Revolutionary Women at the AWID Forum

The sudden and startling ring of a heavy hand bell reverberating across the massive halls, indicated to a sea of women to make their way towards the massive Halic Auditorium for the opening plenary. About 2200+ women activists from around the world had converged at Istanbul for the four-day international AWID Forum which commenced on April 19th, 2012, to attend a unique summit held every 4 years. The Association of Women’s Rights in Development 2012 forum amassed women activists from about 140 countries to share, experience, discuss, synthesize and assimilate their various experiences, perspectives, realities, opinions and trends and on a local, regional and international economic and social issues – all primarily affecting women. This year’s theme was Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women’s Rights and Justice.

I was co-presenter with Najma Sadeque (Director, Green Economics Initiative, SHIRKAT GAH, Pakistan) on the very first day, one of the sessions immediately after the first plenary – giving us very little time for a breather. My video presentations illustrated her in-depth session on “Surviving Money and the Financial System – and What Women can do about it.” We managed to fill all the chairs in our session despite not having the chance to make and distribute flyers or inform others and despite the hectic confusion participants usually face on the first day. The session was on alternative money and trading systems in difficult financial times (such as we have been experiencing the past several years), and what women could do to help themselves, especially at the local and grassroots level. It turned out to be to be a new subject for most.

Men greet each other, even complete strangers, with a handshake – Women do it with a smile. I repeatedly witnessed women breaking the language barriers with mutual smiles. Many women reunited with hugs – some after decades.

Although delighted to travel to Istanbul which has earned a reputation for being one of the most beautiful cities of the world, I wondered why Istanbul. I suppose several reasons, but one them was definitely the Haliç Congress Center, built in one of the most picturesque parts of the city, on the shores of an estuary flowing into the Bosporus strait. It’s an incredible establishment for holding large scale conferences. The main one holds 2,500, (I think) maybe even more, and it easily and comfortably fit in all the AWID participants. It is the largest and the most modern complex of auditoriums and cultural centres in Turkey.

Attending my first international conference, a realization hits as I progress through the various sessions. That half the global population is women – and yet from the spectrum of issues explored and examined, it boils down to the economics of it all. It crushingly bore down on these very women – who are already shouldering the maximum brunt of the world’s ills – thanks to the policy-makers which include too few women, if any. It’s almost as if to control the world, the “powers that be” first have to control the female of the species and economics that affect them. Which is why forums such as this, are so important.

It turns out many issues that one may have thought to be endemic, are actually quite global. Starting from livelihoods for women, or lack thereof, the AWID Forum covered the gamut of issues affecting women — unrecognized social and economics contribution, land grabbing on unprecedented scale, food insecurity, deepening poverty and financial crisis, sexual harassment and violence against women – including domestic, cultural, governmental and in conflict zones, and militancy; child labour, societal, hieratical and patriarchal structures, globalization, war profiteering, corporate theft of resources, corporate media, saving seeds, climate change, funding opportunities and issues to various challenges, obstacles and achievements, and more. From the forum, one synthesizes the interconnections.

Among various things that imprinted on me :

What comes out is nothing less than miraculous, with what courage and resilience, the majority of women face obstacles, challenges, tragedies and burdens on a regular basis – and continue to survive and fight it. Many activists had come to share stories. One of the most interesting for me was –“Experiences of Resistance and collective organizing to transform economic power. Manal Hassan from Egypt shared their struggles against their government for maintaining the status quo. Not much had changed since Mubarak’s removal last year. In fact Egyptian women were and still are in full force in the peaceful resistance. However, during the Arab Spring, female activists were actively targeted with brutal measures to curb their participation, including forced virginity tests.

Samira Ibrahim was one of them and became the new face of the resistance and courage when she sued and took the military-led government to court for the forcible “virginity” tests soldiers conducted on her and other female protestors of Tahrir Square and then denied during the Arab Spring. Her refusal to stay quiet after her assailants were declared innocent, lead to public support against human right violations by the government to a full blown slogan/street movement with protests inside and outside the country. (Note: Thanks to her case filed last year, a Cairo administrative court officially banned virginity tests on female detainees in military prisons).

Quote: “Fundamentalist groups oppress women first because that’s the easiest strategy to control half the population. It paralyzes society. #awidforum”

It couldn’t be more true when Zoe Gudovic of Serbia said, “economic power is not about amassing money, it’s about dismantling capitalism and patriarchy” citing a desperate need for change in how women’s movements relate to current economies.

I’d lost count on how many instances I’d heard first-hand stories on land grabbing from Latin America, Africa and even in Turkey by transnational corporations and other global entities. It almost invariably starts by systematically or forcibly removing indigenous people from their lands, in some countries leading to armed conflicts within, arms supplies to local muscle or militias by external forces, foreign bases, etc. Not unlike in Pakistan with controversial bases leased to foreign countries and about 600,000 acres of prime agricultural land in various provinces earmarked for Arab countries for their food security instead of our own. Women and their children are the most adversely affected, as they work on the land much more than the men.

Quote: “Women do 2/3 of world’s work but own only 1% of world’s land.”

After a while the pattern of planned global land-grab emerges, mostly in the South by the North. In one of the “Militarization, Conflict and Violence Against Women” sessions, Yanar Mohammad from Iraq gave a startling example: “97% literacy is now 30% after U.S. invasion, this is a crime.” Not just land grabbing – resource grabbing as well. Let’s not forget the so-called “Weapons of Mass Destruction” were never found on which basis Iraq was invaded – but now the oil fields of Iraq come under the international oil companies.

During this session, we raised matters of innocent casualties from drone attacks and the internal conflict going on in Karachi – a city that provides 70% of country’s GDP and yet it’s denizens are caught in unending turf wars. Also that they are escalating to frequent unspeakable violence and a gradual division of the metropolis of 18 million. How far away is Karachi from resembling a conflict zone? And that there are unseen hands involved. It was a participant from Ireland who pointed out that Pakistan was coming under Review in The Human Rights Council on the 14th Session, October 2012.

On the second day AWID held a massive party for it’s participants to celebrate it’s 30 years of advancing women’s rights and gender equality. On our way to the party we got to see a bit of Istanbul and the other side of the Bosphorus, while traveling in the packed coaches taking us to the Binbirdirek Cistern (a man-made subterranean reservoir built under a palace in the 5th century).There all the participants unwound from the 9 am to 8 pm sessions, sang and danced for all their worth and still many turned up on time the next morning at the forum.

Lydia Alpízar Durán, AWID’s Executive Director pointed out that the women’s movement needed to be re-evaluated and pushed forward with a more offensive approach, instead of a defensive one, in which the gains of the last 12 years had to be defended.

Interestingly despite Turkish women having gained their political rights and freedom by Ataturk in the 1930s from the Ottoman Sharia rulers, they hadn’t made as much strides their sisters from Asia, Africa and Latin America had. Listening to the Turkish women panelists and participants, it appears they face numerous challenges and are not as plugged into the women’s movements around the world. One young Turkish activist commented she had learnt a lot from the forum and could now see a pattern of land grab as was happening in her home town as well, by big companies. Another panelist, İpek Ajas, said that despite Turkey’s high capita income, the numbers need to be examined closely. Women are in fact not as integrated into the labour force, evident in the ratio of employed women to men. Turkey is ranked 10th from the bottom. Perhaps another good reason for holding the AWID Forum there.

Women regardless of their religion, creed or culture, share their problems globally – just the degrees and shades vary. During the open mike session, a participant suggested that up to 70% of men were involved in domestic violence, but there was the other 30% who weren’t. Why not involve and work with them to address the issue. Pakistan’s own Bacha Khan (or late Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) was an Afghan, Pashtun political and spiritual leader and activist. Also a lifelong pacifist and a devout Muslim, Baba once said, “If you wish to know how civilized a culture is, look at how it treats its women.”

My only concern was I couldn’t attend certain sessions because I was attending another. Numerous participants faced the difficulty of having to choose from the marathon 138 breakout sessions packed into 4 days, apart from the caucuses, solidarity round tables during lunch, art and culture areas, campaign corners, screening of films and documentaries – much more than what the 2200+ participants could partake in. There was even a Wellness Area – very important as women need to maintain their equilibrium when the pressure they are always under, mounts further. Some breakout sessions were similar and rightly so – if you couldn’t attend one- you could attend another – but if the number of sessions had been brought down just a tad – there wouldn’t have been sometimes, extremes in attendance and some critical sessions would have had a wider audience.

At the end of the last plenary on the fourth day, all were revved up, attendees left en mass in coaches with placards, banners, slogans, to Taksim Square to march together with local women’s organizations to support and declare solidarity with them, and defend their human rights; to demand gender equality and justice, be it social, economic or constitutional for all women and people. — To be included as the rightful stakeholders in all aspects of their social and economic life. It was most certainly a forum of revolutionary women!

Marwa Sharafeldin, an Egyptian poetess who was heavily involved in their revolution, beautifully captured in her poem “A Revolutionary Woman” the essence of the women participants at the forum and what they stood for – which she thought was itself quite revolutionary. Her narration at the beginning of Day 3 plenary was so inspiring. I’m reproducing it below. I took it down verbatim, so if there are a few typos because of getting the accent wrong, sorry. But most of it is right.

Finally, I’m thankful to the women responsible for making it possible for me to attend this memorable forum, where I learned so much.