gender mainstreaming.  It advanced the idea that eradicating gender inequality was a whole of government responsibility achievable through mainstreaming gender analysis and gender programming in everything that the government does.  These two transformative ideas (one substantive and the other procedural) shaped advocacy, policy making and programming in the following decades.

The Beijing Platform for Action legitimised the demand to strengthen gender machineries, beyond under-resourced ‘women’s departments’ to institutions with the authority to coordinate and monitor state action across all policy fields. The BPFA contributed to a wave of law reform, particularly in ending violence against women and gave impetus for women, peace and security resolutions. 

It reiterated women's reproductive rights, sexual and reproductive rights, and the right of children to comprehensive sexuality education in schools. 

The third thing was that the BPFA has an overarching critique of inequalities. The framers of the BPFA, informed by feminist activism and research, understood the impact of production and consumption on the environment and environmental degradation and unsustainability. These words echo and resonate.

BPFA had transformative vision, and it also helped States practically understand what they should do next. Of course, the challenge was and remains implementation. Now we are facing in some countries, the headwinds of backlash and regression. But that does not negate that the BPFA did shape national policies.

Roberta Clarke in her CSO capacity addressing an IWD Rally in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
UN Information Centre, Port of Spain

3.    How did grassroots activists from the Global South influence the agenda, and how were their voices received by participants from wealthier nations? Did marginalized activists feel heard in the moment of Beijing?

By 1995 we had quite a strong and interconnected Caribbean feminist movement and very specific advocacy. For example, the advocacy on diverse forms of family and the State obligation to recognise and support, extended families, and female headed families. Caribbean feminists also centred unpaid care work and underpaid domestic work. Activists like Clotil Walcott and Andaiye spoke to the need for recognition, value and sharing of the care burden.  Caribbean feminists were insistent on the right to decide the number and timing of children. Countries such as Haiti and Cuba, Caribbean delegations were also concerned about how to address the situation of women's rights in the context of geopolitics.

4.    Which of the 12 critical areas of concern addressed in the Platform for Action do you think has seen the most progress?
 

Roberta Clarke, then Regional Director for the UNIFEM Caribbean Sub Regional Office.
UN Women Photo/Kurt Haynes

In laws and policies - practically all countries now have some legislation on domestic violence, have stronger sexual violence legislation and many have outlawed, abolished early forced unions, otherwise known as child marriage. Sexual violence in conflict is now understood as a war crime, a crime against humanity.

So, there has been a lot of normative development, more training, more judicial understandings of freedom, being conscious of stereotypes and to resist that. There has been a lot of action on the laws and policies, but it is not the same as changing culture all the way through, including institutional patriarchal culture which undermines implementation.

There has been some, but not even progress on women’s political participation. 

But poverty and inequalities have increased, which comes back to the point - gender equality is not possible without societal transformation, without an emphasis on SDG 10 - ending inequalities between and within countries that is so critical to gender equality.

I think that the agenda is quite incomplete and, in some ways, has been undermined by the growing inequalities and unequal power dynamics evident in multilateralism.

Roberta Clarke, then Regional Director, UN Women Caribbean Sub Regional Office addressing a 16 Days Event “Walk in Her Shoes” in Barbados. UN Women Photo/Sharon Carter-Burke

Future vision

5.    What lessons from the conference can be applied to today’s feminist movements, especially in the digital age?  

The digital age provides us with a lot of advantages for connectivity. The Beijing outcome was achieved in part because women's organisations were networked within and between the countries. There was a lot of sharing of experiences and analyses, and strategizing. Sisterhood was strengthened. We need that solidarity to engage the State and the multilateral system. Paradoxically, despite all the possibilities, or because of the possibilities of the digital age, I sense that we have more fragmentation. The challenges are so complex, and we need that connectivity that allows us to share the facts and interconnectedness of inequalities so that we can continue to construct a shared vision not only of the future want but also how to get there.

6.    What do you envision as the next steps for achieving gender equality globally, and in the Caribbean? Where can we gain traction by prioritizing some action areas?

Where there is social and economic injustice within and between countries, can gender equality be realised? Where there is insecurity and violence, are we likely to get non-discriminatory services?

Certainly, for many women, there is more personal autonomy, but this is not equally true for women across states and women experiencing intersectional marginalisation. And the work to address harmful masculinities is so under-developed within state practice. One investment we need now is in the education sector to drive culture change. How can we inculcate the values of respect, kindness, empathy and equality?

We have made progress in law reform, policy development, but that policy progress does not always translate into changing of norms at community level. And we know that norms have not sufficiently changed, for example, because levels of violence against woman and girls are so high; we still have lower levels of participation in political leadership. The sexual and gender division of labour seems quite intact to women’s continued detriment.

There is so much that needs to be done in rebalancing political, social and economic power relations within and between countries.

We cannot ignore the global political phase that we are in- the rise of populist authoritarianism, the increases in military expenditure, economic inequalities, the existential crisis of climate change, armed conflicts and the reach of organised crime. Corruption undermines state capacity to deliver quality health, education and social protection. Societies are so polarised and unregulated social media facilitates that.

This is time for hope, but a hope based on strategies of resistance. The commemoration of the BPFA reminds us that we are confronting complex power relations. It seems overwhelming, but we really do not have any choice but to engage, for ourselves and for the future generations.