In honor of International Women's Day, the United Nations presented the world with a first-of-its-kind video conference, allowing groups around the globe to view a series of speakers and presentations broadcast from the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Forty members of the Duke community-mostly women-gathered in the Medical Center to watch yesterday's conference, titled "A World Free of Violence Against Women."
The 90-minute event relayed to audience members the universality of this problem. "During this century, we have learned that enjoyment of human rights is essential to the well-being and development of the individual, the community and the world," said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. "Still, women are denied their human rights."
Organized by the U.N. Development Fund for Women, the conference brought in speakers via satellite from Strasbourg, France; Mexico City, Mexico; Nairobi, Kenya; and New Delhi, India.
The conference used the program's global focus as a jumping-off point to explore situations which perpetuate violence against women: First-hand survivors and world-renowned activists addressed domestic, religious, economic and wartime cases.
While some speakers looked to political pressure to end this violence, others emphasized the need for more legislation. Dr. Nafis Sadik, executive director of the U.N. Fund for Population Activities, has been working to ban female genital mutilation, a practice performed on two million African women each year.
"This is a horrific example of the institutionalized repression of women using culture and religion to perpetuate it," she said. "We need to ensure that all countries ban this practice. Direct action is required; we must be more aggressive."
The conference also celebrated the progress that has been made since violence against women has come to the forefront of human rights campaigns. Indeed, audience members in the Medical Center were pleased by the conference's overall positive spin.
"I think this is a good starting place.... It's a way to gauge how far things have come," said Carrie Johnson, a Trinity freshman and president of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, one of the gathering's sponsors.
The Women's Center and the Program in Women's Studies also helped organize the event, which marked the inaugural celebration of International Women's Day at the University.
Although Johnson said she was pleased by the turnout, she expressed disappointment about the makeup of the audience, which was composed of many people already well-versed in some of the problems addressed.
"It's a wonderful way to bring awareness," Johnson said. "Unfortunately, the people who came already knew about what is going on."
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