Registration closed weeks ago as a result
of overwhelming interest. The last few days, sending an e-mail to someone
active in gender equality and women’s rights often resulted in an out-of-office
reply: “I am in Istanbul,
be back in a few days.” Today the day has finally arrived: the opening session
of the 12th AWID Forum at the Halic Congress Center, Istanbul, Turkey.
2250 participants from 140 countries, aging
from 12 years old to 80+ years young. Women from all walks of life, wearing
colorful dresses, T-shirt and jeans, ethnic prints. Carrying around the
Latin-America style Forum-goody bag. Chatting, standing in line for coffee/tea, studying the extensive Forum programme. How many women/how
many men? We don’t know. But its clear that women form the overall majority (#understatement). According to
trend-watcher Jan Reynders (WO=MEN member), there are fewer men present (“maximum 30”)
in comparison to the last Forum in
South Africa in 2010.
Language diversity during sessions is also a relatively new
development. Moderator
Lina Abou-Habib (CRTD-A) from Lebanon and later Gita Sen (DAWN) from India spoke in English,
Lydia Aplizar (Director of AWID) spoke in Spanish, Ipek Ilkkaracan Ajas 9Istanbul Technical University) in Turkish, Bochra Bel Hadj Hmida (Spreme Court) from Tunisia in French. Many of us in the public of the
Auditorium had to make a run for it to get a head-set, with translations in
Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Russian and Turkish.
Lydia Alpizar, Director of AWID, thanked
the donors for recognizing the importance of spaces for dialogue. She also called for tolerance and making this a safe
space. Surprisingly, apparently last Forum edition there had been cases of intolerance related to
homophobia and xenophobia. Her request for support was welcomed with applause from hands raised high up in the air. In the following posts our bloggers will share some of the inspiring quotes from the speakers.
= Joni van de Sand =
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