We Must Protect Women Rights Won In Beijing – Mlambo-Ngcuka

Former South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has called for the urgent need to advance gender equality and combat discrimination.

Reflecting on the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, adopted during Bill Clinton’s presidency in the United States, she warned that today’s geopolitics threaten those gains.

“The nature of politics today, is such that if we were ever to gather nations to discuss what we discussed in Beijing in 1995, they will take away the rights that we already gave.

“This is how much the world has moved back. So we have to protect those rights with everything we have,” she declared.

The first female Deputy President of South Africa emphasised technology as a tool to amplify existing skills for meaningful impact.

“Technology is an enabler, but you need the content and capability to deliver,” she said.

The former member of the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Advisory Council on Gender and Development denounced discrimination against women, people with different abilities, ethnic or racial groups, religions, older individuals, and children. Drawing from her UN Women tenure, she explained her refusal to renegotiate the Beijing Declaration, citing risks of losing progress.

“I was asked, why don’t we not rediscover Beijing and see what we can add? I said, I am not opening this. There are too many hyenas around.

“But now it’s even worse. Because the president of the US was Bill Clinton, we were able to adopt the Beijing Declaration, if it was you know who today, we will not adopt it.

“This is how sad our situation is, because in the UN you need consensus, so you have to choose what you do to protect the gains we have and make sure that we don’t lose what we have,” she explained.

The former Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UN Women) urged policymakers to ensure policies reflect women’s experiences, challenging all-male delegations to include diverse perspectives. She stressed empowering young women and girls, noting that youth, the world’s largest demographic, must have leadership opportunities.