Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights

Prior to the UN General Assembly's 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women and the 1994 decision by the UN's Conference on Population and Development to vault women's reproductive rights and health to the forefront of its global population growth management program, there was little consensus among governments as to what constituted violence against women and how much control a woman should have over reproduction. Jutta Joachim tells the story of how, in the years leading up to these decisions, women's organizations got savvy--framing the issues strategically, seizing political opportunities in the international environment, and taking advantage of mobilizing structures--and overcame the cultural opposition of many UN-member states to broadly define the two issues and ultimately cement women's rights as an international cause.

Jutta M. Joachim is an associate professor with the Institute of Political Science at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany