A divide that was evident at Beijing and not at Nairobi was created by the presence of conservative right forces, including REAL Women of Canada. REAL Women held several workshops where they were questioned by some Canadian feminists but there was no attempt at dialogue between the two groups. In another workshop I witnessed I an American Right to Life woman try to disrupt a plenary on "the rise of conservatism."

Much has been said about the role of the Chinese government at Beijing. China's human rights record, the change of location of the Forum from Beijing to Huairou (fifty kilometres away from the official conference), the denial of visas to certain individuals and nationalities and the security and surveillance on the site were highlighted by the media. Certainly, all of these were problems, but it was regrettable that they were allowed to draw attention away from the real reasons that women were gathered.

Similar issues had come up at Nairobi. The city had been cleared of "the wrong people," security was tight and there was plenty of surveillance, including a question of film censorship. In Beijing, Chinese participants, though present in number, were quiet and didn't seem to feel free to speak what was on their minds. In Nairobi, I remember attending a session with a Kenyan ex-student who felt she had to leave, on account of her job at a bank, when the discussion became too controversial.

Strategies

The strategy for addressing change altered radically between Nairobi and Beijing. In Nairobi, issues were presented as women's issues in the context of feminism. In Beijing, women's issues were presented as human rights issues. This was particularly the case at the official conference.

The shift was a recent one. It started first at a conference in Miami in 1991, then at a UN human rights conference in Vienna in 1993. At the latter conference, after intensive lobbying by women and the staging of a tribunal on a floor below where the officials were meeting, the UN was persuaded to adopt a resolution recognizing women's rights as human rights. Thus, at Beijing, issues were put in terms of human rights--"reproductive rights are human rights" and "violence is a human rights issue"--and were fought on this basis.

The rationales for the adoption of this approach are several. The main one is that it seems to be effective in bringing about progress. It hooks into the already established UN apparati that hold states accountable for their human rights records. As well, the human rights approach posits women not as victims but as individuals with rights and legal claims?

At Beijing there was little evidence of debate on the human rights strategy, though there is a theoretical critique that a human rights approach is based on an exclusive Western imperialist model. The only hint of this position I encountered, however, was on a handout produced by a group of Iranian NGOs accusing the West of imposing a double standard in their application of human rights. A more practical problem is that the focus on human rights tends to direct attention to individual rights issues and away from broader economic justice issues.