Fifteen Years after Beijing: Platform for Action at the Crossroads

What does Beijing Platform for Action mean for women today? Which elements of its language, which goals of the documents became part of the women’s movement at local, national, and global levels of activism? When asked to evaluate the importance of the Platform for Action, some activists of the women’s movement have a hard time pinpointing the exact effect that the document had on their work. Women who are not active members of the feminist movement agree without hesitation that they did not even know the document existed. Does it mean that the Platform for Action, agreed upon in 1995, and considered the most revolutionary international manifesto of the support for women’s rights is now outdated? Has the document that initiated the presence of the women’s organizations within the international public space has the special value only for the first generations of women’s NGOs but is meaningless for the younger women?

The Heinrich Boell Foundation commissioned a study that indicates what is the influence and perception of the Beijing Platform for Action in Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.