On October 6, 2001, 45 representatives of groups who participated in the World March of Women gathered in Montréal for the first large face-to-face meeting since October 2000.
For several days, March participants discussed the future of the movement. (Photo: GIV/Petunia Alves)
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In the interim, communications had been maintained through e-mail and interactive Web forums. The March participated in a number of actions to protest neoliberal globalization. Women in many countries conducted evaluations and planned further actions. Women's thinking developed in tandem with global events: the worsening conflict in Palestine, the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, and intensifying economic crises resulting from the dominant liberal economic model.
Action breeds determination
Women are generally unsatisfied with the response given by international organizations to the demands presented to them in October 2000.
"They sent us back to our countries," said a woman from Niger. "It was a first step, but I think we must try other avenues to increase women's chances of being heard in the future," wrote a woman from Nepal. "We failed to reach the anti-poverty goals; the responses of the World Bank and IMF representatives were neither clear nor effective," stated a Congolese woman.
At the October 2001 meeting, women's comments were similar. Participants confirmed "the lack of political will to implement the major international Conventions and Protocols, particularly those concerning women," on the part of the political decision-makers addressed by the March at the international level, and condemned the economic decision-makers (IMF, WB), who "did nothing to indicate they would be making a change of course in their policies and actions."
All the reasons that women gave for marching are therefore still valid. During the meeting in October 2001, delegates decided to maintain the two themes of the March (eliminate poverty and violence against women), strengthen links to women at the grassroots and with the anti-globalization movement, and keep feminist demands on the agenda.
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