WMW Newsletter n. 03 - 9th International Meeting decisions
24-09-2013
The decisions made during the World March of Women 9th International Meeting in São Paulo, Brazil, launched a new cycle - full of challenges - in the history of our movement, now in its adolescence. For the past 15 years, the aim of building a large movement of grassroots women that is capable of changing the balance of power in society, to bring an end to the systems that generate poverty and violence against women, has borne its fruit.
Challenges have presented themselves in the form of many different types of conservative advances. While finalising this newsletter, we witnessed attacks by terrorist groups in Kenya and Pakistan, with numerous victims, many of them women and children. Every day, our sisters in those two countries are resisting the violence committed against them and the imposition of discriminatory religious norms. In 2010, sisters from Pakistan managed to maintain the mobilisation that they had been preparing, despite a bombing attack; they did not allow the violence to intimidate them. Our sisters in Kenya – who had mobilised against electoral violence in 2007 – filled a bus in 2010 to go to Bukavu in a show of solidarity with Congolese women in resistance.
We also received news this week that the Honduras “justice” system has sentenced the COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) activist, Berta Cáceres, to prison, in an attempt to stop the fight against the construction of a dam and the actions of mining companies in indigenous territories. The “Feminists in Resistance” in Honduras have been fighting since the coup of 2009.
Each visible attack by a conservative power is a response to the ongoing, historical resistance of women and peoples. The WMW is our tool for bringing unity and strengthen to us all.
This issue brings a síntesis of the main decisions of our 9th International Meeting. We invite you to spread it among your contacts. The newsletter can also be downloaded directly from our website in PDF in:
Spanish; French; English; Portuguese
Challenges have presented themselves in the form of many different types of conservative advances. While finalising this newsletter, we witnessed attacks by terrorist groups in Kenya and Pakistan, with numerous victims, many of them women and children. Every day, our sisters in those two countries are resisting the violence committed against them and the imposition of discriminatory religious norms. In 2010, sisters from Pakistan managed to maintain the mobilisation that they had been preparing, despite a bombing attack; they did not allow the violence to intimidate them. Our sisters in Kenya – who had mobilised against electoral violence in 2007 – filled a bus in 2010 to go to Bukavu in a show of solidarity with Congolese women in resistance.
We also received news this week that the Honduras “justice” system has sentenced the COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) activist, Berta Cáceres, to prison, in an attempt to stop the fight against the construction of a dam and the actions of mining companies in indigenous territories. The “Feminists in Resistance” in Honduras have been fighting since the coup of 2009.
Each visible attack by a conservative power is a response to the ongoing, historical resistance of women and peoples. The WMW is our tool for bringing unity and strengthen to us all.
This issue brings a síntesis of the main decisions of our 9th International Meeting. We invite you to spread it among your contacts. The newsletter can also be downloaded directly from our website in PDF in:
Spanish; French; English; Portuguese