Clinton talks women at UN summit

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has deplored the omission of women's reproductive rights in the final statement of the UN summit on sustainable development.

In her address to the Rio+20 summit on how to usher in a green economy, Clinton stressed that 'women are essential drivers of sustainable development.'

'I applaud the bold call to action issued here in Rio by UN women and likewise the Rio+20 outcome document devotes a strong section to expanding opportunities for women,' she said.

She voiced satisfaction that the document, expected to be adopted at the end of the summit later Friday, 'endorses sexual and reproductive health and universal access to family planning.'

But she made clear that 'to reach our goals on sustainable development, we also have to ensure women's reproductive rights.'

Reproductive rights include a woman's right to decide the number, timing and spacing of children, the right to voluntarily marry and establish a family, as well as the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

A reference to those rights was included in the original summit draft, but it was dropped in the final version approved Tuesday.

'Women must be empowered to make decisions about whether and when to have children,' the US chief diplomat said, adding that Washington would continue to work 'to ensure that those rights are respected in international agreements.'

On Thursday, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, the summit host, also spoke in support of reproductive rights at a women's mini-summit on the sidelines of the Rio+20 conference.

'I would have liked to see the importance of reproductive rights acknowledged in the outcome from Rio+20,' Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt also said Friday in her address to the summit.

The gathering of 191 UN members caps a 10-day forum marking 20 years since the Earth Summit, where leaders vowed that the world would live within its means.

The final summit draft statement calls f! or 'Sust ainable Development Goals' to replace the UN's Millennium Development Goals from 2015, although defining these objectives will be left for future talks.