Terna Gyuse
15 November 2008
Cape Town — For four days, Cape Town's convention centre will be filled with a profusion of languages, colours, and ideas as some 2,200 delegates from 144 countries take part in the 11th International Forum on Women's Rights and Development, organised by the Association of Women in Development (AWID).
The conference theme, "The Power of Movements," is an expression of AWID's mission to advance women's rights worldwide by strengthening the impact and influence of women's organisations.
During the opening session on Nov. 14, a panel of four women set the scene for discussion and debate.
Muthoni Wanyeki, director of the non-government Kenya Human Rights Commission, spoke of the vital roles played by women through several phases of struggle in Africa; from the spiritual and military contributions to anti-colonial struggle in the first half of the 20th century, through the many national women's organisations of the 1960s-1980s, to the emergence of autonomous, panafricanist feminist organisations as female artists and academics challenged the place assigned women in nationalist development.
She said new women's organisations had taken a leading role in the fight for democracy, good governance and human rights in Africa. Women have played prominent roles in opposition parties and influenced structural adjustment and poverty reduction plans with analytical tools like gender budgeting.
A number of legally-binding commitments to women's rights have been adopted on the continent, and women's representation in electoral politics is rapidly increasing in some countries -- for example, Rwanda's parliament is more than 50 percent female.
"But," Wanyeki cautioned, "we know these gains in terms of numbers are exceptions rather than the rule. We know it has yet to give us real meaning on the ground."
Africa has seen economic growth averaging seven percent in recent years, but inequalities persist; women and rural people have felt few of the benefits of that growth. Wanyeki said the extreme and horrifying forms of sexual violence occurring in northern Uganda, Darfur and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as the crises of democracy in Zimbabwe and Kenya are further proof that there is much left to be done.
Pointing to the successful campaign of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, Wanyeki said the way forward for the women's movement worldwide must not alienate or be based on women's victimisation. "We can inspire through hope rather than fear, by giving all a sense of being able to contribute and be part of different future."
Principles for a women's movement
To attain that future, her fellow panellist Nadine Moawad said, "One word is absolutely crucial -- that word is cunt."
Moawad, a member of Lebanese lesbian support group Meem, then spelled out what exactly what she meant in reclaiming a word she said had been used to demean and dirty women. She turned it into an acronym spelling out principles for the worldwide feminist movement.
Creativity -- continually re-inventing the feminist wheel to avoid replicating systems women are fighting against. Unity -- on the principle that none are free until all are free. Picking up a theme that Wanyeki had touched on, she urged all women to take on lesbian issues. "There can't be a women's movement without lesbians, without transgendered people. That would be called a homophobic movement," she said.
Completing the acronym, Moawad underlined the need for numbers, the active participation of millions of people to advance women's rights and time, stressing the importance of continuity, and dialogue between generations of women.
She urged participants to strive to make personal connections across generations at the gathering.
Also presenting at the opening plenary was Mijoo Kim, representing Women with Disabilities Arts and Culture Network from Korea, who spoke about the importance of seeing women with disabilities as part of women's movement. Kim said there are 325 million women with disabilities in the world according to the U.N., but there is very little policy or support for these "hidden sisters".
Eighty percent of women with disabilities acquired them through disease, accidents, or environmental factors, Kim said. Risky circumstances impact on women and children most.
The final speaker on the panel, Monica Aleman, invoked the spirits of several powerful indigenous Latin American women, among them Domitila Chungara, an activist whose struggle and sacrifice through three decades are a crucial foundation for the Bolivarian revolution and new constitution under President Evo Morales.
Aleman, who directs the International Indigenous Women's Forum, warned that indigenous women in her home country Nicaragua and elsewhere were losing ground, as the rights of women and indigenous people were threatened by political negotiations, persecution and the targeting of human rights defenders by various governments.
She echoed the other panelists in stressing the importance of inter-generational dialogue and called on women to build a diverse feminist movement.
Lydia Alpízar Durán, AWID Executive Director, said women's movements around the world are today confronted with fundamentalisms of all kinds -- of the market, of religion, and of heterosexual norms. "How far do we push for change, up to what level? Do we push changes as ends in themselves, or as means to actualise rights?"
The conference runs through Nov. 17.
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