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 

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

Activism @ Forum

Freedom of expression @ Young Feminist Corner

Goodies to buy

Kids wearing WO=MEN button

Need a taxi? Go for a female driver!

Dance, dance, dance I say!

Transsexual bodies photo exhibition

Somewhere in a hallway

Deceased women's human rights defenders

Wishing tree

Invest in women

= Joni van de Sand = 

Brave new world

Welcome to a brave new world
where economy is not rocket science
where women’s empowerment is the rule
and partriarchy the exception

Welcome to a brave new world
where equality tames the beast of
macro militarism,
green economics,
unabated violence,
abject poverty,
relentless capitalism
where equity is the guiding principle
signaling the transformation to…

women owning their bodies, their minds, their souls
women owning their time, their land, their livelyhoods
women owning their earth, their air, their water
women owning their lust, their love, their sexuality
women owning their life without question!

Welcome to a brave new world
where we celebrate feminist spirituality
where we hold the line to the vicious, dehumanizing face of
exclusion, discrimination and inequality

Welcome to a brave new world
Welcome to the new women’s economy!

This poem is based on the first two days of the AWID Forum, which I am attending in Istanbul. Turkey. It was first posted on my blog
http://10-chances-to-change.blogspot.com/2012/04/brave-new-world.html.
This time the forum 'goes into depth on how economic power is impacting on women and the planet, and to facilitate connections among the very diverse groups working on these issues from both human rights and justice approaches so that together we contribute to stronger, more effective strategies to advance women’s rights and justice.' Want to learn more? Go to www.awid.org

Marije Nederveen, consultant at Rights for Change and member of WO=MEN
at Friday, April 20, 2012

Some (provocative?) remarks

Kaythi Win, chairperson of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers, underlines during the morning plenary that ‘Sex work is work’ and ‘Violence is not part of the job’. She even managed to activate the audience to stand up and repeat one of her slogans. In her struggle for the recognition of sex work  as work and accompanying labour rights, she experiences many negative reactions from feminist camps that define sex work as trafficking and try to convince her of their views. Kaythi Win states ‘Nothing for us, without us’, which reminds me of what Francisca Rodriquez of the Indigenous and rural women's movement in Chile said about their movement: ‘We are not accompanying the campaign as rural women, we want to be part of it’.

In the same plenary, the Nigerian Ekaete Judith Umoh advocates that ‘Women with disabilities should be included in the work that women’s organisations do’. She underlines the importance of the intersectional approach within women’s organisations and a focus on diversity. Another participant defined disability as social construction and argued that ‘what makes the lives of disabled women miserable is society’.

In a session on digital media advocacy, the basics of digital storytelling were shared. The project called ‘Violence is not our culture’ showed two of the impressive (and horrible) short films. One was made by a young black lesbian woman from South Africa, who lives in a very violent environment. In her film she reveals her experiences and her ongoing  fears of possible abuse and violence:

‘I have three locks on my door and I need one more to lock my heart’.

Manal Hassan co-founded the Arab Techies Collective and tells about its impact within Egyptian society. When Samira Ibrahim, a veiled Egyptian woman, was arrested during the uprisings last year, she had to undertake a virginity test in the army prison. According to the military ‘this was just a procedure so the women could not state they had been raped during their imprisonment’. Samira decided to speak about the sexual abuse that happened to her, brought her story to court and got huge support from her society. As Manal Hassan argues, Samira is considered as ‘a normal Egyptian woman’ who does not fit the images created by the Egyptian military that ‘all women on Tahrir square are prostitutes’ or ‘having a foreign agenda’. Her testimony fuelled initiatives to record testimonials of Egyptian citizens and their experiences with violence carried out by the military regime. By now, 12.000 people told their stories, which are shown on mobile screens throughout Egypt and raise awareness on the true face of the military.

Topic of today’s in-depth session was 'Women's labour rights, gender equality and economic justice'. Some remarks of the panellist of the International Trade Union Federation:

‘Female Indian construction workers have no access to toilet facilities, which is discrimination in their working environment.’

‘Every year 100 trade union workers are killed in their struggle for worker rights’.

‘Perfect laws, that are not implemented’.

Find more information on the 12 x 12 campaign that was often referred to concerning the ratification of ILO, the Egyptian online testimonies and the storytelling methodology. 

Esther Goedendorp

Funding for Women's Rights

Evening Plenary: Tapping Current Opportunities and Assessing Challenges to Mobilize Resources for Women’s Rights and Feminist Organizing Around the World. 

Seven years ago, AWID asked the question “Where is the Money for Women’s Rights?” in a context where many funders and activists agreed that donor interest in women and women’s rights had peaked and then faded. Now nearly everywhere you look—from corporate foundations to mainstream media, international financial institutions to large international development organizations—we increasingly hear talk of investing in women and gender equality not just as smart economics, but also as “the right thing to do”. This renewed interest is important progress and it also comes with some challenges; how to ensure the results of these investments are making a real impact to advance women’s rights in the longer term? 


Tonight's panel shared some current funding trends analysis, explored how various donors are putting their commitments into practice, latest data on the funding situation of women’s organizations and how diverse actors can work together to ensure that the resources becoming available for women really contribute to longer-term structural change and we tap current opportunities to mobilize more resources to support women’s rights and feminist organizing around the world.

The Netherlands is a "bright spot" as it is the biggest bilateral donor in the world through the MDG3 and FLOW funds. Irma van Dueren, head of the Gender Equality division at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "We have gender equality champions in the Ministry that push for this from within the system. I also have to mention that we have a Dutch Gender Platform in the Netherlands. They have a watchdog function, working from the outside to raise awareness and mobilize the network. As a result of cooperation, not only budget cuts have been averted, but the MDG3 Fund was continued as the FLOW Fund."

= Joni van de Sand  = 

Role of Men: You are One in a Billion

One. That is the number of events during the AWID Forum about the role of men. And it was not even announced in the programme. Today during lunch-break, a group of men presented the book “Mobilising Men in Practice. Challenging sexual and gender-based violence ininstitutional settings.” A central theme is the brief discussion today: why would men be involved in gender equality and women's rights?

(Photo: father and son, meanwhile mom is working)

Satish Kumar Singh from the Centre for Health and Social Justice  that leads the Mobilizing Men programme in India: “We have this culture of swiping violence against women under the carpet. We raise these cases, we make them public and break the silence. Men who already react against violence against women join us in our work, because these men are not supported by society. They feel isolated and are given the sense that they are not real men. Together we challenge hegemonic aggressive masculinity. Those men that don’t fall in this category, feel like they don’t fit in and they have problems. So we support them. We face hesitations by religious groups, peer-pressure, and family pressure. But slowly we see that non-aggressive masculinity is getting more accepted. Because men loose out in patriarchy as well, and have a lot to gain when challenging it.”

Jerker Edström from IDS and FAWCETT (closing the inequality between wo...men, since 1866!), co-author of the book: “What do men have to gain from equality? Well, not all men gain. When you are at the top of the tree, when you loose power, you loose. As do women who are at the top of the tree. But what have men got to gain? Social relationships, better lives with their wives, with their children. And also a relief from patriarchal pressure, sharing how  you feel with your partner, not having to live up to pressure.”

Philip Otieno from Men for Gender Equality Now (MEGEN) Kenya explained about several initiatives, such as where taxi drivers have developed their own code of practice to protect their female customers from sexual violence. Or the Men as fathers project, which aims to collect 1 million autographs of men who love and care for their families, to spread this the message. “I am here because I have a stake in this. As a man I feel I need a peaceful environment, in which my mother, my sister, any female relative, is under threat of violation, I don’t want that.”

Jerker Edström: “We have been asked several times: what are you doing here, is this really your space? Well, we are at our place here, we feel comfortable and at home. I don’t apologize for being here. I never say, I am sorry I am a man. I am a feminist. To link up with social movements that fight for justice, that’s why we are here. To link with women's movements and sexual rights movements.”

“Some women ask me: why should women go through the pain of involving men when the men don’t want to? I personally think it is not up to women to involve men, it should be men themselves. Men must hold men to account. Furthermore, women are also capable of making patriarchal points. The notion that because you are a woman, you are progressive, doesn’t stand. This is the point with intersectionality. We have to look at the hetero-normative straight jackets of development. How do we undo those? In 2006 we brought academics and activists together to discuss the gender myths and stereotypes of men, as well as of women? Stereotypes of women in development are of carrying the water and working at home, when men are drinking away the money in the bar. This book is about the next level, with concrete examples of how it is working with men in different institutions, addressing these gender stereotypes.”

How to take it forward after the publication?  Getting in contact with other initiatives working with men from around the world, is essential. MenEngage has been working for 10 years and work is going on. National alliances are building, as more and more local organizations join. 


= Joni van de Sand = 

Young Feminist Streets

Wow! First thing in the morning, great provocative speakers as Boaventura de Sousa Santos (‘Ecology of knowledges’), Yakin Erturk (‘Human rights approach as a contested culture itself’) and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (‘Indigenous indicators of well-being instead of GDP approach’): who needs coffee to wake up here?!

 Then a great  session about gender on the street, organised by young feminists from Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen. In Arabic, French and English, these young women shared their experiences and inspiring projects in a crowded room of young and older women (and some men). Street harassment was one of the focuses, as a daily reality for the women in the panel. The Yemeni ‘Kefaia’ (‘enough’ in Arabic) project was initiated after a conducted research among Yemeni women and sexual harassment on their streets. Outcome: 89 % of the women experience harassment on the streets. As they women in the panel pointed out: this behaviour is justified by arguments as ‘these women should not be outside, they walked by their selves, they were out late’ or they were harassed ‘because of their hair, their dress’.. In other words: many different arguments are used, but none of them makes sense! 

The young Kefaia group decided to challenge this behaviour and the underlying perspectives on women within their society. They decided to speak up and no longer tolerate the street harassments. An online harass map was created that indicates the harassment ‘hotspots’. Not to spread the message of areas where girls and women should not go, but to make the hotspots visible and to define the street harassment as a public problem. Ironically, during the uprisings in Yemen, the streets were experienced as a safe space where women and men fought together.

 In Egypt, the harass map was supported by a open source website and all victims of harassment are asked to send text messages from the places where they were harassed. In Cairo, 16 NGO’s worked together to offer support to the victims, by sending a text message back to them with contact information of organisations that offer help. Next to this, community outreach programs were set up and by now 300 young volunteers from all over Egypt engage in dialogue with people living in their neighbourhoods.

 ‘We claimed the streets during the revolution and this changed my relationship with my own street as well. This harassment is happening in my street.’

 The panellist of the Tunisian organisation for justice and equality shared her worries on the Tunisian Civil Code that might disappear, while it has been an important legal document that ensured gender equality (on paper). Her organisation works on LGTB rights and on creating space for diversity within society. A difficult and dangerous project when homosexuality can be sentenced by capital punishment.. Also she pointed to the contrasting roles granted to women during the uprising and afterwards. As mentioned before in various sessions, as the women joined the struggle for change, now they are blamed for the unemployment in the country and fear a backlash of their rights and spaces. The road these women walk on, is a bumpy one. As the Lebanese panellist underlines, feminist and women’s organisations that demand equality during their demonstrations are considered crazy and very controversial. Their stories portray very dualistic ‘criteria’ for women set by society, but as they stated: ‘We are not waiting for a law, we want to improve our daily lives!’.     

Esther Goedendorp 

Feminists unmasking religious fundamentalisms

What impact is the rise of religious fundamentalisms having on women’s rights? How are women’s rights activists fighting back? Interesting questions in the light of the developments at international human rights fora in recent years, amongst which the ICPD, the Human Rights Council, current Rio+20 negotiations and the CSW a couple of months back. The latter was a huge failure to the international community, as it did not result in any outcome documents, because agreed language on gender equality, women’s rights and SRHR was contested by conservative states.  

AWID launched their Challenging Fundamentalisms (CF) initiative in 2007 to strengthen the responses of women’s rights activists to this growing phenomenon. The research has identified the key characteristics of religious fundamentalisms, examined the factors that help them grow, and detailed how they impact women’s rights across regions and religions. An extensive set of publications and a very inspiring session today at the AWID Forum, are some of the outcomes. Here is a brief tutorial.

To have one thing very clear: Religious fundamentalism is not the same as religion. “Fundamentalism is not about religion as such but it is the political use of religion.” (Gita Saghal). In essence, it denies us the freedom and right to decide who we are. Religion, on the other hand, is also used constructively in civil rights movements, amongst others by women’s rights. Known examples are Women Living under Muslim Laws and Catholics for Choice.

Shared characteristics of religious fundamentalisms are that they are absolutist and intolerant, patriarchal, anti-human rights and freedoms, and therefore in essence anti-women. Economic, political and social factors contribute to the rise of religious fundamentalisms. In fact, neoliberal capitalism fuels religious fundamentalism.

Economic factors include:

- Growing national poverty and inequality: turning to religious fundamentalism is often a survival strategy, even if it leads only to very small benefits. Fundamentalist movements provide food, education, or just hope. Where a lack of opportunities and access leads to a sense of injustice, religious fundamentalisms can feed right into it.

- Failure of state institutions & services: this is the most common cause mentioned in the MENA and South-East Asia. Where there are gaps in education and healthcare, religious groups step in. Even states call on charitable religious civil society institutions to fill these gaps.

- Neoliberal politics: growing privatization and globalized capital undermine the abilities of states to provide safety nets for their citizens. The ever-growing gap between the rich and the 99%, for example in the MENA, leads to dissatisfaction and a search for alternatives. Religious fundamentalists frame themselves as pro-poor, friend of the masses.

Religious fundamentalist discources

The family, morality and gender roles: people are made to believe that challenging the family is immoral and an act against god. Gender-roles are presented as rigid and natural. Where masculinities have been threatened, these are central strategies: where men have lost power in the public sphere, religious fundamentalisms give it back to them in the private sphere.

How religious fundamentalisms build movements: it is framed as a religious duty to give to charity. By focussing on young people, promising to lift people out of poverty, mass mobilization either of the poorest of the poor, or of elites and intellectuals. Main places of recruitment include schools, colleges and universities, amongst others through changing curricula. Children are used to write anti-abortion letters to politicians. Also women’s supporters are used strategically, and very visible. Women’s rights activists are struggling to understand the paradox of women’s rights violations and massive mobilization of women for religious fundamentalisms’ causes.

Religious fundamentalisms are not irrevocable. In the past decade, more countries have recognized same-sex marriages, legalized abortion and included equality between men and women in laws and policies. What is needed? Alliance building, support by local and international organizations, and being innovative.

Catholics for the right to decide is an organisation that is present in 10 countries in Latin America. The organization has come up with a fantastic strategy to promote renewal of the church: a series of 1 minute films on mainstream tv. Just see for yourself, enjoy and be inspired! 


= Joni van de Sand = 

Reflections on day 1, Loeky Droesen

My first day at AWID has come to an end. It started with the plenary as described by Joni below and then we all scattered across the convention center. It is a huge place with a lovely view over the golden horn.

Everywhere in the building, you saw participants studying the two pink booklets that contain the forum schedule and the forum guide. Every AWID day has 5 time slots and in each time slot you can pick from at least 12 to 15 options. A difficult task as many panels are interesting. But one has to make a choice. Below a few of the eye opening or thought provoking comments I heard.

During a panel on feminist economics. "If micro finance programs enable women to stay in the roles they have in society, if it helps them to stay in the homes and take care of the children, is this real empowerment or entrenching of gender in-equality?"

"Tip for all. When you examine a proposed government policy, check if it will lessen or increase women's unpaid care? These hidden costs to women are rarely noted" 

During two panels on funding for women's rights a few global trends were outlined. (By the way, I am a fan of the ongoing AWID research on "where is the money for women's human rights, http://www.awid.org/Our-Initiatives/Where-is-the-Money-for-Women-s-Rights. The new report will be publish soon)

-If compared to the overall development/aid budgets, the money allocated to women's rights is a small fraction of the total number.

-Donors are in love with the idea of efficient funding. This is often translated into meaning measurable funding. One panelist called it the medicalisation of funding. Donors expect to be shown that work leads to result in the way they would measure the efficiency of a drug on the market. This trend is hard to match to the, not so easy to measure, work of movement for social change, among which the struggle for women's rights and equality.

-Donors are increasingly funding programmes with prescribed activities and provide little core- or even multi annual funding.This decreases the sustainability and the flexibility of the work of women's rights organisations. Most organisations surveyed by AWID would not survive for more then a few months without ongoing funds coming in.

-It is harder for women's rights organisations to work on the topics they feel are crucial and to set their own priorities as donor focus and monitoring and evaluation requirements lead to harmonisation and NGOistation of the women's rights movement.

So what can we do to address these trends

-Do solid research and publish the data. This will lead to discussion about the choices made, also within the government or donor.

-Challenge the strong current focus on results based approach to funding.

-Educate yourself on alternative sources of income generation

-Support those on the inside of government and donors (such as the gender experts) to help them shift the agenda

-Think politically about these issues and join forces to lobby for change.

Looking at the points above, I realised Wo=men is actually doing much of this already. : )

Loeky Droesen, Consultant Rights for Change and member of Wo=men

First AWID day 'MENA & Migrants'

For me, economics are still rocket science, even though I bravely engaged in the session on demystifying economics and macroeconomic policy.. But three more days to come to work on my skills for Transforming Economic Power.

Today started with the economical, social and political power of women in the MENA region. Before the official AWID Forum started, there had been a pre-forum meeting with key actors from this region. The outcomes and dilemmas were shared during today’s first in-depth session on Women’s rights and Transitions to Democracy in the MENA region. This complex and complicated process, where women fought as citizens on the street for social equality and now struggle for their visibility and rights as women in the democratisation process. Orthodox religious movements were identified and their aims to define religion into politics. The fear of the Islamists in the MENA region was a specific focus, also the conservative influence of Orthodox Jews in Israel and the Orthodox Christians in the US were pointed to. From a feminist perspective, the abuse of feminist speech is very alarming, as dignity and freedom are defined in a strategic way by fundamentalist to win popular votes. These global rise of fundamentalisms was already detected by many actors at the CSW and with its simple messages, this movement contradicts and interferes with important women’s issues as reproductive rights and ownership of the body. From a political and economical perspective, neo-liberal states were linked with Islamists and the dangers of conservative sponsors were shared, that strengthen Islamist parties from abroad.

Another impressive session of today was about migrant women and their lack of (labour) rights. From experiences of social workers in India, Kenia and Bahrein and views of university teachers in Qatar towards Filipino domestic workers at work in Denmark that are rejected any legal rights or protection. The disturbing contrast between the well emancipated Scandinavian white women (with their equal rights positions) and their own domestic workers that run their households, while they are not granted any rights at all, was critisised as well. And clearly related to the European anti-immigration attitude in these countries, were migrants often are not considered as equals citizens at all. The lack of alliances between (local and national) women’s organisations and migrant movements was brought to light, next to the incredible inhumane circumstances of the domestic and migrant workers in India and Bahrain, who are closer to slaves than employees. All these input and stories led to discussion on who should take responsibility for what: Receiving or sending governments? The international community? (Transnational) migrant organisations? Women’s organisations? And this viewed in the light of the UN Convention of Migrant Rights, that says that migrants are granted their rights wherever they go. But difficult to put into practise when civil society movements are invisible, not existing or ignorant of the migrant workers situations… The ILO statement on decent work was indicated as a positive development regarding these topics.

To end with the concluding remarks of this session: 

build alliances and oppose racisms and exploitation!

Esther Goedendorp

Economics is not rocket science

Gita Sen, DAWN @ opening session

A Fierce New World

"There has been an enormous increase in inequality between and within countries in the last two decades. Backlashes include viciousness against migrants in Europe. As women and part of women’s movement it is our struggle to see where we go from here." 

This Forum is a space for dialogue, to reflect on how we can transform economic power from a feminist perspective. As Lydia Alpizar, Director of AWID, said: "When we talk about feminist visions on economics, we do not just talk about microfinance and women’s economic independence. We talk about a transformation of the macro-economy as a whole."

Gita Sen: "If development currently is a poisoned pie, then why would women want a larger share of it? Economic growth is what development has come to mean. It has many often poisonous sources and forms: resource extraction destroys lives of indigenous people, financial markets are run away and out of control, excessive consumption, overuse unregulated exploitative and unsustainable use of resources. How can we get equality which is located in a development that is human and humanizing, how as women do we get there?"

Gita challenges Ester Boserup's popular analysis of Women's Role in Economic Development: "Women's problem is not that we are marginalized in the mainstream economy, but the fact that we are included in these deeply unequal systems, in which women are situated at the bottom. In which human beings are a means for production, that need to be abstracted to the maximum."

Analysing the recent developments in the EU: "We see a hollowing out of the social state, while companies and the financial world can continue business as usual. Why is it that when there is no money for marginalized people and human rights, there is still money for businesses?"

Gita's call for action: “Economics is not rocket science, no matter what the economists might tell you.” The main message of this AWID Forum is already emerging: women around the world, get involved in economics, get involved in sustainable development. Whether it is from a mainstream or an alternative perspective: get informed, get united, and be bold. Lydia Alpizar turned argumentation around for a change, by not only calling for women’s rights in the sustainable development agenda (think of Rio+20, Busan, etc.) but especially for attention for sustainable development in the feminist agenda.

= Joni van de Sand = 

Atmosphere @ Opening session

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 12^th 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 = 

Op naar Istanbul

Komende donderdag 19 april 2012 gaat de 12^e editie van het internationale AWID Forum van start. En als vrijwilliger en oud-stagiaire van WO=MEN ben ik er bij. Het beloven vier super inspirerende en overvolle dagen te worden met als hoofdthema ‘Transforming Economic Power’ ter bevordering van vrouwenrechten en rechtvaardigheid.

Ik ben benieuwd. Naar de wereldwijde verbindingen met dit thema, naar de verdiepende sessies (nieuw dit Forum: één thema in vier blokken van 1,5 uur), naar de gebruikte concepten, naar de enorme diversiteit aan deelnemers en invalshoeken, naar de hot issues, de gedeelde angsten, de nieuwe inzichten en de voelbare inspiratie.

Van plenaire sessies over economische macht in een mondiaal perspectief, naar aandacht voor vrouwenrechten en democratisering in de MENA regio, de effecten van klimaatverandering op de levens van rurale en Inheemse vrouwen, sessies over arbeidsrechten en gender gelijkheid, normatieve seksualiteit en LGBT strategieën, tot aan onderwerpen als religieus fundamentalisme, gender responsive butgeting, landrechten, de invloed van economische crisis op huiselijk geweld en aandacht voor organisaties van jonge feministen, de mogelijkheden van sociale media, de zorgeconomie en rechten van migranten(vrouwen).

In het programma wordt vaak gesproken over vrouwenrechten en het woord man komt in één van de 235 (!) sessietitels voor. Misschien zegt dit helemaal niets over de inhoud en gaat het voornamelijk over gender gelijkheid. Ook hier ben ik nieuwsgierig naar, aangezien deze blog voor en door leden van ‘Women equals Men’ wordt bijgehouden: Hoe staat het met de gender sensitieve mannen bij het AWID Forum?

Kortom, genoeg interessante thema’s die voorbij zullen komen tijdens het Forum, die hopelijk resulteren in een boeiende blog om te volgen voor de thuisblijvers.

Esther Goedendorp