When the moment of agreement finally came at 3 a.m., bleary-eyed delegates erupted into whoops and cheers on the floor of Nairobi's cavernous Jomo Kenyatta International Conference Center. After almost two weeks of often bitter debate, delegations from 160 countries managed a relatively harmonious conclusion to a conference marking the end of the United Nations Decade for Women. A series of compromises enabled the conference to adopt unanimously a document of "forward-looking strategies" for women that avoided ideological extremes. "The U.N. won in spite of itself," said Delegate Rosario Manalo of the Philippines, "and it took women to do it."
Until the final hours last week, 13 of the document's 372 paragraphs remained unresolved, and it appeared that the conference was destined to become a replay of many U.N. meetings, including the Decade's contentious kickoff meeting in Mexico City in 1975 and its politically charged midpoint conclave in Copenhagen in 1980. But one by one, divisive issues were ironed out. One of the most sensitive of these was defused when the host Kenyan delegation succeeded in removing language equating Zionism with racism. "I said I was coming home with a document that did not have Zionism in it," said President Reagan's daughter Maureen, head of the 29-member U.S. delegation. "And I did."
In all, the U.S. delegation voted no on three sections of the document: one blaming women's unequal status on developed countries' refusal to redistribute the world's wealth, another calling for economic sanctions against South Africa, and a third criticizing Israel's occupation of the West Bank. These votes, coupled with abstentions by other Western countries, succeeded in changing only the first of the disputed paragraphs. But that may not have been the primary objective anyway. The trio of negative votes, shrugged one member of the U.S. delegation, "was for the people back home." The same issues kept the U.S. from signing the final document at the Copenhagen meeting. But in Nairobi, the U.S. seemed determined, if possible, to lend its imprimatur to the conference's concluding report. Said Delegate Reagan before the final vote: "My No. 1 concern is to have a document adopted by consensus that will give a legacy for ten or 15 years."
Indeed, the delegates' almost frenzied effort to complete their work and not let the conference collapse in discord reflected the nearly universal feeling that the Nairobi meeting represented an important step toward an international women's movement. For most of the participants, the gathering created a synergy that transcended the protests and the eye-glazing speeches. Women not only shared their common experience of oppression and inequity but reveled in positive personal qualities: determination, humor, intelligence. Many felt that it would only be a matter of time before "the spirit of Nairobi" would translate into action back home. "There has been tremendous change," said Chafika Sellami-Meslem, an Algerian who served as deputy secretary-general of the conference. "Women's issues can no longer be dismissed by the governments of the world, and it would not have happened without the Decade."