World's women get - a bit - safer

A river of brilliant saris, tailored suits, tunic dresses, and shawls flows through the corridors. The subjects of discussion are dark, and often dire. "Honor" killings. Rape. Domestic violence. Forced marriage. Dismal pay.

But the confidence and energy exuded by some 10,000 women gathered at the UN this week is palpable.

They have come from 180 nations to assess womankind's progress since a similar landmark conference in Beijing five years ago.

A thumbnail scorecard shows that awareness of such problems as violence against women has grown considerably since 1985. Many governments worldwide have revised their legal codes to treat women more equitably. All South Asian governments, for instance, have set up commissions to look into gender crimes and inequality. Yesterday, the European Union's executive commission called for stiffer laws to end sexual harassment in the workplace.

"These [commissions] have become a very big lobbying tool for NGOs and a pressure point for governments," says Ruchira Gupta, who runs the nonprofit On Our Own in India. "It's a very big step forward." But, she adds, these commissions lack teeth.

Indeed, while signs of progress are evident, there are also indications of new problems.

"As we are moving forward, we are also losing ground. There's more violence appearing in many countries. And in situations of war, violence against women has increased," says Noeleen Heyzer, the executive director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Human rights activists point out that, in this era of civil wars and ethnic conflicts, combatants increasingly rape women as part of their terror campaigns.

In India, so-called dowry deaths have increased in the past five years. And around the world, 1 woman in 3 is beaten, coerced into sex, or abused during her lifetime, usually by someone she knows, according to a Johns Hopkins School of Public Health study.

But on this march forward, women advocacy organizations successfully lobbied in 1998 for the inclusion of rape as a crime against humanity in the statute for an international criminal court. Since then, both the tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia have convicted people for genocidal rape.

"In Latin America, we were surprised to have 22 governments revise their legal framework," says Ms. Heyzer. "And for the first time the InterAmerican Bank loaned Latin American governments resources to establish new police stations."

In some cases, the new laws may be just lip service, human rights advocates say. "Even if it's lip service, we will take the lips and service," Heyzer replies. "Once words are stated, the accountability can be set in place.

Words and policies are no guarantee that things will happen, but they can be used as tools for accountability."

In South Asia, women have not received even modest window-dressing changes in the law. "There are laws against murder and assault but within the Pakistan code there are a couple of laws that allow for violence against women," says Sheila Dauer, director of the Women's Human Rights Project at Amnesty International.

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