WITH the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women a year away, Hong Kong women's groups are preparing a report on local women's status that looks set to put them at odds with the Government at the mammoth event in Beijing next September.
Two conferences will take place in Beijing simultaneously, one attended by government representatives from around the globe and the other by delegates from non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Thirty thousand people are expected to attend the event which takes place once every 10 years.
Around 20 local delegates will attend the NGO conference from the coalition of women's groups formed last November to prepare for the conference. The coalition, which initially began with eight groups, has now grown to 14.
The coalition will challenge the report submitted by the Government to the United Nations in their own report on Hong Kong to the conference.
In December 1992, a Green Paper was published on whether Hong Kong should sign the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In June this year the Government submitted its Hong Kong Report to the United Nations at a meeting in Jakarta.
Lily Lau Lee-lee, acting chairperson of the Association for the Advancement of Feminism, one of the coalition group members said: 'The Hong Kong report was not that different from the Green Paper. The report failed to mention the situation of women in the New Territories, or why in education, the higher the level, the less women there are,' Ms Lau said.
