It is hard to imagine that anyone, even the women who worked so hard to make it happen, anticipated that the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights would bring women's human rights to center stage in world human rights discussions. The impact of the Vienna Declaration has been felt in almost every country in the world. Women have worked in their own communities and traveled to Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul, Rome and many other places where the UN and other international bodies were meeting, to demand that women's human rights be taken seriously. Although the nations of the world may have agreed to language on women's human rights at the world conferences, there is still a long road ahead before the commitments are fully realized. There is still a wide gap between rhetoric and reality.
Women have a right to freedom from violence .
During the 90 's, women raised the level of awareness worldwide about violence against women. The United Nations Human Rights Commission now has a Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. Still, a woman is beaten by her current or former intimate partner in the United States every 15 seconds. Battered women's shelters and other voluntary systems of care and assistance are critical but only part of the solution. New structural and institutional mechanisms must be put in place.