Fourteen Thousand Women Meet: Report from Nairobi, July 1985

Abstract

In 1975, International Women's Year, the United Nations (UN) held a world conference in New Mexico whereby 1975-85 was inaugurated as Women's Decade. This was followed by a mid-decade conference held in Copenhagen in 1980 and f1nally, in 1985, End of Women's Decade was marked by an ofElcial conference and a Non-governmental Organizations (NGO) Forum. Fourteen thousand women from 151 countries attended the NGO Forum, while 6,000 delegates from world governments attended the conference in Nairobi in July 1985. The NGO Forum covered over l,000 workshops, numerous panel discussions, press conferences, films and videos and masses of information from all over the world. Attendance at the Forum was open to all non-governmental organizations and with prior arrangements women, and even men, could use some space for their workshops or other activities. In many instances, however, adequate rooms were not allocated to some groups; for example, SWAPO women were allocated a tiny room for their workshop which about 300 women attended. Many groups found themselves without space or facilities for distribution of their literature and publicity for their activities. For example, the Migrant, Immigrant and Refugee Women's delegation from Britain, of which I was part, had to hold their workshop in the open space and publicize it themselves. As the UN was the organizer of the Forum, UN-supported organizations and 'unoff1cial' delegates supported by their governments were guaranteed adequate space and resources. In theory the NGO Forum was for non-governmental organizations and their representativese There were, however, a large number of delegates who claimed to be 'unofElcial' but who were, in fact, official delegates since they represented the one and only legal political party or women's organization in their country and were heavily financed and supported by their government. The participation of Iranian women delegates from the only legal women's organization in Iran, called Hezballahi (Party of God), put the safety of exiled Iranian women at risk. For example, a woman vvas attacked by one of the male