Leadership of the movement against female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM) as it is now more frequently called, is firmly in the hands of an African based group, The Inter African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC), which has chapters in twenty-five countries. The practice of female genital mutilation is said to affect one hundred million women in twenty-six countries in Africa, some minorities in Asia, and immigrant and refugee women allover the globe. ⁵

With the attention that has been drawn to the issue of women's invisible work by Marilyn Waring and others, the campaign to "make women count" had a high profile in Beijing, led by the UK based group International Women Count Network. The value of this uncounted work is estimated at $11 trillion. Although there is consensus on the principle of recognizing women's unpaid work, the strategy for actually "Making it count" is somewhat contentious. An exchange on the issue took place in the Forum newspaper in which an editorial questioned the advantage of quantifying or paying women for their work as this could tend to legitimize the current division of labour. Also, if the value of presently uncounted work is added to the Gross Domestic Product of a country, the former might boost the latter to the extent that the country's eligibility for aid would be threatened. A Women Count spokeswoman responded in the newspaper, protesting that 900 NGOs, mostly from the South, had already signed a petition urging governments to agree to a statement in the Platform for Action calling for women's unwaged work to be counted in a UN satellite account.

The attention to macro-economic issues spurred by DA WN at Nairobi was lacking in Beijing. DAWN was present but did not achieve the same prominence as at the earlier conference. Another group called WEDO (Women's Environmental and Development Organization) somewhat took over the role. WEDO coordinated Daughters of the Earth, the Environmental and Development Collaborative Web, which is an international network of NGOs. The Web led "180 Days/ Ways/Women's Action Campaign 95," a series of events taking place between March 8, international Women's Day and September 6 in Beijing. At the forum itself, the Web organized an impressive program of workshops and launched a series of six primers on economic and environmental issues in one of them.

The Economic Justice caucus at Beijing experienced serious frustration in getting issues into the Platform for Action. They were stymied at the New York preparatory meetings, particularly by U.S. opposition. The U.S. position was that "we" didn't want/need such negativity in the document. Thus any serious attention to issues such as structural adjustment programs or SAPs (programs imposed on countries with debt by the international Monetary Fund and the World Bank) is absent from the Platform.

Emerging Themes

A number of new issues were prominent in Beijing. in the view of some, the issue of violence dominated. Violence was broadly defined to include issues such as rape and female genital mutilation as well as domestic battering and sexual harassment. A tribunal was held at Beijing where testimonies were heard. At the official conference, an agreement was reached amongst delegations to include clauses in the Platform for Action to treat rape as a war crime, punishable as such, and for gender discrimination to be recognized as grounds for refugee status. These particular initiatives were led by the Canadian delegation.

The plight of the girl child the world over was also highlighted for the first time in Beijing. An important point was made that many of the concerns treated as women's issues were in fact happening not to women but to girls. Female genital mutilation, prostitution, trafficking, rape and exploited labour have a huge impact on girls. Of course, their right to education and to reproductive choice is also important. "Youth" was one of the thirteen themes identified by program organizers at the forum resulting in numerous workshops, a special tent, and an effort to attract and/or sponsor the participation of young women.

Poverty in the North and South was newly addressed at Beijing. Whereas the poverty of the South was a focus of attention at Nairobi, in Beijing, recognition was given to the poverty that exists among women in the North as well. Led by DAWN, the ideas of a "South in the North" (poverty in the midst of wealth) and a "North in the South" (great wealth in the midst of poverty) gained some currency.