the beijing declaration and platform for actions serve as an important action plan for women s right gender equality and female empowerment all over the globe we must always say it loud and clear that human rights are universal and gender equality as an expression of those rights is universal as well so women s rights are human rights no philosophical political religious or other reasons can justify the violation of these fundamental ideals and this is the type of globalization that we have to value to the utmost much progress has been made since the bejing conference and it is important to mention it because it serves as the foundation for the next steps we have to take we know that the progress that we have made is far from uniform in some countries women have reached very highlevel positions while in others there are few spaces for them to work or to participate in civic affairs and they do suffer a lot of discrimination