World Social Forum, Mumbai, India
Notes, Beijing +10 Discussion
21 January 2004
Brief summary of the discussion:
1. Different regions are taking different approaches to preparation for regional events.
2. There is an increased sense of urgency to shape regional and global strategies now, in order to have a more coherent strategy for 2005.
3. Some women felt it is necessary to work to address elements missing from the BPFA, such as fundamentalism, neoliberalism, racism and castism, and militarism.
4. Many felt it is necessary to contextualize the political and economic climate at the moment when we assess progress.
5. Some stressed that the BPFA should not be re-negotiated, and there should be no outcome document in B +10 process. Some felt that we can have conversations that contextualize our current struggles and raise concerns about missing elements, in the context of implementation, without new negotiation.
6. There was strategizing on how to get past an NGO focus on minimalist government reports or negotiations, to use B +10 to repoliticize our agenda and claim political space for our issues, particularly at the local level, but also regionally and internationally, and concern that B +10 should be more locally relevant, from the abstract level to grass-roots level. It should be asked what are the obstacles and the particular issues of concern to the region (civil society vs governments).
7. How can we learn from/copy the WSF process about repoliticizing the agenda / updating the context? How can we involve large numbers of women, not just those who have been part of UN processes in the past? How do we do this without a major mobilization of resources?
There was a brief report on a meeting earlier in the week by Martha Salazar from WIDE and Gina Vargas from AFM regarding regional activities:
Pacific region: preparing a document. There is no political dialogue between feminists outside governments and governmental institutions (no feminists inside?). How to maximize what we want?
Latin America: few attended CSW 04, recent CEPAL meeting, need to see how each government is engaging regionally. Different political proccess, there is a dialogue between feminists outside governments and feminists inside governmental institutions.
Asia -- meeting of ESCAP in July in Bangkok. How to avoid negotiations in the regions? Asia/Pacific is considering an NGO platform.
Europe: WIDE conference in May on economic rights, how to link to B +10?
Input from conversations that took place in a small international strategy meeting on other themes, where B +10 came up:
1- Let’s not make this a huge mobilization of resources. Make it more meaningful at the local level. Repoliticize the Beijing agenda. Do a new reading of what we achieved, what we didn’t get. Push for implementation of Beijing.
2- Not a focus on UN negotiations. Use B +10 as political momentum. How to use B +10 activities for movement building? How to focus on the interlinking themes of political fundamentalisms, neo-liberal globalization, militarism, patriarchy and racism - build these into our political analysis, take on these big issues.
3- Charlotte Bunch briefly presented a ‘‘Beijing +10 2004-2005 proposed feminist strategy’ paper (pdf format).
Diverse comments from participants:
1- Each region is taking a different approach. Many women seem to be waiting around to see what might emerge, but we need to have the discussions now. We need to use the moment to take space to raise questions in the community, at the local level.
2- Not a minimalist compromise. Put our demands out in the broadest sense. Be proactive. Redefine terms of debate and spaces for debate. Hold the line, but not do the “UN thing.”
3- A specific set of strategies? What is it possible to do? How to discuss our issues? What makes it difficult to implement Beijing at the regional and international level, instead of re-discussing the platform. Switch the terms of the debate and turn the discussion around. No new document.
4- Get the CSW to emphasize roundtables with civil society presence, to voice our concerns. Make it our time using the arena for ourselves. Not the lowest common denominator of government consensus. Shape political discussion in a central way, not at side events.
5- Do an electronic net to share strategies following the example of APWLD.
6- How to bring in major media? Alternative media: Indymedia, AMARC? How to mobilize in a way that brings in local NYC women to a demonstration linked to an event at the UN in March 2005 that links our issues to the global justice movement represented at WSF? Is a revised campaign against fundamentalisms a potential vehicle? We need to deepen an integrated analysis, bring in US women, bring in media, make political demands in a public way.
7- This year at the CSW governments will decide on the review process. DAW supports the idea of no outcome document. We should meet to continue strategizing.
8- Is this another version of negotiating the same thing? The WSF way to do politics is to look at ten years since Beijing, protest what hasn’t been done in 10 years. Beijing doesn’t address racism, militarism, neo-liberalism - the Platform is dated (and has limitations). We need a deeper questioning. We need to remake the demands. The logic towards a minimum common denominator is imposed by the need for government consensus.
9- Need to repoliticize and re-open the themes inside the women’s movement. Many women following Beijing have simplified it. We need to reinsert the political debate. (It’s not contradictory , it’s part of the process.)
10- Femnet: Use every platform to advance the agenda. Why has fundamentalism gained ground? The Right has been exploiting every space for their ideology. Gender is a cross-cutting issue. In Morocco, women were able to change the constitution - we are a key actor for change.
11- Use the Platform for Action to our advantage - to struggle against atrocities, fundamentalisms, communalism, castism. We use Beijing in these struggles. In B +10 we should engage in discussion with governments. Don’t let them off the hook. What kind of approaches we need to make governments accountable to people, especially women?
12- Bring up new issues of what’s happened between 1995 and now, a new context, rise of political fundamentalisms. Intersectionality of racism/castism and gender that took on more prominence in Durban.
13- Femnet: Evaluate ourselves as individuals. Where have we been and where are we now? What am I doing differently that I was not doing before? We also need research and facts.
14- Racism fell off the list. Needs to come back very clearly (racism/castism, genocide and colonization, that resonates with indigenous women.)
15- Don’t become too introverted to the UN agenda. How to incorporate bigger items? US politics post 9-11 (and British) sidelines everything else. Interact with the context around us, how to struggle with that context?
16- There are new phenomena (WTO, HR, economic rights) that can be incorporated as a continuation - not really new, the new are old, there is not much difference of opinion - we can converge.
Participant List
Alison Aggarwal APWLD Australia
Ann Elisabeth Samsom AWID Canada
Bina Srinivasen INFORM India/Sri Lanka
Carol Barton WICEJ USA
Charlotte Bunch Center for Women’s Global Leadership USA
Eileen Pittanam APWW
Gina Vargas AFM Articulación Femenina Marcosur Peru/ Latin America
Guacira Cesar Oliveira AFM Brazil
Homa Mungapen FEMNET Mauritius
Juhi Jain BANGAI India
Julia Sudbury INCITE: women of color against violence USA
Jurema Werneck AMNB/Criola Brazilian Black Women’s NGO Network Brazil
Kamla Bhasin India
Lilian Celiberti AFM Uruguay
Liliana Rainero AFM Argentina
Linda Basch NCRW USA
Lucia Xavier AMNB Criola Brazil
Lucy Garrido AFM Uruguay
Lydia Alpizar AWID Mexico
Malika Benkadi AAWORD Maroc
Margo Okazawa-Rey East Asia USA Puerto Rico Women’s Network/Mills College USA
Maria Lucia Cardoso Actionaid Brazil Brazil
Marianne Olesen KULU – Women and Development Denmark
Marina Meskhi Georgian Young Lawyers’ Assoc Georgia
Marlene Libardoni AFM /AGENDE Brazil
Martha Salazar WIDE – Network Women in Development Europe and KULU- Women and Development, Belgium/Europe
Mercy Siame FEMNET Africa
Monica Muñoz Vargas UNIFEM Conosur (South Cone)
Nandita Ghandi NNAWG India
Nilza Iraci AMNB/Geledis Brazil
Pam Rajput South Asia Watch India
Radhika Ramasubban CSR – Mumbai India
Rhonda Copelon IWHRC Int’l/ Human Rights Law Clinic and Women’s iniciatives for gender justice
Rosalind Petchesky WEDO USA
Ruth Manorama National Alliance of Women NAWO/ National Federation of Dalit Women -India
Sandhya Gokhale NNAWG
Shanlhi Dairian IWRAW Asia Pacific Malaysia
Simmi Gandhi INCITE USA
Sonia E. Alvarez Univ. of California US
Sunila Abeysekara
Susan Tucker OSI USA
Vera Soares AGENDE BRAZIL
