World Leaders push for women's equality at UN summit

World leaders push for women's equality at UN summit

New York - World leaders pledged money and political clout to achieve equality for
women by 2030 at a UN meeting Sunday co-chaired by China's President Xi Jinping, who
has faced strong criticism for cracking down on women's rights activists. 

Among the Chinese leader's strongest critics was Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton who tweeted: -Xi hosting a meeting on women's rights at the UN while
persecuting feminists? Shameless.' 

Leaders from about 80 countries and dozens of diplomats attended the meeting to mark
the 20th anniversary Of the UN women's conference in Beijing and press for
implementation of its 150-page action plan for gender equality, which remains one of the
17 new development goals adopted by world leaders on Friday. 

As US first lady, Clinton galvanized the 1995 Beijing conference with a rousing speech
that included words that have become a mantra for the global women's movement:
"human rights are women 's rights and women's rights are human rights". 

Xi partly echoed her words, telling Sunday's meeting that "women's rights and interests
are basic human rights. They must be protected by laws and regulations." 

But he did not mention any of the women activists targeted by the Chinese government,
women such as 71 -year-old journalist Gao Yu, arrested in 2014 and sentenced to seven
years in prison on charges of -leaking state secrets overseas," or human rights lawyer
Wang Yu, a campaigner against sexual harassment of school girls and defender of
women's rights activists who was arrested in July and is being held at a secret location on
suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power. "

Nor did he mention the five women who spent 37 days in detention this year because
they planned to advocate against sexual harassment on public transportation. In a letter
on Thursday to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN Women, the "China Feminist
Five" expressed hope that Xi would announce concrete plans and measurements to
promote gender equality and women's empowerment, and that their wrongful cases
would be dropped soon. He did not. 

Xi did draw loud applause when he announced a S 10m donation to UN Women, the
agency promoting women's rights, to accelerate implementation of the Beijing platform,
and again when he announced that in the next five years China will help developing
countries produce 100 "health projects" for women and children, finance 100 programs to
send poor girls to school, train 30 000 women from developing countries in China, and
provide training opportunities for 100,000 women in other developing countries. 

US Ambassador Samantha Power attended the meeting after putting up the 20th photo in
the window of the US Mission across the street from UN headquarters of a woman rights
activist who should have been at Sunday's meeting instead Of in jail. The photos include
China's Gao, Wang, and Liu Xia who has been under house arrest since the October 2010
announcement that her husband, Liu Xiaobo, received the Nobel Peace Prize. 

While progress on women 's rights over the past 20 years has been striking, Power said at
the photo ceremony that "many governments continue to suppress women's basic rights,
including by locking them up for speaking out about injustice and fundamental
freedoms. " 

Chinese foreign ministry official Li Junhua responded to the criticism saying the women
had not been detained for their activism on behalf Of women 's rights but for their having
violated Chinese laws and regulations. 

He called some opinions "totally groundless" and said some are due to "a lack of
understanding of the situation on the ground 

Switzerland exceeded China's donation to UN Women. President Simonetta Sommaruga
said it will increase its contribution to almost S50m for the 2015 to 2017 period, but most
other commitments from more than 45 countries were in promised actions rather than
money. 

Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah pledged to "spare no effort" to
implement a law ending violence against women. Austrian President Heinz Fischer made
a commitment "to further tackling gender stereotyping." 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government will launch an initiative to
improve the professional qualifications Of women in developing countries and promote
"the entrepreneurial power of women. " 

Mozambique's President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi committed "to combatting harmful gender
practices that violate human rights since as early marriage, sexual abuse and trafficking
of children. 

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sit-leaf told the meeting that "for women and girls
throughout the world, my election is commitment to women's equality." But she said
much more remains to be done including ensuring that a bill to prevent domestic
violence is passed by the legislature.

Response:

The first part of this article focusses on the Chinese leader, Xi, and how he pushed for women's rights in the meeting, but failed to discuss the women rights activists that have been targeted in the past year. Hilary Clinton even called him "shameless" on her twitter feed, since he was for women's rights in the UN summit, but had no actions in advance to support his mind set. Li Junhau defends Xi by telling them that the women were not targeted because of their radical support of women rights, but because they violated Chinese law. Although most of the article is about Xi and the women activists in China, the rest of the article is about what other nations and countries are doing to achieve the equality of women. Although some have promised to support it financially, the majority have only promised actions that may improve society for women. Through the whole piece we see that the importance of sexual equality has become a world issue, and many countries are combatting the oppression of women. It has become the "right thing to do", so obviously the writer and publisher are going to be bias towards women's rights which will then persuade the reader to feel like there should be more action towards their actions, whether it be financial or actual actions.

"World Leaders Push for Women's Equality at UN Summit."
News 24. News 24, 28 Sept. 2015. Web. 28 Sept. 2015. <http://www.news24.com/World/News/World-leaders-push-for-womens-equality-at-UN-summit-20150928>.