EDITORIAL: Common dilemma - common cause (06/18/00)

EDITORIAL

Common dilemma - common cause

New York can make one jaded about numbers: a million people lining the streets for a parade, a half million in Central Park gather to hear a rock concert - what's an additional 10,000 at the United Nations? Yet that number participated in the recent United Nations special session on the status of women throughout the world, known as "Beijing+5." If one listened closely to the more than 200 presentations given during the four days and attended even a few of the special panels, it was possible to get a concentrated and fascinating glimpse of what is happening to women in every corner of the globe. And in every corner of the world women had united into trans-national coalitions and organizations to solve similar problems.

The panels and country reports on the status of women offered an astounding array of information: dismal - 1.2 billion people in the world live on less than $1 per day and three-fifths of these are women and children; shocking - black markets exist in Asia and Africa where parents sell their girl children for sex and labor; intriguing - women who are not allowed to leave their homes unescorted in some Muslim countries are receiving an education through computers via distance-learning; overwhelming - in some African countries one in four people is infected with the deadly HIV/AIDS virus, decimating entire generations; positive - since the mid-1980s the number of women in political office in Latin America and Western Europe has increased dramatically; and desperately depressing - according to the report by Austria's delegate, approximately 500,000 women each year, seeking employment abroad, are lured out of Central and East European countries under false pretenses to Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America as part of the worldwide prostitution trade (the United States estimates that approximately 50,000 of these women arrive here annually).

This flight of women from their countries for economic reasons illustrates the dilemma that the East European countries present for the United Nations. The U.N. Division of Statistics includes Ukraine and 19 other East European countries in their category of "developed regions." However, the term "transition country" is used by the U.N. Development Fund for Women - and probably better reflects Ukraine's true status.

The official U.N. poverty level is $360 per year - below that is considered destitution - "the poorest of poor" in U.N. parlance. The average salary in Ukraine is only about $800 per year, not exactly a huge leap from the edge of poverty. However, this level of poverty does not make sense given the high level of education obtained by most people in Ukraine. In U.N. equations, increased levels of education usually lead to increased levels of well-being.

A highly educated, literate and trained population and a fairly sophisticated social and political infrastructure combined with economic crisis is a common phenomenon throughout all of Eastern Europe. And, as is common to most economic crises, the brunt in all these countries is being borne by the women and children.

Listening to the reports, it became clear that despite progress or steps taken in any one country, because of interdependence and borders, these countries would rise and fall as a region. However, it was also clear that the women of Eastern Europe, unlike women from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, even Europe and North America, were not used to working together, had no regional coalition, told a similar tale, but one by one. The next special session is scheduled for 2005. Let's hope that the women of Eastern Europe recognize their common dilemma and create a coalition that tells their tale, hopefully a better one by then, in unity.

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