Mongella was interviewed by reporters from China Women's News. Photo by Yan Yuye
“Thirty years after the Beijing conference, you've done quite a lot.
I can see so many women leading institutions, participating in decision making and working in the industrial sector. You can use the new technologies and you can use the digital knowledge. I think it's a great change we have to learn from China, and that's why I call upon the Chinese women to really integrate with the whole world, to work together, because you are really ahead of time.
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Author: Yan Yuye, Gao Yue
Editor: Xiang Tiange
With the Global Leaders' Meeting on Women convening on Oct 13, Gertrude Mongella, secretarygeneral of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women held in the metropolis 30 years ago and attended by about 17,000 participants, visited Beijing again.
What impressed Mongella most about the grand gathering was the hospitality of the Chinese people, their discipline for work, and the commitment they made to the Fourth World Conference on Women. She is heartened to witness China's steady advancement of women's causes “on the right track” for the past thirty years.
“Thirty years after the Beijing conference, you've done quite a lot. I can see so many women leading institutions, participating in decision making and working in the industrial sector. You can use the new technologies and you can use the digital knowledge. I think it's a great change we have to learn from China, and that's why I call upon the Chinese women to really integrate with the whole world, to work together, because you are really ahead of time,” Mongella said. As observed by her, women across all sectors in China are truly living up to the Chinese saying that they “hold up half the sky”.
Mongella once described the Fourth World Conference on Women as “the largest and most effective UN world conference on women so far”, which for the first time clearly defined 12 critical areas of concern. She believes that some of the issues have been achieved, but there is still a lot that remains to be done because the world today is different. Scientific and technological advancement is driving a profound transformation across the globe.
She regards the current meeting as a crucial opportunity to further implement the Platform for Action. “I came here thirty years ago as a young woman, and now as a grandma, and I'm happy to be back in Beijing.”
“We have seen what we have been able to do and where we need to do more,” Mongella told China Women's News. She has long been dedicated to women's rights and has rich experience in promoting African integration. When she went back to Africa after the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, she was able to deliver the messages from the conference throughout Africa. She stated “I should take the message from here again”. She also calls for delegates who attend the 2025 Global Leaders' Meeting on Women to “take homework back home”.
“Everybody should take the message from here, bring it home and make sure that we meet the right people to put the changes into our systems or the parliaments,” said Mongella.
Mongella expressed her concern that technological advancement and digital application could further marginalize women. She believes the 2025 Global Leaders' Meeting on Women will provide people with an opportunity to assess how these new technological development changes are going to affect gender equality.
To prevent technology from creating new gender gaps, she encourages women to utilize their intellectual capacity and get trained not only to use technologies but to develop new technologies. She calls for Chinese and African women to work together to exchange new ideas and new scientific knowledge, stressing that technology is very important because it will take unprivileged women out of poverty.
“If we are left behind and only use technology, it's not going to move us ahead. We also have to be creators,” she said.
“AI is a new technology, we don't know how much it's going to affect society. Are we destroying ourselves by the use of new technologies? Or are we going ahead and advancing because of the new technologies? ”
For the young women worldwide striving to change their destinies, the most important belief she wishes to pass on is to “work hard to be educated to your maximum capacity”.
“Without opening up the human brain you can never compete. Who knows things before you were born? Try as much as possible to learn and move on to the next stage.”
Mongella points out gender equality would benefit both women and men. “Sometimes men feel that if the women become powerful, their power will be reduced. But I tell them: if your daughter, your mother, your grandma... has strengths! What's wrong with that?”
Mongella calls for all women to work together to meet the targets of the Platform for Action. “The problems we are discussing have been there for centuries. And you can't expect them to change overnight,” she said, believing there are no quick fixes to these challenges, but she remains firmly optimistic that sustained effort from all will lead to a brighter future.