The 1995 international conferences on women, held in China, made headlines all over the world. Four SIUC women were there and returned with new insight into the obstacles facing women today.

Beth Firestein, Naseem Ahmed, Elisabeth Reichert and Madlyn Stalls attended a Non-Governmental Forum on Women held Aug. 30-Sept. 8 in Huairou, China, and the United Nations Force World Conference on Women from Sept. 4-14 in Beijing.

One conference was moved to a town located an hour away from Beijing, she said.

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Chinese officials moved the NGO conference to a suburb of Beijing, Firestein, an SIUC counseling psychologist, said. The intent was to limit the visibility and accessibility of the conference members, although it was not stated that way formally.

Firestein said the purpose of the conference was two-fold:first, to influence the development of their global platform for action, and secondly, to promote informal networking among women working on similar issues.

The most important documents and projects for women all over the world are as a result of the previous conferences, Srimati Basu, of Women’s Studies, said. I think individually and collectively the women that represented Southern Illinois wanted to be a part of women’s history being made.

Firestein said about 25,000 women attended the conferences, representing 185 countries.

There was excessive scrutiny in the monitoring of the conference participants, she said, and some people had their personal belongings searched in their rooms.

On the other hand, the Chinese were very good hosts, Firestein said. The people I met were really wonderful, intelligent people. It is very important to separate the policies of the government from the people of China.

One of the more publicized presentations was given by Hillary Clinton, but Ahmed was unable to attend because of the large crowds.

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We had to wait two hours in the rain only to have them tell us that there was no more room inside, she said.

Ahmed said the Chinese television stations downplayed the event, and newspapers merely stated that Hillary Clinton spoke at the conference without stating what she said.

Ahmed, research project specialist at SIUC, had taken part in a panel discussion on violence at the 1985 women’s conference in Nairobi, Kenya, and compared changes that have occurred in the conferences over the years.

I have observed what is happening to violence issues in the past decade, she said. Women are now breaking down violence into many areas of concern, such as prison violence, family violence, etc., whereas before, the topic would be discussed as a whole.

Firestein, who was a delegate representative for the Association of Women in Psychology, said she was a presenter for a panel discussion on United States Feminist Perspectives on the Psychology of Trauma and spoke to more than 70 audience members in a room with a capacity of 50.

I was serving on the panel with two other women who also gave papers on the topic, she said. It was a very international discussion, and I think it was very successful.

I think and feel that down the road, we have had an impact of women in the policies of China in years to come, Ahmed said. That will be a critical factor in world politics.