Hillary Clinton a star attraction in Beijing

By Hillary Rodham Clinton

As you read this column, I am traveling to Beijing for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women.

The United States is sending a delegation of 45 men and women. I am the honorary co-chair, and I know many of our members personally. One is a former Republican governor of New Jersey. Another is an Ursuline nun. There is a nurse, a law professor and the editor in chief of Ladies Home Journal. Among the group are mothers, fathers, Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives.

What unites this group and thousands of others traveling to Beijing is a desire to focus world attention on issues that matter most to women, children and families: access to health care, education, jobs and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal and human rights, and full participations in the political life of one's country.

Our ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, is the head of our delegation. A distinguished scholar, public servant and mother of three daughters, she knows more than most about the meaning of freedom and democracy. She and her family were forced to flee both Hitler and Stalin.

Tom Kean, the president of Drew University, is a delegation vice chair. I first met him when he was governor of New Jersey and my husband was governor of Arkansas. Although he is a Republican and my husband is a Democrat, they joined forces to improve education for America's children.

The women's conference is about making the world a better place by helping women live up to their God -- given potential at home, in school, on the job, in their communities and as mothers, wives, learners, workers and citizens.

It is also a celebration of families, the bedrock of any society.

Families are undermined when women and children lack the opportunities they need to thrive. In some places around the world, for example, girls are still valued so little that they are left to die at birth, denied health care and education, or sold into prostitution by their families.

Figuring out ways to remedy these wrongs and provide women opportunities to lead healthy and productive lives will be the key issue for 50,000 women and men who gather in China this week.

It saddens me that a historic event like this is being misconstrued by a small but vocal group of critics trying to spread the motion that the U.N. gathering is really the work of radicals and atheists bent on destroying our families.

The composition of our delegation refutes that charge. It is a broad-based, family-oriented group committed to the mainstream agenda of the conference.

The deputy chair of our delegation, Marjorie Margolies- Mezvinsky, is one of America's most devoted moms. A former television news correspondent and member of Congress, she and her husband are raising 11 children -- two are adopted and three are refugees from Asia -- in their home in Pennsylvania.

"I don't get involved with things that don't celebrate the family," she said recently.

Even if you agree with me that the conference is a good thing, you may be asking yourself why Americans should care about it.

After all, don't American women have more political freedom and economic opportunities than women anywhere else in the world?

There are several reasons why we should care. First, the conference represents a rare opportunity to educate world leaders about the challenges women confront in trying to improve their own lives and the lives of their families.

Improving opportunities for women everywhere is very much in our self-interest. When other countries become more democratic and all citizens more prosperous, our future brightens too.

Second, the meeting will give voice to women all over the world, including American women who are trying to raise children on jobs that pay US$4.25 an hour, can't afford health insurance or child care, or are bumping up against a glass ceiling at work.

Third, the gathering will help convey the silent terror endured by millions of women victimized by violence, including violence in their own homes.

Concerns about education, health care, the minimum wage and domestic violence often are written off as "women's issues" unrelated to pressing economic and political challenges.

In fact, these "women's issues" are crucial to the progress of families everywhere.

If women and girls don't flourish, families won't flourish. And if families don't flourish, communities and nations won't flourish.

The United States has long played a leading role in protecting the human rights of all citizens and affording women new opportunities to contribute to the economic lives of their families and the civic life of their communities.

For that reason, the voices of American women must be heard. And they will be heard.

Along with our delegation, thousands of women from the United States are traveling to Beijing, many at their own expense.

A group of CPAs from Virginia is making the trip. So are school principals from Maryland, women business owners form Florida, optometrists from California and YWCA leaders from across the country.

Even representatives of the Girl Scouts of America are traveling halfway around the world to take part.

Indeed, the future of all girls is what this conference is about.

-- Creators Syndicate