| AWID Forum 2008: 'The Power of Movements' |
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The AWID International Forum on Women’s Rights and Development is the largest international summit on gender equality outside of the United Nations System and one of the most important global meetings on women’s rights. In the 2008 AWID Forum (14-17 November) WEMC organised the following roundtable and panel sessions:
| Roundtable: 'Negotiating alliances, overcoming oppositions: women’s movements and other social movements.' |
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| This event, jointly organised by WEMC and the research programme consortium, ‘Pathways of Women’s Empowerment’ on 13 November 2008, was the first cross-RPC collaboration event between the two RPCs. It focused on women, power relations and empowerment processes specifically in terms of encounters of women’s movements with other movements in civil society in the various countries that the two RPCs are working in. This focus also reflected the theme of the AWID conference, on women and movements, and the core areas of convergence between our programmes (Click to read report from Pathways website). |
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| Panel: 'Women democratising power from the inside out: Challenging cultural, religious and political impositions.' |
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This panel was organised by WEMC at the AWID 2008 Forum and featured presentations from Indonesia, Pakistan and Iran. The speakers drew on their research and analyses conducted in these countries and discussed indigenous strategies of women facing political, cultural and religious challenges. The presentations illustrated how women, even in oppressive and undemocratic conditions, have developed ways to challenge and change or circumvent the forces – economic, political, cultural/religious – that restrict and obstruct their efforts to empower themselves and to protect and advance their rights, while resisting the impositions of political Islamists at macro, meso and micro levels in both formal state systems and informal power structures. A comparative analysis of the three situations was also presented, drawing lessons from them and bringing in comparable examples from non-Muslim contexts.
Discussion focused on the effectiveness of these strategies to challenge or negotiate power contestations at macro, meso and micro levels between forces of politicised Islam and the democratisation efforts of civil society state systems and informal power structures.
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| UNESCAP & WEMC forum: 'Where’s the power in women’s empowerment' |
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On 4 August 2008, WEMC CAG (Consortium Advisory Group) members joined the Directorate in a panel during a policy forum attended by officials and development policy makers of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The event, co-organized by WEMC, took place at the ESCAP headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand and was hosted by the former Chair of WEMC CAG, Noeleen Heyzer, in her capacity as the UN Under-Secretary-General and ESCAP Secretary. The forum aimed at promoting a deeper understanding among ESCAP policy-makers and practitioners on women’s empowerment by re-examining concepts of empowerment in development policy-making, discourses and practices. Panel presentations about how power structures at the local (meso) level facilitate or obstruct the achievement of development goals on gender equality and women’s empowerment were followed by exchanges on possible approaches to support women’s empowerment initiatives at different levels of governance.
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| No excuses for violence against women! International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 2007: Launch of Global Campaign to Stop Stoning and Killing Women & international forums on ‘Culture’, Women, Violence |
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On 26 November 2007, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (designated as 25 November by the United Nations) was commemorated at SantralIstanbul, Kampusu, Istanbul Bilgi University. Under the banner title of ‘No Excuses for Violence Against Women’, the commemoration began with the launch of a Global Campaign to Stop Stoning and Killing Women, organised by Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). This was followed by an international forum on ‘Culture’, Women, Violence: rejecting ‘cultural’ justifications for violence against women, co-organised by the Research Programme Consortium on Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (WEMC), Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong, the European Institute, Centre for Migration Research and the NGO Training and Research Unit of Istanbul Bilgi University. Professor Dr Yakin Ertürk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, was the Keynote Speaker for the day.
On 27 November 2007 the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women was commemorated at Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara in the form of a forum on ‘Culture’, Women, Violence: debunking and rejecting ‘cultural’ justifications for violence against women, co-organised by the Research Programme Consortium on Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (WEMC), Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong and the Gender and Women’s Studies Graduate Programme of the Middle East Technical University (METU).
Both events were supported by the Department for International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom, the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), and Mama Cash Foundation in the Netherlands. |
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The forums included international and Turkish speakers and participants, many of whom have worked for years in support of women's rights and human rights. Discussions at the forums were intended to feed into the United Nations Secretary-General's forthcoming report on the implementation of the General Assembly's resolution 61/143, Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women.
According to UN statistics, at least one woman in three in the world is subjected to violence, often life-threatening, at some point of her life. Increasingly, the international community agrees that violence against women is a serious global problem. In 1993, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. In 1999, it designated 25 November as International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Despite the international consensus on the need to eliminate violence against women globally, violence against women persists in many societies. One key reason for this is the misuse of 'culture' by certain countries, groups and individuals to justify violence against women. Through this misuse of 'culture', these countries, groups or individuals attempt to exempt themselves from complying with laws that support women's rights or with international human rights obligations.
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