Women's Conference in Dakar
sgas...@alfred1.u.washington.edu
to Debra Guzman at DE...@OLN.comlink.apc.org
## author : theear...@igc.apc.org
## date : 01.12.94
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Women's Conference in Dakar
The Africa Regional Conference on Women, held in Dakar,
Senegal, ended November 23 with consensus endorsement of all
nine recommendations of its draft platform--but the
delegates added two more, dealing with the girl child and
communication.
The document stands as the African contribution to the
global platform of action to be presented to the
UN-sponsored Fourth Global Conference on Women, scheduled to
be held next September in Beijing.
Delegates said that girl children in Africa face
discrimination from birth, receiving less care from their
parents, poor nutrition and unequal access to education.
They said the burdens of such discrimination pressure girls
to start work at an early age or enter into early marriages.
The delegates also stressed access to information,
communications and the arts as a central requirement of
women's empowerment.
Several delegates complained that much of the information
available fails to reflect the real needs of most African
women, especially in poor or rural areas where illiteracy is
most prevalent. They called for promotion of literacy
programs and alternative forms of media designed to reach
non-readers.
Other areas of the platform dealt with war and peace,
alleviation of poverty, food security, improved health,
access to family planning services, human rights, female
circumcision, violence against women, migration, and
gender-disaggregated statistical data.
The conference was attended by more than 5,000 women from 54
different countries.