Women's rights

The tumult and the shouting have died down. China, the host country for the Fourth World Conference on Women, has incurred contempt for its ham-fisted security measures. But despite the distractions, the conference produced a final declaration that represents an important advance toward guaranteeing the same rights for women that have long been enjoyed by men.

Ten days of debate in Beijing yielded a document that can show the way to changing legal, economic and educational policies in countries where women are denied equal rights. It was not easy to reach agreement, and the delegates can take quiet satisfaction in the common ground that was found. There was a real sense of exhilaration for those who came from the world's poorest countries, using their life's savings to get to Beijing.

The Beijing final declaration states firmly that women have the right to decide freely all matters related to their sexuality and childbearing, and forthrightly condemns forced sterilizations and forced abortion. But the document involves much more than reproductive rights. It speaks of the systematic rape of women in wartime and says its perpetrators should be treated as war criminals. It rightly labels as human rights violations the genital mutilation of girls, attacks on women with too-small dowries, and domestic battering. It warns of discrimination against girls, even before birth in some countries, all over the world.

At a time when domestic budgets are strained in many countries, the conference was unable to win financial commitments from governments to create new programs for women. But it did elicit pledges from many to redirect national budgets into established programs. Furthermore, it called on governments to ensure women equal rights to inherit from their families -- an uncommon practice in far too many parts of the world.

The conference delegates hoped to achieve global recognition of the proposition that giving women power involves not only their ability to control fertility but also their opportunity to get an education and a job, and that women's rights are human rights. The final declaration moves the world a step closer to that goal.

-- The New York Times