CAIRO, February 27, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will kick off Monday, February 28, a controversial session to review implementations of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2000 Beijing +5 Declaration.

The 49th session, which will run until March 11, will be attended by ministers and other high-level representatives from over 100 countries and thousands of non-government organizations (NGOs), according to the UN Web site.

The Beijing Platform for Action, and Beijing +5 Declaration are controversial because they promote what conservatives see as a radical feminist agenda, including abortion on demand as a woman’s right.

The documents have never been fully accepted by many governments, according to the Catholic News Service.

CSW declarations are not binding, but they do shape policies and budgets

The work program of the CSW’s session will focus on national-level implementation of the two documents through interactive dialogue and exchange of good practices, according to the UN Web site.

The meeting will examine a report based on surveys by 135 countries of the progress they have made in promoting gender equality and the challenges they still face in carrying out the commitments made in the Beijing documents.

The report covers twelve critical areas, including women and poverty, education, health, violence against women, armed conflict, economic opportunity, decision-making, human rights, media, environment, the girl child and the mechanisms established by governments to promote gender equality.

Other issues covered by the report include trafficking in women and girls, HIV/AIDS, indigenous women, information and communications technology, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the role of men and boys.

Most troubling to conservatives was an attempt by the commission to produce a non-negotiable outcome document before the conference even started.

The proposed outcome would tie the Beijing documents to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said the Catholic News Service.

It added that the MDGs are seen as “an aspirational and largely non-controversial list of ways in which countries resolved to improve the world in the new century.”

However, sources at United Families International, a conservative NGO, told IslamOnline.net Sunday, February 27, that the US insisted on a proposal that forced the outcome document to be negotiated.

Conservative Muslim and Christian NGOs say that the Beijing documents and the related Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) weaken the family by taking women out of the context of their roles within families.

Such NGOs also maintain that the feminization of poverty would be reduced if marriages were strengthened and extramarital affairs discouraged.

CEDAW and the CEDAW Committee that sees to its enforcement also promote laws and policies that contradict Islamic Shari`ah.

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