WO=MEN in Istanbul

dinsdag 1 mei 2012

Possibility of a fifth UN World Conference on Women in 2015

On the 8^th of March 2012 participants at the Commission on the Status of Women session in New York were taken by surprise by the UN Secretary General’s announcement that a fifth World Conference on Women should be held in 2015. No prior consultations were held on this. It is currently up to individual governments to respond whether they wish to go ahead or not. (Read earlier blogposts on the CSW by WO=MEN on womeninnewyork.blogpost.com in Dutch and English.)

Participants at the AWID Forum deliberated about the pro's and con's of such an event.

The majority expressed serious concerns about a conference process that will inevitably require an outcome document in the current context with no agreed conclusions at the 2012 CSW and persistent backtracking on language and documents agreed upon in the past.

If a conference was to be held, the emphasis should be on the need to implement the Beijing Platform for Action and adequate resourcing of this agenda. A comparison was made with the Cairo + 20 process, that focuses on an implementation document and has already agreed that the Cairo Agenda remains valid beyond 2014.

Another concern relates to the issue of resources, in a resource scarce context, that a process of national, regional and continental consultations along the lines of the preparations for Beijing in 1995 would require. It is unlikely that the generous funding that was provided at the time of the Beijing Conference can be raised again, taking the example of UN Women that at present has not yet been able to secure the level of funding aspired when it finally got established.

By and large it was felt that the way the UN tends to organize these processes is an outdated, costly model and not appealing to younger generations of women across the globe.

Participants however did question whether there is a way to turn the process of a fifth World Conference on Women around into an energizing and demand setting process at levels where change and progress towards equality is most urgent and relevant. This will require strategic and creative thinking on modes and models, including possible roles for a 2015 AWID Forum, a 2015 Latin American Feminist Encuentro and other feminist/women’s gatherings elsewhere.

The year 2015 will also mark the likely establishment of a new development framework as the successor to the Millennium Development Goals. Inclusion of the agenda of women’s rights and gender justice has far from been secured into the process for this new framework. At the AWID Forum the younger generations did not turn up for the caucus sessions on 2015, a sign in itself?

Ireen Dubel

Hivos

maandag 23 april 2012

Anecdote from the AWID Forum, by Marjan Wijers

Today was the last day of AWID, which closed with a March for women's rights. I had never imagined myself demonstrating at the Taksim square in Istanbul but there I was, proudly carrying my red umbrella in solidarity with sex workers demanding their human and labour rights, surrounded by African and other women protesting against forced sterilisation, singing and shouting slogans, and chatting with Turkish women who spontaneously joined the March.

The closure of an intense, inspiring and by times chaotic 3 days running from session to session, while in between trying to set up meetings and talk with old and new colleagues from all over the world. Perhaps the most hilarious and revealing story I heard was from one of the Indian sex workers about the new "rehabilitation" program. Instead of a sewing machine, the traditional way of "saving" sex workers, Renahu was given a buffalo. The buffalo was supposed to give milk, the milk she could sell at the market, and she could stop doing sex work. So Renahu happily took the buffalo home with her. However, soon she discovered that the buffalo needed to eat. So now she had to do double sex work: to feed herself and to feed the buffalo. But the buffalo did not give much milk. No problem, she was told, the buffalo just needs to have a baby and then she will give milk. But how does the buffalo get a baby? You have to take it to Rama, who has a man buffalo, and then she can have a baby. So she took the buffalo to Rama, but of course that came not for free. So, Renahu said, now I have to do three times sex work: to pay for my own food, to pay for the food of the buffalo and to pay for the buffalo to have sex! Renahu tied up the buffalo and brought it back to where it came from. And that was the end of the story of the buffalo.

Marjan Wijers, Rights4Change

zondag 22 april 2012

Some inspiring events of the final Forum day

A session of the young feminist fund FRIDA (Flexibility Resources Inclusion Diversity Action) about supporting Young Feminist Activism attracted many young women from all over the world. From Indigenous Peruvian young women, LGBT activists from Eastern Europe, active Nicaraguan feminists, young women from the MENA region, activists from Canada, the US, Hong Kong, India and Pakistan: Everybody was very excited about this new AWID initiative for young feminists. The FRIDA fund received 1000 applications of young feminist groups and young women's organisations from 120 different countries.

In the afternoon, a workshop was organised for these young activists in the Economic Education Area on how to identify sites of power for mobilising social change and political movements.

The WIDE + network hosted an intense session on the European crisis, with speakers from Italy, Greece, Spain and Germany. 'The crisis is moving North'.

Key words: Austerity policies, devaluation of money and labour, cutting wages, dept, losing democracy and (national) economic autonomy, insecurity, rise of racism, polarisation and inequalities. Moreover: the necessity for feminists to engage in the discussion on what kind of state we want as feminists and how we define our European citizenship.

And last but not least: Sign making for the evening March with Women's Organizations based in Turkey! : )

Esther Goedendorp

March with Turkish women's movement

Last evening @ AWID Forum - The March:

Defending Our Human’s Rights, Demanding Political, Economic,
and Social Justice

= Photo's by Joni van de Sand, Esther Goedendorp

and Stephanie Dauphin =

Economics of Domestic Violence

Sunday evening in Istanbul. On my bed in my small hotel in sultanamed and listening to the calls for prayer from the different mosques around. Hard to believe but the AWID conference is over. With a few hugs and kisses we said goodbye to our friends that came from around the world to attend the conference just like us. It is a bitter sweet feeling. It was wonderful to see them all again, but when will Renu from Nepal and I have a chance to cross paths again? Will I get the opportunity to work with Shalini from India on the project we hope to get of the ground?

Anara from Kyrgyzstan, Christelle from South Africa and I, came two Istanbul two days before the start of AWID to work out the details of our panel on the economics of Domestic Violence. We were given a small space with 27 chairs and a time slot which was the last panel in the programme before the closing ceremony. So we were not to sure if we could count on having much of an audience. We decided at the last minute to make some small flyers and handed those out around the forum, and of course we emailed and tweeted the announcement of the panel. At the starting time of our panel at two o clock, a few people arrived but 15 minutes later the room filled up and we ended up having people sitting on the floor and window sills.

In our panel we wanted to hear from the participants how people felt about the interplay between economics and Domestic Violence. When we did a quick canvasing of the room, we found that the participants came from all over the world and many of the worked directly in the topic of ending Domestic Violence. We presented the group with a number of controversial statements such as: If an abused women (or other victim of Domestic Violence) would have access to financial safety measures, she would leave a violent relationship immediately.

After a lively debate we concluded that while a financial safety net can help, especially if a victim/survivor is committed to staying out of the violent relationship. But many other factors play a role. A colleague from Ecuador shared that in his country women are often the main or only breadwinner in the family and due to societies pressures will take care of a husband and partner, even is he is violent and does not contribute to the household finances. In many countries the losing of the important status of married women and mother, is a barrier to leave a violent relationship. Victims feel shame, lack awareness of their rights to live without violence and sometime do not even have access to banking to start saving for financial Independence.

We had a lively debate with all the participants about several other statements. It is clear that many governments are cutting services to victims of Domestic Violence using the economic crisis at a reason they have to cut. As one participant put it "We should not allow our governments to use the excuse of the economic crisis to stop the work to end Domestic Violence".

The details of our panel will be made available in a report that we will share with all the participants and we even plan to stay in touch by list serv. All the participants agreed, there is not enough sharing of knowledge and developing political messages around the theme of Domestic Violence. On issues like sexual health and rights quite a few international networks and opportunities to do cross boundary learning exist, that is not yet the case for Domestic Violence.

Having such a well attended panel made the whole AWID experience even more fulfilling. Now I can only hope that I will be lucky enough to be able to attend the next AWID forum in 3 years time.

Loeky Droesen

The floor to Afghan women!

The message brought forward by four women’s rights activists and leaders from Afghanistan during their solidarity roundtable session was:

'Progress yes, but we still need your support'

I was happily surprised by the overall positive note the women shared about the achievements and advancement of women’s rights in Afghanistan. I might even have been listening ‘’live’’ to the next Afghanistan president, Fawzia Koofi, a female politician running for office in 2014. She told about the different positions Afghan women nowadays are claiming more and more in their society. Today they can be, and are, journalist, lawyers, politicians and active participants in the public sphere and the media. And their rights are increasingly becoming acknowledged, at least in legislative ways. The Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law from 2009 identifies issues that were considered taboos before, now as crimes. The law criminalizes the physical beating and rape of women, forced marriage, the practice of baad, forced self-burning and other forms of violence against women. According to Maria Bashir, the chief prosecutor of Herat province, the law is currently implemented in the police force in the form of trainings and sensitising police officers on these issues. Already many cases under this law have been referred to court and there have been convictions. Yet from the latter just a few. She admitted that this political and legislative process is going slowly but that there is positive change for women.

Unfortunately there is also a negative side and that is the gap between policy and practice and the challenges that lie ahead. Manizha Naderi, executive director of Women for Afghan Women, spoke of the beatings, harassment, torture and other forms of violence against women that are still widespread. Throughout the country she runs shelters for women victims and informs them and their families about their rights. According to her the existence of the EVAW law is to be applauded but it is still very far from being truly and nationwide implemented and enforced. This is only one of the many challenges the government and the women’s movement face today. For all women voiced their concerns about what is troubling them deeply: the U.S. peace negotiations with the Taliban. They fear that if the Taliban will play any role whatsoever in power or a new government, all the progress that has been made with regard to their rights will be for nothing. There is a firm belief that the Taliban will easily throw away and trample women’s rights like they did before. And then all of the bloodshed and struggles of their sisters have been in vain.

So yes, progress has been made but if these women want to continue with the advancement and realization of their rights they need our support; from the international community, from the donors and from the human rights and women’s rights defenders and activists!

Stephanie Dauphi!n