5WWC Petition Page
[Click here to Sign the Online Petition]
Background (Preamble):
A UN 5th World Conference on Women (5WCW) would
be the most influential and far-reaching women’s conference ever held. Grassroots
activism and political leadership needs to be mobilized or it
won’t happen.
The 4th conference was held in Beijing in 1995, drew over 40,000 participants, and led to the Beijing Platform for Action, which if implemented would have created a world where women’s rights and human rights were one in the same. The empowerment of women changes priorities: safety for women and children, nutrition, health and education, and concern for the environment are women’s concerns.
With the creation of a UN women’s super agency equivalent to UNICEF for children, authorized by the UN General Assembly in September 2009, it is possible that this new entity could organize a 5th world conference on women in 2015 (instead of a Beijing +20 review). The effect could be synergistic in advancing a women’s agenda. Because this would not be an official UN conference of governments -- but rather a UN -sponsored conference of non-governmental organizations in civil society -- it could not re-open the many excellent official documents already produced by the UN, but would focus on turning them into reality in the lives of women and girls globally.
The 21st century is an era of communication: networking via emails, cellphones and websites, information through youtube and live-stream coverage, simultaneous regional conferences via satellite broadcasting could reach people all over the world. The event would raise consciousness about unconscionable conditions as well as solutions that could focus on the work of NGOs. It would encourage the formation of women’s circles and mobilize a new wave of women’s movement activism. It would inform the world that the Beijing Platform for Action and UN Security Council Resolutions #1325 and its amendments on Women, Peace, & Security--if implemented, would bring about gender equality, end violence toward women and lead to peaceful solutions to conflicts.
A UN 5th women’s conference and the events preceding and following it would create a critical mass, a tipping point of aware and involved women and men.
Information on website: www.5wcw.org.
and in Urgent
Message From Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World by
Jean Shinoda Bolen.
The Petition
TO: United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and the U.N. Secretary-General
PURPOSE: To show worldwide grassroots support for a United Nations sponsored 5th Women's World Conference
STATEMENT: We, the undersigned, call on the UN, 192 member-states & affiliated NGOs to support a 5th World Conference on Women.