A powerful discussion on the global women's movement facilitated by Ms Braema Mathi, President of AWARE, and Ms Harmin Kaur, Chairperson, Youth @ AWARE.

This powerful discussion included exclusive video footage of "The Vienna Tribunal"  - which highlighted the moving and gut-wrenching personal stories of women from around the world who challenged world leaders at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, 1993,  to finally "address these violations for the gross human rights violations that they are".

A particularly significant development from the Vienna declaration that women's rights are human rights, is the way in which the Platform for Action at the IV World conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 became virtually an agenda about human rights of women. This signalled the successful mainstreaming of women's rights as human rights. At the Beijing Platform for Action held in 1995, governments agreed to address discrimination against women and take strong measures to promote women's equality and human rights.

Ten years later, women continue to face many of the same problems raised in Beijing as well as many new concerns. It is time, at the ten-year review of Beijing in 2005, to hold governments accountable for the promises they made, and to push for progress on emerging obstacles to women's equality.

Hence the session also focused on a presentation by Braema Mathi who attended the Beijing+10 review held early this year in New York. She gave a presentation of the progress of the various countries involved, in particular Singapore, and how the countries have progressed 10 years on. She discussed what more NGOs can do to work with the government to address the concerns raised at this convention.