Celebrating the Accomplishments of the Beijing Conference on Women’s Rights 25 Years Later

9/3/2020 by Ellen Chesler, Senior Fellow

Adopted in 1995, the U.N.’s Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action shaped aspirations for women’s equality in the 21st century—and no amount of resistance or repression since has been able to reverse its momentum.

Twenty-five years ago, the United Nations hosted the largest gathering of women (and more than a few good men) in its 50-year history. Some 17,000 participants—among them, official government delegates, representatives of accredited nongovernmental organizations, international civil servants and members of the press—registered for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Another 30,000 global activists, including 8,000 from the U.S., met in Huairou, a district some 40 miles away, to mount an impassioned parallel forum.

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