Wash Rag Issue 3.4 October 1995 A TIME TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT! NGO '95 BEIJING, CHINA The NGO Forum associated with the 1995 United Nations 4th World Conference on Women was certainly a time one cannot possibly forget. We did get a lot out of the workshops that took place. Every one I went to was excellent. I don't dwell on the discomfort of standing in the parking lot of the convention center in the rain for an hour and a half with close to 1,000 other women waiting to get in to see Hillary Clinton, only to find out that the 1,500 seat auditorium was already full, and apparently tickets were given out to selected persons without telling the rest of us not to bother to come, a cowardly act to be sure. Some said that the auditorium was filled with media, but I sort of doubt that there were 1,500 reporters in Huairou. And if there were, seats at a NGO Plenary should have gone to members of NGO's. I don't think that we can blame that one on the China Organizing Committee. I prefer to remember the African women at the Grass Roots Tent (my favorite place to go when nothing else was going on) telling about their projects all over Africa, helping women to gain status and independence. I remember with great pleasure their enthusiastic song and dance after the presentation. I think instead about the Pakistani women telling about the problems of working women in Pakistan, and being amazed that sexual harassment was the same in Pakistan as it is in the United States. I prefer to remember the excitement of the Japanese women discussing their first sexual harassment case and their pride in the decision that they got for the victim. And I wished that women in the United States would do as they did, and form a support group for the victim, helping her with everything from legal fees to personal problems. I was very interested in the workshop on fund raising given by an American woman living in Moscow, although I didn't think she so much addressed the problems of feminists trying to raise funds, but was more helpful to individuals trying to get loans from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. I'm sure that many present benefited from her advice. But I was especially interested in the workshop on getting the media to work for you given by two Irish members of Amnesty International. It was so excellent, I think some of their ideas must have rubbed off on me, as I came home, contacted the media about some video I took at the Great Wall of China, and amazed myself by getting interviewed by KSFY. So out of eleven workshops I tried to attend, I actually attended four given by the presenters, a dismal record to be sure. Of the other seven, it took me a week to find one of the "tents" , mostly because it was not where it should have been according to the map, but partly because it wasn't really in a tent at all, but some kind of a balloon contraption, and for the other six, the presenters simply didn't show up. After going to several that did not take place, I was enchanted by one at which one of the attendees got up after fifteen minutes and asked if there were any presenters there, and when nobody came forward, said she was tired of going to workshops where nothing happened, and held the workshop herself. I was so impressed that the next day, I did the same thing. I felt somewhat responsible, since the Minnesota NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund was the Panel, sort of close to home, and the subject was "Job Discrimination, Sexual Harassment & Retaliation." Everyone just introduced themselves and told why they had come to the NGO Forum, and then we just discussed the three parts of the title subject, and afterwards a number of people, including a Chinese pediatrician, came up to thank me for taking over. So you heard it here first, folks, Moi held a workshop at the NGO Forum in Beijing, China, which was something I never thought I would do in my lifetime. Of course, I will never forget climbing the Great Wall of China, nor the spectacular beauty of China on the drive to the Ming Tombs, the feeling of insignificance in the Forbidden City, the serenity of the Summer Palace, the beauty of Lake Yan Xi and our hotel in the early morning before we boarded the bus for Huairou, the charm of the Panda Bears at the Beijing Zoo, nor the precious Chinese children there with their moms and dads. My real contribution was to collect the attached names and addresses of women who came to the workshops on sexual harassment, and I will mail it to one woman in each country who is supposed to pass it on to her country-women. If this is not possible, she should inform me or pass it on to another of them. In any case, I would like to hear from anybody who received this in a foreign country (a post card would be fine) so I know that the list is being passed on. Otherwise, I will have to do another mailing to another person in that country. A warning regarding China: addresses must be in Chinese. I have business cards for many of the women, and can copy them for anybody who wishes to mail to them. Please send SASE if interested. Apologies for the copy, My Lotus 123 Word Processor was behaving atrociously, and in some cases refused to make corrections, so I had to resort to paste up from my Publisher to get all of the addresses correct. **************************** The WASH RAG is published by Women Against Sexual Harassment, P. O. Box 505, Hudson, South Dakota 57034-0505. ISSN 1068-2449. Subscription price is $10.00 a year, International $15.00. Copyright 1995 Tesseract Publications.