Activity Report - March 2003

Evaluation of the March in 2000

The World March of Women in the Year 2000 inspired numerous activities in every participating country and mobilized groups to formulate concerted action plans to fight poverty and violence against women. In some countries it was an opportunity to strengthen the women’s movement and raise its visibility. Women in other countries obtained genuine victories: for example, in Togo women won the revision of the Family Code, in Panama, the March persuaded the government to sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and in Venezuela and Mozambique, women proposed wife assault legislation. Every step forward convinced us of the importance of continuing our movement. A booklet entitled Women on the March: Focus on the Actions and Demands of the World March of Women reports on the actions organized by women in participating countries since 1998. The booklet was published in three languages (French, English and Spanish) and sent to all groups that participated in the March. A multimedia report, rich in images and hyperlinks is also available on our Web site.

Continuation of the World March of Women

The World March of Women was unique in that it linked the struggle against poverty with that of combating violence against women. We did so on our terms, with actions we proposed ourselves, rather than in response to a consultation or within a conference organized by an international institution. Indeed, the notion of collective action and popular education enabling women at the grass-roots level to name the problems and propose solutions was what motivated women in New York in October 2000 to say that we should maintain this network of feminist solidarity in action that rises above borders and differences. This is also the reason we are once again mobilizing women to carry out another global action in 2005.

4th INTERNATIONAL Meeting

The 4th international meeting of the World March of Women was to have been held in Mexico City at the end of 2002 but the location was changed to India following discussions of the Follow-up Committee and the Mexican coordinating body. When unfortunately it became clear that we had insufficient financial resources for the meeting, and also to allow coordinating bodies more preparation time, we postponed the meeting to March 2003. In July 2002, we prepared and sent out a working paper to national coordinating bodies that raised a number of key questions pertaining to the consolidation of our network and planning for our future actions. We asked them to send us their answers before the Follow-up Committee’s December meeting; 30 countries responded. Drawing on their comments, the Follow-up Committee formulated a list of proposals for the meeting in India.

Our main goals for the 4th international meeting are to adopt a strategic action plan leading up to 2005, and a decision-making and organizational structure. More than a framework, we need to review our working methods and resolve the chronic problem of financial instability. We will come back to this later.

Women and peace

Over the year we were called on to participate in actions to demand the inclusion of women in peacemaking processes and a stop to warmongering. The March was active nationally and internationally circulating our “Appeal for Peace” to the media, organizing vigils opposing the bombing of Afghanistan, and calling for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We are participating in the current resistance to war in Iraq, in particular by encouraging national coordinating bodies to become involved in the different anti-war movements, and by disseminating action calls from the various international social movements.

The World March of Women and globalization

We attended the 2002 World Social Forum, where we held a seminar on feminist economic alternatives and, in the human rights section, a conference on violence against women. We wrote two analytical documents that also serve as a means of publicizing the alternatives promoted by the World March of Women. Our document on violence against women was published in a book about the World Social Forum (Another World is Possible: popular alternatives to globalization at the World Social Forum, by William Fisher and Thomas Ponniah). Our document on feminist economic alternatives, sent to all national coordinating bodies, served as the basis for the activity of our working group and for work with other feminist networks involved in this area.

We had proposed to hold an international tribunal on violence against women at the 2003 World Social Forum. We were unable to hold the tribunal for various reasons. Financial difficulties were one reason, but also, our participation in the International Council led us to accept responsibility for one of the thematic discussion areas of the Forum. We proposed instead to organize a panel on gender equality as part of the human rights, diversity and equality section. We invited social movements to share with us their perspective on the importance of feminist analysis to resisting neoliberal globalization and their commitment to anti-sexist struggle. See the World March of Women statement on the World Social Forum and our special newsletter on the 2003 Forum.

We believe there is an urgent need to point out the essential links between globalization and the rise of repression and violence against women in a context of mounting fundamentalism and militarization. This is why at the last World Social Forum we also organized a seminar on the commodification of women’s bodies in the context of globalization.

We also organized a second seminar on feminist economic alternatives. Clearly, it has been hard to advance our thinking on a broad scale with respect economic models that reflect our feminist aspirations. We must analyze the reasons for this difficulty and find ways to advance this thinking in concert with all national coordinating bodies and other feminist networks.

The struggle for another world is inseparable from the struggle for equality. We believe that the World Social Forum is an important forum for advancing the struggle for women’s rights and alternatives proposed by women’s movements. We were also signatories of a call to create a global network of social movements, because this is a place where we can advance our actions even further and expand our influence on the other members of the opposition to neoliberal globalization. Still, it is clear that this work requires enormous amounts of energy and resources. Our challenge is to clearly identify our goals for the next year and the role we want to play in these two processes (World Social Forum and Global Network of Social Movements), both internationally and regionally. The number of World March women involved in the regional forums in Europe, Asia and especially in the Americas is noteworthy.

We are also very proud of the bridges we have built with young women in the inter-hemispheric youth camp of the World Social Forum and at the regional forums. Young women from the March organized discussion and actions within the camp and it is our responsibility to see that these links are maintained and strengthened. Women from the youth camp, including several who are already involved in the World March of Women in their countries, are in the process of forming an international network of young feminists.

International working groups

Formed in October 2001, our seven working groups had some trouble getting started and determining what work was to be done, in a context where resources are limited at both the national and international levels. In preparing the India meeting we were able to pinpoint the difficulties and come up with some possible solutions. The proposal document includes a brief report of the accomplishments of the working groups accompanied by proposals for the upcoming year. Here is a reminder of their current mandate:

Working group on feminist economic alternatives

This working group is responsible for studying an alternative feminist economic model that reflects our analysis and would enable women and their communities to find a permanent, structural solution to poverty. It is responsible for updating and furthering our world demands and contributing to the action proposals for 2005. This group was the responsibility of the Jordanian coordinating body.

Working group on violence against women

This group’s mandate is to update our world demands and propose actions for 2005. In addition, the Follow-up Committee gave this group the responsibility for organizing the international tribunal on the impact of globalization on violence against women. It was the responsibility of the Indian coordinating body.

Work group on the rights of lesbians

This group is mandated to produce popular education documents to assist national coordinating bodies in furthering the reflection on the repression of lesbianism. The Québec coordinating body heads this group.

Working group on the World Social Forum

The goal of this working group is to prepare our participation in the World Social Forum by ensuring adequate mobilization and developing appropriate analysis and positions to advance our thinking on alternatives to globalization. It was responsible for ensuring the participation of national coordinating bodies in the regional forums that began in autumn 2002. In addition, the group selects and supports our delegates to the International Council of the World Social Forum. The Brazilian coordinating body is responsible for this group.

Working group on the Alert Network

This group was responsible for setting up an alert network and inviting March participating groups to support and oppose violations of women’s rights around the world. The group must also come up with suggestions to ensure the effectiveness of such a network. Switzerland’s coordinating body agreed to assume leadership for this group.

Working group on structure

This group was mandated to explore various existing structures in similar groups and to propose an organizational model that would best reflect our expectations. The Secretariat is responsible for this group.

Working group on the new information technologies

The use of new information technologies for mobilization, communications and the organization of international actions is the focus of this group’s work. The March should both contribute to making this technology more accessible and explore all the ways in which it can be used. The group is the responsibility of the Secretariat.

International meetings

The World March of Women attended two international conferences organized by the UN: the Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. These two events were an occasion for the March to publicize our world demands and forge closer bonds with other social movements that have the same concerns as us. We produced a document for the Monterrey event, addressed to individuals and groups participating in the NGO “Global Forum on Financing for the Right to Sustainable and Equitable Development,” held a few days prior to the UN Conference on Financing for Development. In it, we proposed several alternatives to the current model of development, based on a feminist, solidarity-building and environmentally respectful approach to building the world in which we want to live.

In Johannesburg, our action centred mainly on working with other social movements that were mobilizing to influence the government delegations meeting in the official forum. Under the banner “Social Movements United: Food! Land! Jobs!” tens of thousands of people marched in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Johannesburg. Organized by South African social groups, including the landless peasants and the anti-privatization movement, and supported by many international social movements, the march was another link in the chain of anti-neoliberal globalization marches in Seattle, Genoa and Porto Alegre.

During the G-8 meeting in Canada in June 2002, we published a special newsletter on NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development), which was the meeting’s central topic. Although quite brief, it nevertheless describes the principal shortcomings of this new top-down form of development, driven solely by economic growth and extremely harmful to women and disadvantaged peoples. We also invited groups to organize actions in their countries to coincide with the G-8 opening, denouncing this type of meeting.

The World March also participated in the International Forum « Re-inventing Globalization » organized by AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) that took place in Guadalajara, Mexico in October 2002.

Mobilization tools

We published seven newsletters to publicize various campaigns and mobilize women of the World March around specific issues. It was sent out electronically to roughly 3000 participating groups. We did a mailing to all participating groups, i.e., 5600 groups, of Women on the March.

We continue to moderate a discussion group that reaches women in nearly 100 countries and allows us to rapidly broadcast calls to action. Furthermore, we have enriched our Web site with the inclusion of the multimedia report on the World March of Women.

Structure and functioning

In October 2001, we formed a Follow-up Committee, charged with ensuring follow-up to the meeting and preparing the next international meeting. The committee, which was composed of nine women (see attached list) met on five occasions. As decided in 2001, the Committee was responsible for seeing that the World March of Women become independent from the Fédération des Femmes du Québec. In order to facilitate financing requests and in compliance with the meeting’s decision, steps were taken to obtain a charter. On May 14, 2002, the World March of Women was legally constituted under Québec’s Companies Act. The directors are the nine women on the Follow-up Committee who were named at the 3rd international meeting. At the India meeting, we will adopt a definitive decision-making and organizational structure for the World March of Women and broaden the membership according to the decisions that will be made. More than a structure, though, we need to establish our working methods for the coming years.

Funding

This is without question the most difficult part of our work. We have to acknowledge that since the end of the March in 2000 we have been unable to ensure financial stability for the international Secretariat and working groups. There are various reasons for this. The decision to do without a funding officer after the 2000 actions severely affected us. We have not succeeded in convincing any funding agency to grant us core funding. Funders in Québec and Canada who were heavily solicited for the 2000 actions have not maintained their support, either because the programs were over or we had already received the maximum amount. In 2001, we failed to form a working group on funding. The responsibility largely fell to the Secretariat despite diminished resources. In short, we must acknowledge that we are faced with a huge amount of work to get this situation under control. We need to go away from the India meeting with a common understanding and commitment to fund our action plan for 2005.

The grass-roots nature of the March

All activity of the World March of Women is framed by the goals of communication and maintaining a connection with grass-roots women’s groups. We continue to work with the national and regional coordinating bodies created during the March to develop the future actions of the World March. They numbered 114 at the end of 2000. Since then we have had regular contact with coordinating bodies in roughly 50 countries. We imagine that the other 50 are inactive but would be ready to mobilize again when we have a more concrete action plan to propose. Still, it is important that contact with all these countries be renewed and new participating groups recruited.

Currently, regional coordinating bodies of the World March of Women are in the process of consolidating in Europe, Central Africa (Great Lakes region) and the Americas. In South Asia, women are discussing the creation of a regional coordinating body. This work is of the utmost importance, to ensure that the World March of Women genuinely reflects the mobilization of women in every world region for equality and social solidarity.

By way of conclusion

This report is only a sketch of activities accomplished since 2001. It does not convey the richness of our discussions, our learning, achievements of the national coordinating bodies, and the extent of women’s labour deployed. We can say, however, that this first stage of consolidation of our network has been arduous. We must use the occasion of our 4th international meeting to dare to take further steps in analyzing our difficulties and finding solutions. The good news is that we can rely on the enthusiasm of hundreds, even thousands of women for the idea of once again constructing a global action in 2005. Women want to move into action and weave ties of genuine solidarity, stronger than ever before. We are in great need of this, as is the world.