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April 2002 - Actions to Revolutionize the World

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Actions to Revolutionize the World

Contents
By way of introduction
Marching On for Bread and Roses
Demands
Actions to Revolutionize the World
How We Said It: Building Solidarity
Snapshots of Home and Elsewhere
2001: A March-to Be Continued?
Sources

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The UN challenged also

The big world rally took place on Tuesday, October 17, in New York City. Some 10,000 women made their way to Dag Hammarskjöld Park, opposite UN headquarters.

There, the signatures gathered by groups from the four corners of the globe were delivered by women who had left from Harlem that morning on bicycles and delivery bikes.

The marchers formed a human chain and passed the packages of support cards from hand to hand, finally reaching the UN, where women presented a sample of the five million signatures that had been collected.

The 120 March delegates were received in UN headquarters by the Secretary-General's representatives: Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette and the Secretary-General's advisor on gender issues, Angela King.

From Harlem to Dag, a fleet of bicycles transports the packages of signatures.
Over five million signatures were sent to the UN by the women of the world.

Five women (an Aboriginal woman from Canada and women from India, Morocco, Mozambique and Peru) presented the March demands on behalf of women of the world, reminding the UN of its responsibilities in the campaign to fight violence against women and to ensure peace.

They called on UN member states to observe international Conventions and decisions and denounced the lack of international representation for Indigenous women and the unfairness of a decision-making practice that grants certain nations the right to veto.

They demanded debt cancellation for poor countries, an end to neoliberal economic policies, an end to patriarchy and decriminalization of homosexuality. In addition, they demanded the criminalization of acts like rape, incest, selective abortion of female fetuses, female infanticide, genital mutilation and the sex trafficking of women.

While claiming that globalization is irreversible, Ms. Fréchette admitted that the positive economic fallout must be shared more equitably. "Poverty has a sex, and it is female," she said. She promised to transmit the women's demands to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Six women from areas ravaged by conflict (Afghanistan, Colombia, Kurdistan, Palestine, Rwanda and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) then gave concrete examples of women's suffering in times of conflict: rape, forced displacement, insecure living conditions.

While this was going on, women marched through New York to Union Square where the day concluded with a succession of speakers and musical performances.

For more photo, see :
Photo Galery of Washington & New York

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Women on the March
April 2002

 
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Last modified 2006-03-23 03:09 PM
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