1、英语演讲稿美国20世纪最伟大的演讲35Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton英语演讲稿美国20世纪最伟大的演讲35Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton Hillary Rodham ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonRemarks to the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Sessiondelivered 5 September 1995, Beijing, ChinaMrs. Mongella, Under Secretary Kittani, distinguished
2、delegates and guests:I would like to thank the Secretary General of the United Nations for inviting me to be a part of the United Nations Fourth World Conference of Women. This is truly a celebration - a celebration of the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in
3、 their communities, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens and leaders.It is also a coming together, much of the way women come together ever day in every country.We come together in fields and in factories. We come together in village markets and supermarkets. We come to
4、gether in living rooms and board rooms. Whether it is while playing with our children in the park, or washing clothes in a river, or taking a break at the office water cooler, we come together and talk about our aspirations and concern. And time and again, our talk turns to our children and our fami
5、lies. However different we may be, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share a common future, and are here to find common ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world. By doing this, we bring new strength and stability to families as
6、 well.By gathering in Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues that matter most in the lives of women and their families: access to education, health care, jobs and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal and human rights and participate fully in the political life of their countries.There
7、 are some who question the reason for this conference.Let them listen to the voices of women in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces.There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to economic and political progress around the globe.Let them look at the women gathered her
8、e and at Huairou - thehomemakers, nurses, teachers, lawyers, policymakers, and women whorun their own businesses.It is conferences like this that compel governments and people everywhere to listen, look and face the worlds most pressing problems.Wasnt it after the womens conference in Nairobi ten ye
9、ars ago that the world focused for the first time on the crisis of domestic violence?Earlier today, I participated in a World Health Organization forum, where government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working on ways to address the health problems of women and girls.Tomorrow, I will at
10、tend a gathering of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. There, the discussion will focus on local - and highly successful - programs that give hard-working women access to credit so they can improve their own lives and the lives of their families.What we are learning around the world is t
11、hat if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations will fl
12、ourishThat is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on our planet has a stake in the discussion that takes place here.Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to women, children, and families. Over the past two-and-a half years, I have h
13、ad the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing women in my own country and around the world.I have met new mothers in Jojakarta and Indonesia, who come together regularly in their village to discuss nutrition, family planning, and baby care.I have met working parents in Denmark who tal
14、k about the comfort they feel in knowing that their children can be cared for in creative, safe, and nurturing after-school centers.I have met women in South Africa who helped lead the struggle to end apartheid and are now helping build a new democracy.I have met with the leading women of the Wester
15、n Hemisphere who are working every day to promote literacy and better health care for the children of their countries.I have met women in India and Bangladesh who are taking out small loans to buy milk cows, rickshaws, thread and other materials to create a livelihood for themselves and their famili
16、es.I have met doctors and nurses in Belarus and Ukraine who are trying to keep children alive in the aftermath of Chernobyl.The great challenge of this Conference is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard.Women comprise more than half the words popul
17、ation. Women are 70% of the worlds poor, and two-thirds of those are not taught to read and write.Women are the primary caretakers for most of the worlds children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued - not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government l
18、eaders.At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries.Women also are dying from diseases that should have been prevent
19、ed or treated. They are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation. They are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers. They are being forced into prostitution, and they are being barred from the band lending office and b
20、anned from the ballot box.Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.As an American, I want to speak up for those women in my own countrywomen who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who cant afford health care or child care,
21、women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes.I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air, and clean airwaves; for older women, some of them widows, who have raised their families and now find their skills and
22、life experiences are not valued in the workplace; for women who are working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, and fast food cooks so that they can be at home during the day with their kids; and for women everywhere who simply dont have time to do everything they are called upon to do each day.Speak
23、ing to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The truth is that most women around the world work bo
24、th inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives.That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her own God-given potential.W
25、e also must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.Our goals for this Conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women to take greater control over their destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments - h
26、ere and around the world - accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights.The international community has long acknowledged - and recently affirmed at Vienna - that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the r
27、ight of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated.Even
28、 in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the worlds refugees. When women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.I believe that, on the eve of a new
29、millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Bejing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss womens rights as separate from human rights.These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. E
30、ven today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear:It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.I
31、t is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.It is a violation of human rights when individual
32、 women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are womens rig
