indian human rights (women)

The year 2000 marked the fifth anniversary of the U.N.'s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, an event that heralded respect for women's human rights as a central part of any and all efforts to improve women's status around the globe. Five years later, what gains did women see in government efforts to protect their rights? Activists welcomed important signs of progress, including greater awareness of abuses of women's human rights; stronger international standards for prosecuting violence against women, particularly in conflict situations; and some initial efforts by governments and international actors to implement programs to support women's rights. Still, these steps forward seemed few and far between, especially when contrasted with the scale and scope of ongoing violations of women's most fundamental human rights.

One of the most striking developments in the past year-evident in June 2000 in the negotiations at the special sessions of the U.N. General Assembly for the Beijing + 5 Review (Beijing + 5) to assess progress in improving women's status-was how actively some governments were willing to work to thwart recent gains in protecting women's human rights. They set out to master the language of women's human rights while they at the same time sought to undermine the power of the idea and the movement. Perhaps a sign that they had started taking women's rights activists seriously, governments' resistance to further progress on women's human rights took several forms, although most of the obstructionist tactics at the U.N. meeting and elsewhere relied on the age-old strategy of divide and conquer.

First, and perhaps most threatening, was the refusal of governments to accept that for women to truly enjoy their human rights, they must be treated with dignity in all aspects of their lives. Instead, government actions reflected the belief that women are not entitled to full enjoyment of their human rights. Hence, while governments condemned some forms of violence against women, they readily excused others and defended laws

that denied women their legal rights. In Morocco, for example, a reformist government pledged to pursue programs to measure and respond to violence against women, but allowed proposed reforms to the country's family code-which continues to subject female decision-making to male authority-to languish. In other countries, laws that recognized men as the legal heads of households remained in place, denying women's rights to decide for themselves, freely, whether and whom to marry, whether to work outside the home, or even when to seek medical attention. Laws requiring female obedience or subservience were often key to making women dependent on men and tied to abusive relationships.