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Newsletter - May 2003

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Newsletter, May 2003, Volume 6, Number 2

SUMMARY :

Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

The World March of Women an Irreversible Movement

New Delhi, India, was the site of the fourth international meeting of the World March of Women. One hundred participants, among them 50 international delegates representing March coordinating bodies in 36 countries and territories, gathered from March 18 to 22, 2003, to share their thinking about the current world situation and prepare our next global actions, scheduled to take place in 2005. The presence of many observers and representatives of the March and the women’s movement in India richly contributed to the session and was an important dimension of the first international meeting of the WMW to be held in the global South. Another 40 national coordinating bodies informed us they would have liked to attend the meeting but were prevented from coming for various reasons. All told, this means that the March is currently active or resuming activity in 78 countries and territories.

The goals of the meeting were to:

  • create an overview of the global context with respect to the demands of the March and continue developing our common feminist analysis
  • adopt a strategic action plan for 2003–2005
  • adopt the structure of the World March (decision-making bodies, membership, internal functioning, political representation, funding)
  • adopt a common work plan

Included in this newsletter are the principal decisions and the text of two declarations that were adopted during the meeting. The boxed texts are excerpts from pieces written by delegates that were sent to the electronic discussion group of the March national coordinating bodies during the meeting. They have been included to give you a sense of the atmosphere and process of the meeting.

You can see photos of the meeting on the March Web site:
http://www.marchemondiale.org/photos/4erencontre.html

Holi was celebrated differently by some people. Almost 100 women representing 36 countries from all over the world came together this morning at the 4th international World March of Women meeting, being held at the Convention Centre of the Jamia Hamdard University Campus. With the reverberation of drums and the throwing in the air of red, green and pink gula, women danced to the rhythm of the Dhole and collectively called for the “Humanization of the Planet.”

“The day was kicked off with a welcome of flowers, dancing, drumming and colours. It ended with political street theatre illustrating the problems of education and traditional ways. The first day concluded with a song of hope, precursor to four days of accumulating victories for the 4th international meeting.”


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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

United against War and Violence

The fourth international meeting of the World March of Women took place, yet again, against the menacing backdrop of war. In 2001, we held our meeting a few weeks after the events of September 11, mere days before the first bombs fell on Afghanistan. This year, our meeting began under the threat of war against Iraq.

Our first task, then, was to write and adopt an anti-war declaration. We called on member groups of the March to organize actions signifying our rejection of the war and, following the example of numerous groups around the world, demanding the urgent convocation of the UN General Assembly to put an end to the attacks and call for peace. United Nations Resolution 377 mandates this assembly to suspend the Security Council in the event of failure to fulfill its responsibility to maintain the peace. We reiterated our commitment to building peace and demanded that our governments negotiate, with women’s active participation, political settlements to all armed conflicts; completely prohibit the production and sale of weapons; and undertake the implementation of disarmament policies concerning both classical and nuclear and biological arms. We took to the streets on March 20, to demonstrate our opposition to the war.


“Women of varied hues and sizes, representing 36 countries, held hands and showed that at least one part of humanity still believes in the right to life and freedom for all. Slogans in Spanish, French, English, and Hindi, among other languages, rang in unison through the air, saying “No to War” and “Yes to Peace”. It was interesting to see the large number of police deputed to keep the demonstration in control. Their presence did not deter the enthusiasm of the women though. They sang songs of peace; reiterated their commitment to freedom and democracy; and distributed copies of their declaration against the U.S government’s war in Iraq to media, police and passers-by alike.”

Building peace in zones of armed conflict is an action priority of the World March in numerous countries. In the African Great Lakes region (Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo), for example, the participation of women in the peace negotiations is a priority for the World March’s regional coordinating body. Women of the March have mobilized against the presence of foreign military bases in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Korea, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil. The working group on violence against women has selected sex trafficking as a priority for the next few years because it is an extreme manifestation of women’s unequal status, representing the intersection of poverty and sexist violence in the context of neoliberal globalization. Many Asian countries present at the meeting are actively working on this issue as members of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW).

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

Valuing our Diversity

After developing and adopting our position in opposition to the war, we were ready to concentrate on building the ‘other world’— one in which we believe. We adopted a declaration that reflects the values governing our actions and our motivation for continuing to work together. These values can be summed up as follows: the World March of Women believes in the globalization of solidarity; we value the diversity of the women’s movement; we believe in the leadership of women; the importance of debating our ideas and strategies with other feminist groups and social movements; the importance of an international autonomous women’s movement that is transparent, democratic and creative; and the necessary alliance with other social movements.

“The cultural and linguistic diversity of participants from different countries and world regions gave rise to multiple interpretations but despite this we finally managed to adopt the Declaration of Values. Over lunch, women discussed future regional actions. Delegates met to discuss proposals for joint actions regarding problems common to their regions.”

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

Actions Leading up to 2005

The principal goal of the meeting in India was to adopt an action plan leading us to 2005, when we envisage another common action at the global level. To this end, we discussed and passed an action proposal for 2005. Several elements of this global action have yet to be determined, but the national coordinating bodies have now committed to coming up with a means enabling us to address local, national, regional, and global decision-makers, and in a broader sense, our respective societies.

Considering the urgent need to propose economic, political, social and cultural alternatives to make another world possible — one that is founded on gender equality and equality of all human beings and peoples, and the respect of our planet’s environment; and considering the necessity to debate our visions of this other world among ourselves as women and with allied organizations, locally, nationally, regionally and internationally, we plan to:

- Draw up a Global Women’s Charter for Humanity. We women will take the initiative of proposing the outline of a charter for another world based on universal and feminist values. This document, which will be created out of a popular education process and adopted by the national coordinating bodies of the March in 2004, will draw on the 17 world demands of the March in order to formulate alternative proposals. The charter will be presented to international institutions (UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO), national governments, social movements and our respective communities.

- Organize relay marches, from one world region to another, one country to another and one village to another. The object being relayed will be the Charter and the relay march will kick off on March 8, 2005. The marches will conclude with a simultaneous action in the different regions of the world in October or November 2005.

- Create an immense quilt. In the course of the relay marches, women will be invited to illustrate the Charter on a piece of cloth, drawing on their particular situation. The pieces of cloth will be relayed from place to place with the Charter. Women in countries, cities and villages will receive pieces of cloth from women in other world regions.

The charter will be used in diverse actions at the national, regional and international levels. It will be presented to the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund during an action that has yet to be determined. Our action will once again be rooted in a popular education process, enabling each participating group to make women’s voices heard and form links with the alternatives proposed by women in other countries.

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

From Region to Region

During the meeting, regional caucuses met to discuss the current situation of women and the state of March organizing in the regions. The actions of the March in the different countries can be grouped into three fronts of struggle:

  1. Free trade agreements and foreign debt
  2. War, armed conflict, militarism and violence against women
  3. Sex trafficking, prostitution and commodification of women’s bodies

Regional meetings were also held to allow delegates to begin planning the regional actions for 2005. From what we learned about the current state of March mobilization, we have reason to believe that in several regions in 2005 women will organize not only national actions, but also coordinated regional actions. Already, women in the Mediterranean region are talking about having a peace boat in 2005 that would stop in Mediterranean ports and stage actions on women and the struggle against militarism. Women of the Americas are proposing hemispheric March actions to oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), for example, by organizing a meeting of women active in the March to precede the hemispheric days of protest against the FTAA, scheduled to take place in March 2004. In addition to organizing a Women’s Forum to precede the European Social Forum in November 2003, European women will be holding a major event of the WMW in Galicia in May 2004. African women intend to organize activities to study the impact on women of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Women in the Asia/Oceania region, for their part, are planning actions and intend to coordinate regionally on the issues of women and armed conflict, emigration and sex trafficking, food security and domestic assault.

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

Working Groups and Collectives

To pursue the work of the World March of Women according to our three lines of intervention and our two themes (eradication of poverty and violence against women), we formed international working groups and collectives.

The goals of the working groups are to further our thinking and create tools to support national coordinating bodies and the international Secretariat of the World March of Women. They also work to advance and update the debate on our platform of world demands. They are therefore responsible for helping us to explore certain issues and discussions and ensuring that our collective thinking is shared among national coordinating bodies via the Secretariat. They are responsible for:

  • determining the focus that will be developed and identifying individuals and networks working on these topics with whom we can organize collective actions;
  • identifying events and occasions when a topic may be discussed; and setting an agenda with priorities with the aim of ensuring the participation of March activists in these activities;
  • producing and circulating papers for information and debate via e-mail or through March publications;
  • proposing and carrying out training activities.

The collectives are international committees of the March that will have a more external focus. In contrast to the working groups, which may be regionally or linguistically based, the collectives must be composed of at least one woman from each world region. Working groups operate more independently but collectives may only be formed by the International Meeting and must report regularly to the International Committee and the Secretariat. They are responsible for:

  • ensuring that the World March of Women is represented in specific forums;
  • contributing to analysis and identifying individuals, groups and networks active in the same area;
  • producing information materials and reports on their activities and political debates in their field of action;
  • promoting seminars, training activities and meetings.

The mandate of the working group on feminist economic alternatives is to further feminist analysis about economic alternatives, publish the texts and seminar debates from the 2003 WSF concerning the relationship between production and reproduction and the concept of wealth, maintain dialogue with closely allied networks, update our demands platform and draw up action proposals incorporating the WTO, FTAA, NEPAD and other regional neoliberal agreements.

The priority of the violence against women working group will be sex trafficking. Its mandate is to further advance the discussion to support our action strategies linking the local and international levels, especially those that target violence prevention and support for women to leave violent situations; study the relationship between neoliberal globalization and violence against women; publish texts and debates from the 2003 WSF seminar on the commodification of women’s bodies; further our knowledge and propose actions concerning sex trafficking.

The working group on the rights of lesbians is coordinated by the Netherlands. Among other things, it will gather information concerning the situation of lesbians throughout the world and make it available to national coordinating bodies, identify and form links between the WMW and activists around the world AND organize a training seminar on the topic.

The alliances and globalization collective’s mandate is to organize our participation in future World Social Forums, (including mobilization, production of information materials and organization of activities, participation in the International Council), encourage national and regional coordinating bodies to become involved in national and regional processes of the WSF, monitor meetings of other social movements, coordinate the March’s participation in actions and meetings of the Social Movements World Network, ensure ongoing evaluation and follow-up of the process of both the WSF and the Social Movements World Network. This collective is under the leadership of the Brazilian March coordinating body.

Switzerland is coordinating the communications collective. Its mandate is to ensure that information circulates among the Secretariat, the International Committee and national coordinating bodies, produce an international newsletter with responsibility shared among regions; assess and work to improve communications with participating groups; update and improve our Web site; develop an action policy for our alert network; and develop a communications plan for 2005.

The collective on peace and militarism will be coordinated by the regional coordinating body of the African Great Lakes Region (Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo). Its mandate is to develop a WMW policy in this area; ensure the participation of the WMW in actions to oppose militarism and the multiple armed conflicts, etc.; and produce analytical and information materials on these issues.

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

Organizing for more Effective Action

In July 2002 national coordinating bodies of the March were sent a preliminary working document to help them prepare for the international meeting in India. Based on a compilation of comments and proposals from the 30 coordinating bodies that responded to the questions in the working document, the March Follow-up Committee (created in Montréal during the 3rd international meeting with the mandate of ensuring follow-up to the meeting) drew up a list of concrete proposals for discussion and adoption in India. After this groundwork we discussed our strategic action plan and the structure we wanted to put in place to strengthen our joint action in this vast international network and movement of women’s groups actively working for change.

Here are some of the elements that framed our discussions:

  • principles: the structure should reflect the underlying principles of the World March of Women (for instance: leadership in the hands of women; leadership shared by the world regions; independent organization of actions in the countries; recognition and appreciation of diversity, pacifism, etc.);
  • goals: the structure should facilitate realization of the goals of the World March of Women (foster solidarity among grass-roots women’s groups and support the process of popular education, etc.);
  • areas of intervention: the structure should enable the March to act within its three lines of intervention (alliance with the anti-globalization movement, presence at international rendezvous and alert network);
  • actions: the structure should reinforce our feminist action network at the global level and the strategic action plan adopted in India;
  • the experience of feminist movements: based on our criticism of both traditional structures and structurelessness (i.e., lack of an explicit formal structure), we want an identifiable structure characterized by a transparent decision-making process and ease of participation.

International Committee

We formed an International Committee that will be responsible for ensuring follow-up and the accomplishment of the 2005 action plan. The committee is composed of representatives of the different world regions. Selection criteria for Committee members include a commitment to defending the interests and positions of the World March of Women; commitment to defending feminist positions; and willingness to abide by decisions even when they do not correspond to one’s personal positions. This committee will meet twice each year and will function in a collective manner. Committee members will share tasks. Their role is both to ensure regional representation and defend the overall interests of the March. The following representatives were elected at the India meeting: Miriam Nobre (Brazil), Awa Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso), Shashi Sail (India), Nadia De Mond (Italy), Emily Naffa (Jordan), Charlot Pierik (Netherlands), Rosa Guillen (Peru), Caridad Ynares (Philippines), Omaima Elmardi (Sudan), Diane Matte (international Secretariat) and the Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas (to be determined). The first meeting of the Committee is scheduled for this coming July in the Netherlands.

International Secretariat of the World March of Women

Delegates to the India meeting decided that the international Secretariat of the World March of Women would remain in Québec until the conclusion of the actions in 2005. Québec will therefore continue to assume the coordination of the March at the international level. Meanwhile, we are working on developing a process for rotating the international Secretariat and further decentralizing the work that needs to be done at the international level. Although we were unable to come to a final decision in India regarding the conditions under which a country may host the Secretariat the following elements were proposed to the national coordinating bodies for discussion: presence of a functional coordinating body that participated in the international actions; is firmly established and maintains broad contact with the country’s women’s movement; is capable of raising the money to maintain the Secretariat; and is able to ensure a legal status for the international Secretariat.

Funding

Funding of our actions and for our operational needs continues to be a major concern with respect to the consolidation of the World March of Women. During the meeting in India, we were unfortunately unable to have a detailed discussion on the challenges of fundraising at the international level, nor did we come up with creative solutions to these challenges. One of the first jobs of the new International Committee will be to work with the international Secretariat to establish the financial stability of the March—in particular the international Secretariat. It will also examine the means that will allow us to achieve our ambitious—to say the least—work plan.

One way participating groups can support the Secretariat and the international work of the March is by obtaining additional copies of Women on the March: Focus on the Actions and Demands of the World March of Women. As you already know, this book (64-page colour album) records the remarkable adventure of World March of Women as experienced by women around the world (in French, English and Spanish). It is now being offered to participating groups at the new price of US$10 (postal charges not included). We offer discounts for large orders; so one idea would be to get together with other groups to make a joint order. It’s a good way to donate to the March while ensuring a broader distribution of this impressive work! Order by fax at (1) 514-395-1224.

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

Next Rendez-vous

At the end of the India meeting we set the next international meeting for 2004. At this meeting, we will adopt our Global Women’s Charter for Humanity. The meeting will be held in Rwanda or Peru. Between now and then, all of us are encouraged to begin preparing the popular education process that will lead to the adoption of the Charter and organizing the 2005 international actions in our cities, countries and regions. In the next few months we plan to send you mobilization materials to help you develop your action plans.

The World March of Women is alive and well in nearly 80 countries and territories across the globe. Our meeting in India was another testimony to our strength and creativity. We have an ambitious action plan and a common global project that galvanizes, mobilizes and multiplies our forces. With it, we hope that we—and all the other alternative social movements of the planet—will be able to stop the planetary humanitarian disaster propagated by neoliberal patriarchal systems, and make the 21st century one in which women enjoy the full exercise of their human rights, share the wealth and put a definite end to violence against women.

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

Acting Together

In the coming months a number of events will involve us in actions with all social movements. In June the G8 meets in Evian, France. European women involved in the March will be in attendance. In September, the next meeting of the World Trade Organization will be confronted with a demonstration similar to the one in Seattle. This was decided by social movements who are increasingly concerned by the indifference with which the world’s power brokers are undermining our gains and forcing ever larger numbers of citizens of the Global South into survival mode or dependency on the market’s and Northern states’ good graces. When we add to this burgeoning militarism and the perpetual state of war decreed by the United States and their allies, the urgent need for mobilization is evident. The women’s movement will be present in Cancun as it should be. The World March Of Women in Mexico, with other feminist groups, is preparing an international forum on women’s rights in the context of trade agreements. The Forum takes place on September 8 and 9 in Cancun. We encourage you to prepare a delegation for this action. We will let you know later if the International Committee of the March intends to organize other activities during this event.

We remind you also that in Brazil this August, rural women will be holding their 2nd Margaritas march in commemoration of the violent death of one of their sisters and to demand access to land, the upholding of their rights and an end to violence. If you are in contact with rural women’s groups, invite them to send delegates to the Brazilian capital for this march. For more information, you can contact the March in Brazil. In addition, the women involved in organizing the Margaritas march want participating groups to think about the idea of organizing a rural women’s march in their country next year.

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Newsletter, May 2003, Vol. 6, no 2

Women who Worked on this Issue

Thanks to all the women who collaborated on this issue of the newsletter: Nancy Burrows (international Secretariat), Anelyn DeLuna (Thailand), Nicole Kennedy (English translation), Diane Matte (international Secretariat), Miriam Nobre (Brazil), Awa Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso), Magaly Sala-Skup (Spanish translation), Anja Sehic (Serbia-Montenegro), Michèle Spieler (Switzerland), Harleen Walia and the media team for the international meeting (India) and all the delegates to the international meeting for the amazing feat of collectively writing the two declarations.

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