Bulletin de liaison - June 2004

CONTENTS

• INTERNATIONAL NEWS
• Are you ready for 2005? Clarifications on our international actions
• 5th International Meeting, December 5-12, in Kigali, Rwanda: a new challenge!
• COLLECTIVES AND WORKING GROUPS
• Communications Collective: Off to a good start!
• Peace and Militarization Collective: Operation Seminar
• ALLIANCES
• World Social Forum: WSF International Council meeting in Italy
• Via Campesina : 4th Congress of Peasant Movement—the March will be there!
• Americas Social Forum: March showcase!
• REGIONAL ACTIONS
  • Americas: 4th meeting of the Native Women of the Americas Network
  • Europe – Big March meeting in Vigo, Galicia

• NATIONAL SNAPSHOTS
• India: Rights denied, but not love, solidarity and hope!
• Greece and Turkey: United on many fronts!
• What about you?
• MISCELLANEOUS
• Contest
• Collaborators
• Next issue
• How to contact us

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

ARE YOU READY FOR 2005?
Clarifications on our international actions

Reading your messages is an energizing experience! It’s so stimulating to see national coordinating bodies re-mobilizing their members, national actions being planned and participating groups bringing forward their questions about the Charter. Regarding your questions, we see that we need to clarify some aspects of the 2005 international actions. If you want to review the principal dates or need more details you can go to our Web site and download the pamphlet entitled Vision Leading to Action.

Who is being consulted about the Charter?
All participating groups (at the moment)!
The first draft of the Women’s Global Charter for Humanity is now being circulated among all World March of Women participating groups. This Charter belongs to you. Your opinion is important! You’ve already received the first draft of the Charter, accompanied by a Consultation Guide. It’s now up to you to organize a consultation with women in your group and send us the results before June 15, 2004.

To send us your comments:



1. check this Web page: http://www.marchemondiale.org/en/charter.html et répondez directement aux questions ;

or

2. 2) e-mail your comments to Brigitte Verdière, who is in charge of drafting the Women’s Global Charter for Humanity at bverdiere@marchemondiale.org (Groups that don’t have e-mail can of course send their comments by regular mail or fax .)

Where will the World Relay of the Charter and the Patchwork Solidarity Quilt stop? In 50 focal points around the world!

As you know, the Charter will be launched in Brazil on March 8, 2005, and will conclude its world tour in an African country (yet to be determined) on October 17, 2005. All focal points are not established yet. The International Committee will meet in August and, based on your suggestions, will determine the precise timetable and trajectory. So, if you belong to an established national coordinating body and you want the Charter and the Solidarity Quilt to stop near you, contact Julie Bégin at the Internationalu Secrétariat before July 1, taking care to indicate ‘World Relay’ in the subject line.

Remember that the Patchwork Solidarity Quilt will accompany the Charter everywhere. At the beginning the quilt will consist of one square; squares will then be added at each stopover point until we have a huge patchwork quilt.

Should we make a cloth square if we are a participating group?
No! Only national coordinating bodies will produce cloth squares for the international quilt.

Women’s groups are invited to work together to produce one cloth square measuring 50cm X 50cm for each country or territory. When the Charter stops in your country, you will add your square to the big quilt. If there is no stopover point in your country, you can either send your cloth square to the nearest focal point or invite your members to participate in the actions being planned there (and give your ‘national’ square directly to your neighbours!). In countries and territories where no national coordinating body exists, why not create one?

24 Hours of Feminist Solidarity: is this an international activity?
Yes—and local too!

In fact, the ‘relay’ idea applies here too. Groups in each time zone will hold a one-hour action, beginning at noon on October 17, 2005. In other words, we will enact our solidarity by following the sun, from East to West. Each national coordinating body and each participating group can organize a one-hour action on any scale (from noon to 1 p.m.).

Of course, if a national coordinating body exists in your country or territory, you can also organize national actions! If there is more than one time zone in your country or territory, you can organize several one-hour actions. Picture it! The first action will take place in New Zealand’s time zone, the second, in that of New Caledonia, the third, in Sydney’s time zone, the fourth, in Japan’s, and so on, until we reach the West coast of North America.

Can we organize activities in addition to the international actions?
To be sure—we even encourage it!

Remember that the chief goal of these actions is popular education. Whether activities are national or very local in scope, every group is invited to publicize the Charter in your community in as creative a way as possible. Here are some suggestions for national actions:

• Participate actively in the consultation on the Charter
• Organize a launch of the Charter in your country on March 8, 2005
• Organize a national relay march and popular education activities to raise awareness about the Charter
• If your country is one of the 50 focal points, organize creative and political actions based on the Charter for the arrival of the World Relay (some groups have proposed to circulate it throughout the country during the stopover; others will prefer to organize a large national action concentrated in one city or village; and other national coordinating bodies have imagined joining with one or two other countries or territories to receive the Charter and carry out activities on the border). It will be an opportunity to use the Charter to bolster your specific campaigns and address the appropriate political and economic institutions while ensuring media coverage of your mobilization.
• Organize an hour of global feminist solidarity on October 17, 2005, starting at noon, local time
• Create a ‘national’ cloth square (50cm X 50cm) to add to the Global Patchwork Quilt
• · Create a national solidarity quilt

So, are you ready for the 2005 actions?

Julie Bégin, Communications Officer, International Secretariat





---

Newsletter, June 2004, Volume 7, Number 2

5th International Meeting, December 5 to 12, in Kigali, Rwanda
A NEW CHALLENGE

Greetings!

As you may have read in the March 2004 Newsletter, I recently joined the World March of Women team to help organize the 5th International Meeting, to be held December 5 to 12, 2004, in Kigali, Rwanda.

Just imagine the meeting for a moment: hundreds of women, their faces lit up by all possible skin colours, come together in a venue where warmth and the wish to learn more about their neighbours are stronger than the fear of difference; where each woman wears the colours of her country and shares them with her colleagues. That’s what an international meeting of the March looks like.

Best of all, all these women put their heart and soul into building a fair world where violence and poverty do not exist; it is the work of a lifetime. A common goal unites them, although the reality each of them lives in differs, and they are able to draw on hundreds of strategies—each one more imaginative than the last—to make the March go forward where they live. Everyone emerges from the meeting changed, strengthened, motivated and, above all, ready to go home armed with a multitude of new ideas to reshape the world from a feminist perspective. Each delegate will also take home renewed enthusiasm, knowing that thousands of other March women are in synch with her in terms of organizing forceful, creative actions.

Vision Leading to Action: Fighting poverty and violence against women

The World March of Women international meetings are attended by representatives of the national coordinating bodies. They serve to adopt our main guidelines, to trade ideas on current issues concerning the struggle against poverty and violence against women, and to decide on a common worldwide action plan. They also give us the opportunity to deepen our knowledge of the subjects surrounding the March’s two main themes. In 2003, for the first time, we held the international meeting outside North America. The New Delhi meeting was the first step in the necessary decentralization of the March’s work.

The 5th International Meeting of the World March of Women will take place in Kigali, Rwanda, from December 5 to 12 of this year. The World March of Women in Rwanda approached us to organize the 2004 international meeting there because they wanted to take the sad occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide to stress the importance of women’s participation in building an equal, peaceful and just society.

Goals we hope to achieve

• Update our analysis of the current issues for women’s movements within the context of growing militarization of the planet and the ground gained by neoliberalism and fundamentalism, and their consequences for the national and international fight against poverty and violence against women.
• Adopt Women's Global Charter for Humanity, which will serve as the political basis of our world actions in 2005. We hope to adopt the Charter on December 10, the anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopting the Charter will be the end-result of consultations with the groups participating in the March at the grass-roots level and a concerted conclusion by each national coordinating body.
• Work out the details of our action plan for 2005 (launching the Charter, using the Charter with international organizations, World Relay of the Charter and the patchwork quilt of solidarity, 24 hours of feminist solidarity, national actions, etc.).

Meeting participants: Welcome, young feminists!

At the 5th International Meeting, we expect to see a few hundred delegates from the March national coordinating bodies (right now some 60 countries or territories have such a structure). Observers from Rwanda and the Great Lakes region of Africa, and representatives of international feminist networks and other social movements have also been invited to take part in the discussions in order to clarify our thoughts and find ways to focus our common work.

With the aim of developing a stronger sense of identification with the values of the World March of Women among young feminists and thus ensure the transfer of experience and intergenerational knowledge, the national coordinating bodies are being urged to include at least one young woman in their delegations. This will be an opportunity for young feminists to have a memorable experience and to participate in the March’s decision-making process.

Groups in countries that don’t have a national coordinating body are also welcome to send a delegate. However, the delegate should commit herself to serve as a relay and mobilize the other women’s groups in her country when she goes home.

How the meeting is planned

The first two days (December 5 and 6) will be taken up by training sessions and exchanges among participating groups and observers on subjects such as peace and demilitarization, feminist economic alternatives, sex trafficking, lesbian rights and participation by young feminists. These will be excellent occasions to deepen our thinking, strengthen our ties and take time to learn from one another, without having to adopt resolutions. After that comes a day of meetings with grass-roots women’s groups from the African Great Lakes region to create concrete links (December 7). Then, from December 8 to 12, the 5th International Meeting itself will take place, which is when this “general assembly” of the March will adopt the Charter and decide on specific world actions for 2005.

Registration

Preparatory documents will be sent to the coordinating bodies by September at the latest. These will include the second draft of the Women's Global Charter for Humanity, with a view to completing the democratic process of adopting this political tool. It goes without saying that delegates should be thoroughly familiar with the Charter and bring to the meeting a position on it representing the consensus of their country’s groups. You should therefore plan a meeting of your coordinating body’s groups for October or November.

The deadline to register for the meeting is October 29. There will be a fee for each participant; the amount will depend on the cost of the meeting. (The details will be included in the September mailing.)

We urge you to start getting ready now for this meeting that will spark everyone’s eagerness, energy and solidarity!

Amalfy Ortega, Contract worker in charge of logistics for the 5th International Meeting in Rwanda in 2004 International Secretariat of the World March of Women





---

Newsletter, June 2004, Volume 7, Number 2

COLLECTIVES AND WORKING GROUPS
Communications Collective: Off to a good start!

In the shift toward decentralization that permeates the air at the International Secretariat of the World March of Women, the communications collective is a pivotal point for achieving a better distribution of tasks and powers among the women of the world. It was agreed at the 2003 New Delhi International Meeting of the World March of Women that an international body be in charge of communications activities. As a result, the Secretariat set up the collective, which began its discussions in late April of this year.

The collective got off to a whirlwind start with the participation of seasoned communicators working in Brazil, Burkina Faso, the Netherlands, Rwanda, Portugal, Galicia, Romania, Canada, Bangladesh and Switzerland. For the time being, we are fine-tuning how we will operate, but a communication plan and the distribution of tasks by region should see the light soon. Being communicators, we will keep you up to date of course!

Julie Bégin, Communications Officer, International Secretariat




Peace and Militarization Collective: Operation Seminar !

For the past few months, some 20 women have been discussing issues around peace, militarization and the women on our planet. They come from Rwanda, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, Israel, Burkina Faso, South Korea, Burundi, Myanmar, Italy, Sudan, Greece, Brazil and Sweden. These women, meeting as the Peace and Militarization Collective of the World March of Women, have the following goals:

• To draw up an active policy in this domain for the World March of Women;
• To ensure the March’s participation in mobilizations against militarization and the many ongoing armed conflicts ;
• To put out analytical and informative material on these questions.

The International Secretariat and COCAFEM (Concertation des collectifs d’associations féminines de la sous-région des Grands Lacs africains – Network of Collectives of Women’s Associations in the Sub-region of the Great Lakes of Africa), who jointly head the Peace and Militarization Collective, are making preparations to hold a four-day international seminar on this theme in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo.

More specifically, the women attending the seminar will look at women’s participation in peace processes, in particular conflict prevention and resolution, and reconstruction. They will also address women’s resistance to militarization in their capacity as peace activists. Last, they will try to make connections between militarization and some issues important to women’s movements such as violence against women, sexual trafficking and globalization, against a background of armed conflict.

Julie Bégin, Communications Officer, International Secretariat



---

Newsletter, June 2004, Volume 7, Number 2

ALLIANCES

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
The WSF International Council meeting in Italy

The most recent meeting of the International Council of the WSF was held from April 4 -7 in Passignano, Italy. We were invited by the Tavola della pace (peace coalition), which since 1996 has been organizing the People’s UN in Perugia and is a major actor in coordinating actions for peace. This coalition was indeed the instigator of a peace plan between the Palestinians and Israelis, an initiative which enabled the public to clearly indicate its support for a sustainable peace settlement for the two peoples. Nadia De Mond, member of the March’s International Committee and representative of the Italian March coordinating body, attended this meeting with me.

The main objective of the meeting was to begin preparing the next WSF, to be held in Porto Alegre, in January 2005. We decided to resume holding the WSF on the same dates as the Economic Forum in Davos. It’s easier this way to highlight the illegitimacy of the Forum, where the interests of a few predominate over the urgent needs of the majority. The next WSF will be structured somewhat differently, however, to give more room to the different participating groups interested in strategy building and debate among the different sectors or movements represented at Porto Alegre.

Feminists are a steadily growing presence, thanks to the WMW

As the World March of Women, we convinced the other feminists on the Council to work with us to ensure that anti-patriarchal struggle is incorporated into the programming, as it was so successfully in the last WSF. We proposed to create an official women’s caucus within the WSF so we can coordinate our efforts to ensure a feminist presence at the WSF while preserving the specificity of each women’s group.

We also succeeded in getting a paper denouncing violence against women adopted and creating a process to ensure women’s safety and support with regard to sexual assault, as part of the WSF organization plan. The paper will be on the home page of the WSF Web site and all women are encouraged to distribute it to participants and set up the proposed mechanisms.

Expansion and management strategy

Seventeen new groups were accepted as members of the International Council. This was the subject of a long debate that has yet to be resolved. Some groups view the inclusion of new groups as a negative thing, with only rare exceptions. They fear that too many members will reduce the Council’s effectiveness. Others believe that the current composition (roughly 100 international or regional organizations), with its unbalanced geographical representation, poses a more serious problem. The expansion working committee is charged with formulating practical proposals on expansion criteria.

We also decided that the 2007 World Social Forum will be held in Africa. African social movements and organizations have clearly indicated to us that there is much hesitation among their ranks as to the feasibility of such a forum, but they have committed to working toward this goal.

Pros and cons regarding holding a WSF every two years

We supported the Brazilian Secretariat’s proposal to change the pace of the WSF and not hold a forum in 2006. There is not yet a consensus on this question, however. Many people seem to fear the creation of a ‘political void’ if we skip a year, and that it would affect the process negatively.

Others (including the March) believe, on the contrary, that it would show that the WSF process is rooted in the diverse regions of the world, because it would give more place to regional and local forums. In addition, there are already a range of actions being orchestrated by social movements (like the World March of Women) that could thus be freed up to devote their energy to campaigns benefitting everyone.

The debate is on. There will be a consultation and the decision will be made in January 2005. We will notify you of the proposals when they are ready. If you have any comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us. For more information on the WSF and the Passignano meeting, you can check the Web site: http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/home.asp

Diane Matte, Coordinator, International Secretariat

VIA CAMPESINA
4th Congress of Peasant Movement—the March will be there!

The 4th International Congress of Via Campesina will be held from June 14 to 19, 2004, in São Paulo, Brazil. Close to 500 people representing over 100 organizations from all regions of the planet are expected to attend the event whose theme is “Let us organize the fight for land, food, dignity and life.” Considering the present situation—in particular the growing dominance of finance capital over agriculture—the program will be a busy one.

A delegate from the Brazilian coordinating body will take part in the Congress to represent the World March of Women. The March is banking on the women’s meeting that will precede the event to establish and/or consolidate ties with women in the peasant movement and to make known our Charter.

Readers will recall that Via Campesina is an international movement that coordinates peasant organizations of small and middle-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural women and indigenous communities from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe.

If you have questions you can contact Dulcineia, Paula and Morgan in São Paulo or Nico Verhagen. You can also visit the organization’s Web site.

Julie Bégin, Communications Officer, International Secretariat




AMERICAS SOCIAL FORUM
March showcase




The Americas Social Forum will be held July 25 to 30, in Quito, Ecuador. Women from the March will be highly visible there since they have organized a gamut of activities to which March activists from all over the Americas are invited. For example, on July 24, on the eve of the official opening of the Forum, the March will hold a WMW Meeting of the Americas. To take part in this meeting or for more information, write to: marchamericas@sof.org.br). Then, in collaboration with REMTE (Red latinoamericana de mujeres transformando la economía – Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy), the March is planning a seminar on feminist economic alternatives and a forum on sexual diversity (organized jointly with REMTE and South-South Dialogue). The March will also participate actively in the meetings of the Social Movements International Network. To find out more about the Americas Social Forum, go to its site.

Julie Bégin, Communications Officer, International Secretariat



---

REGIONAL ACTIONS

Newsletter, June 2004, Volume 7, Number 2

AMERICAS
4th meeting of the Native Women of the Americas Network

The Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indígenas (the Native Women of the Americas Network) held its 4th Meeting in Lima, Peru, from April 4 to 7. In attendance were 275 full delegates from 21 countries.

Among the important subjects they addressed were:

• Questioning neoliberal globalization and its impact on the lives of Indigenous peoples and women;
• Defence of intellectual property;
• Defence of traditional knowledge;
• Biodiversity and the dangers of bio-piracy;
• Communications, information technologies and Indigenous women;
• Gender, poverty and Indigenous women;
• Human rights;
• Intercultural education.

The World March of Women made a presentation on Indigenous and Native women living in poverty on our continent—the result of centuries of oppression, discrimination, racism and economic exclusion; and restricted human rights, mainly economic, social and cultural rights, that are becoming even more restricted under the neoliberal process. We also presented our proposal to achieve another kind of world as well as our Women's Global Charter for Humanity.

For more information send an e-mail to: yachay@amauta.rcp.net.pe or to Ayllu@chirapaq.org.pe

Rosa Guillén V. – World March of Women, Peru.




EUROPE
Big March meeting in Vigo, Galicia

Meeting one another, seeing one another, feeling capable of building what we dream about—the World March of Women’s European mobilization, held in Galicia, was that and much more. It was the introduction of the new path we will travel from now until 2006, the Women's Global Charter for Humanity in hand. It was proof that urgent change is needed to do away with the poverty and violence that women in Europe also experience. It was feminist creativity expressed in a thousand different ways and in hundreds of simultaneous activities, in forums, in the tents of the feminist fair, in the concert on the night of May 22, and in the demonstration—an explosion of joy, courage and determination. We want a different kind of Europe. Their patriarchal and neoliberal model, drafted into a Constitution that doesn’t recognize women’s human and social rights, is of no use to us. No European blueprint will satisfy us unless it draws on the values and alternatives set out in the Charter that we women are writing for humanity. An instrument that allows us to think of Europe without poverty or violence, a kind of Europe that is open, fair, peaceful and equal. We, the women of Europe, march on.

Lupe Ces, World March of Women, Galicia

See the pictures of the meeting


Newsletter, June 2004, Volume 7, Number 2

NATIONAL SNAPSHOTS

INDIA
Rights denied, but not love, solidarity and hope!

In India in 2003, the Tamil Nadu state government proceeds illegally to the excavation and change of the course of two rivers essential to population’s survival in Karur district. It leads to the depletion of the underground water table and the contamination of the water. SWATE (Society of Women in Action for Total Empowerment), a forum initiated by the FPWLR (Forum for the Protection of Water and Livelihood Resources), has been involved in the struggle against sand quarrying in Karur district. They have petitioned the government, filed public interest litigations at various levels of the court, organized public hearings and direct action including mass mobilization around the river belt to stop the work (attended by 10,000 farmers and women).

About 1200 members of SWATE and FPWLR were arrested on February 2004 under the leadership of Christy Samy, a member of the World March in India and also representing Tamil Nadu state on the World March National Co-ordination Committee. Of these, 316 were granted bail after 8 days. The others remained under conditional bail. The latest information we have is that everyone has now been released. However FPWLR is determined to continue the struggle till the just demands of the people are met.

Shashi Sail, World March of Women, India



GREECE AND TURKEY
United on many fronts!

This April, in Istanbul, the WMW coordinating body of Greece orgranized a women’s meeting to prepare for the European Social Forum. One of the goals of the meeting was to increase the links among feminist networks in the region. We viewed the meeting as an opportunity to get to know our Turkish friends, with a view to eventually working together on the 2005 international actions.

Turkey is a country that is very close while at the same time very distant from us. Nationalism, ethnic cleansing and war have always separated our peoples, and social and feminist movements have only rarely collaborated with each other. Turkish feminism is very much alive: the issues of war, violence and militarization are a major focus, due to the Kurdish situation and the nearness of the war in Iraq. Poverty, insecurity and social exclusion are also being addressed by these courageous women. Last year, they organized a long women’s march against poverty. They left Istanbul and passed through cities that had been destroyed by earthquakes, particularly Izmit.

In short, the women’s meeting of the European Social Forum was a success. Some 50 women from 15 groups attended, a majority of them Turks. We also worked with our sisters on rebuilding the Greek national coordinating body in preparation for the 2005 actions. Greek and Turkish women left the meeting transformed and united.

Sonia Mitralias, World March of Women – Greece




What about you?

We would be very happy to get reports of particularly inspiring recent events or upcoming actions of the World March of Women in different countries for publication in the National Snapshots section! Submissions should be 150 words long or less and written in English, French or Spanish.



---

Newsletter, June 2004, Volume 7, Number 2

MISCELLANEOUS
Contest: come up with a name for this newsletter!

Here’s a little challenge for those who know English, French and Spanish and love to wrack their brains! We need to find a name for our Newsletter. The name should mean something in the three working languages of the March. For example: the word ‘Totem’. Naturally, it must reflect our ideals! What’s the prize? Fame! You’ll be mentioned in the next issue of our newsletter! Send your suggestions to Julie Bégin Good luck!

Collaborators

Thanks to all the women who collaborated on this issue of the Newsletter: Julie Bégin (International Secretariat), Elise Boyer (Spanish-English, French-English translation), Nancy Burrows (International Secretariat), Lupe Ces (Galicia), Luisa Durante (International Secretariat), Rosa Guillén V. (Peru), Nicole Kennedy (French-English translation), Margot Lacroix (English-French translation), Diane Matte (International Secretariat), Sonia Mitralias (Greece), Amalfy Ortega (International Secretariat), Magaly Sala-Skup (Spanish-French, French-Spanish, English-Spanish translation), Sashi Sail (India), World March of Women in Rwanda and all the other women who supported our work.

Next issue

If you wish to contribute to the next issue of the Newsletter, send your texts by e-mail at Julie Bégin or by regular mail or fax before Tuesday, August 9, 2004. We reserve the right to change or not publish articles based on the goals of the newsletter and available space. Thanks for your participation!/font>