Reflections

While the cultural activities at the closing ceremony continue, these are reflections so far on my initial questions about the World Social Forum in Nairobi.

What do the women of Africa have to say? What are their main struggles and alternatives for the future?

1. First and foremost: an end to violence. This includes the capitalist-driven conflicts across Africa which impact on women and girls as victims – and as survivors in post-conflict societies. Mobilisation around UN Resoultion1325 remains as relevant as ever.

It also includes the hidden violence against women at home and in particular the contravention of women’s reproductive and sexual health rights which deprives them of human dignity and is often life-threatening.

In Africa, there are cultural practices which add to this problem: FGM, arranged marriages for 12 year old girls; abuse and disinheritance of widows; polygamy and the promiscuity of many African men.

The Protocol for the Rights of Women, ratified by the heads of state of the African Union, addresses these issues in addition to the rights in the international Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. There is an ongoing struggle for African women to convince their governments to put these pledges into action. They also need to work at the grassroots, with their own families, religious leaders and village chiefs, in changing male attitudes and behaviour.

At the same time, the rise of east-west militarism and the related increase in religious fundamentalism have served to entrench traditional practices which adversely affect women’s rights.

There have been many concerns expressed at the very visible presence of church groups at the forum, which seems to contradict the common stand on fundamentalisms.
The African church has a wide constituency and, while often playing an important role in supporting livelihoods for poor communities, upholds conservative positions on issues such as abortion and sexuality.

Secondly an end to neo-liberalism and globalisation

Since women perceive the connection between violence and the global economy, this issue is also a recognised part of their struggle. Their voices have been heard loud and clear in all the debates, highlighting the impact of all the big abbreviations – EU, G8, US with their EPAs and FTAs – on women’s livelihoods and their opportunity to become economically independent.

The G8 approach to linking development assistance with conditions based on their own economic interests is exemplified by Angela Merkel’s proposal for G8 partnerships with African countries, which will also depend on opening up private investment to companies from abroad.

Food sovereignty (rather than food security which depends on international assistance) has been the term widely used in discussions about the need for Africa and other southern continents to become self-sufficient in food through south-south and intra-continental trade.

Thirdly an end to government corruption

The responsibility of African governments in ensuring the rights and dignity of both women and men has been widely addressed in the different themes. Labour rights, land and housing rights, water rights, women’s rights, the right to health and education – all converged in the social movements assembly.

Young African women were particularly active, which is encouragig for the future, since these issues affect the power they will have to control their own lives, make their own decisions and play a full part in development.

Government corruption, specifically the alliances between governments and multinational companies – which benefit government officials from the top down and increase inequality between rich and poor – is seen as a key factor in the human rights and dignity debate and is a primary target for grassroots action.

Meanwhile, Wangari Maathai has petitioned the member states of the African Union for failing to honour their pledge of allocating 15% of their annual budget on health care, since the Abuja declaration was signed in 2001.

‘An estimated 40 million Africans have died from preventable health-related conditions as a result of the Abuja commitment not being met.’

To what extent has a process of ‘engendering’ taken place in the organisation, content and dialogue of the WSF?

To a large extent, the pledges made by the WSF2007 organisers were fulfilled. One notable exception was the absence of a creche or ‘child camp’ as last year in Mumbai. This inhibits attendance by women who don’t have the finances or friends and family to provide childcare support for the duration of the forum.

In the post below, which is a slightly enhanced version of my audio-diary for the openDemocracy podcast, there’s a summary of the good news. The presence and participation of women in all processes was one of the most striking aspects of the forum.

In addition to equal relations between women and men, Beatrice Ndayizigamiye, a journalist from Burundi with the Panos Institute, also observed ‘equal relationships between south and north’ at the forum, as opposed to the usual hierarchy.

Within the perimeter fence of WSF2007, another world does seem to be possible. However, women now return to the existing world. The struggle continues, despite the fact that certain African countries (South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda) are leading the so-called developed world as regards numbers of women in parliament. There’s no room for complacency, since others are still setting the agenda – which is why the following question is significant.

How far have African women’s concerns been taken into account in the G8 lobby preparation process and discourse?

The anti-G8 activists from Germany and the UK, many of them women, were successful in raising awareness about the relevance of the G8 Summit to African concerns and were able to develop strong alliances with the social and women’s movements.

The same issues of militarism, debt and transparency (of international institutions) were discussed at the mobilisation meeting, having broad resonance with general themes of the forum. The proposal for a global day of action to coincide with the G8 Summit in June, endorsed by the social movements assembly, indicates that the bridge from Nairobi to Heiligendamm, where the G8 Summit takes place, has been built – and that women will be involved in the process.

In conclusion

It’s satisfying to be able to report good news. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in Nairobi, but I travelled hopefully – and I was right to do so. Of course, these plans for the future need to be concretised, but the move towards strategic action has certainly begun.
Please keep visiting the blog, since there will be post-forum activities – and reflections – to report.

Ending violence against women

Anthony Barnett from openDemocracy is also here at the WSF. He has contributed this post and the one below.

Yesterday began for me at the human rights tent with over 500 people. Its theme was human rights and the struggle for gender equity: ending violence against women. There was a great panel. The session opened with two witness statements from Honduras and from the Congo, followed by a musical performance that ended with the female chorus learning karate to prevent rape. Then the session was thrown open to the floor for their questions and comments.

There were lots of men in the audience. From Kenya and Uganda men asked, why do you want women to karate against us, don’t we have human rights? Women should be equal but are not men and women also different.

On the panel were expert respondants, Mary Robinson from Ireland, Miloon Kothari from India and the UN, Miria Matembe from Uganda (who really told the men to wake up!)

Mary Robinson was patient and careful. Gender based violence was not only directed at women, look at the selection of men, sons and husbands, at Sebrenica. But today in Darfur, women are suffering at this moment in a shocking and disgusting way, which needs to be prevented. She argued for a systematic, strategic approach, engaging with power to “realise rights”, the name of her organisation. Every year 600,000 mothers die in childbirth, deaths that could be prevented. Why is this not more of a priority? A silent violation of fundamental right is taking place on an enormous scale.

UN Resolution 1325

In parallel with the large human rights event there was a double session on UN resolution 1325. I got the second of these at 11.30am. There were around forty people. As I’ll report, Cora Weiss took up the approach Mary Robinson had called for.

The first speaker was Liss Schanke from Norway, whose government is committed to the principles of 1325 domestically as well as supporting it internationally. Liss told us about the work they are doing in India, where because the constitution requires it, there are many women and minorities in local and state elections. Liss’s agency helps train them. “There are many facts you know about India”, she said, “but I am sure you don’t know that India has over one million elected women, more than in the rest of the world put together”. She was right.

She and later speakers, from Mexico and again from Norway, talked about the political realities as well. “Who gets what, why and how: that’s the game of politics”, said Liss. It applies to women just as much as men. This was one of the themes of the session. The point was made strongly by Cora Weiss (who I’ll introduce in a second). She said it had been a hard lesson. Hard-right women had been put into positions of influence in the UN and promptly reversed policy even on gender issues. She named names. It is not enough to elect more females on the lines of 1325, they need to have been educated in the issues and, critically, supported by organised women’s networks, otherwise they are just as prone to being corrupted by office as men.

Cora Weiss helped write 1325 from her small office overlooking the UN. She told us how they got the resolution through, how an assembly of mainly men didn’t dare vote against it so they adopted it unanimously so that they didn’t need to vote for it! But how it was now international law and it applied to internal public organisations in every country of the world, not just international ones. It is thus an instrument waiting to be used. “It does not say ‘shall’, it does not say ‘got to’, but it IS the law”.

But how are we to move towards realising it? Cora emphasises the long, necessary road of public education. For her it was a practical measure to help realise sweeping change. To drive this change forward, she said, what is needed is “Participation, critical thinking and a holistic approach that engages with the issues, especially the ones you do not learn about at school.” A good description of what we are trying to do at openDemocracy.

Cora also set out her programme. She didn’t speak for long but as you can see it was clear and to the point.

There four threats to world peace:
• Climate change
• Competition over natural resources
• Marginalisation of many people
• Militarism

To deal with them people have got to get out of their boxes. The movement to implement 1325 should be a strategic one, therefore, to make connections, influence power, be practical and keep the larger vision.

In this way Cora Weiss carried forward the approach set out by Mary Robinson with her explicit call for a “strategic approach”.

Anthony Barnett

Women in the Process

The first event I attended yesterday was

Peace Women across the Globe:
What do we want from the World Social Forum?

Speakers from different continents agreed on the problem:

‘War is a result of the global economy, which is the biggest fundamentalism of all: the focus on profit rather than people. And too many people believe there is no alternative to greed.

But there is an alternative. For women of peace, this violent world is not ours. We, who are the custodians of life, are already living another world. We need to deliver that vision to everyone, we want to see a completely different mindset.’

‘We want to establish a broader definition of peace, not just ‘the absence of war.’ Peace includes women’s rights, justice, health, education, governance, cultural expression and more.’

The discussion, organised by Peace Women Across the Globe and the Coalition for Peace in Africa took place in an open tent. There was no microphone and women’s words were sometimes carried away in the wind.

Yet as a process it worked very well. It was facilitated by a young Muslim woman wearing the hijab. There were rousing chants from time to time to energise us. Kenyan women from grassroots communities and minority groups had the confidence to stand up and make comments in their own language. The speakers, who had only recently met at a preparation workshop in Delhi, embraced each other. In the middle of the session, a delegation of women from the Great Lakes region approached with their banner, singing a song against the evils of war, and joined in the debate.

I noticed there were some men in the audience. It transpired they were interpreters (English-Swahili-French-Spanish) who sat beside participants to help when needed. They were obviously very engaged in the issues.

The session also came up with concrete suggestions. They intend to lobby the World Social Forum to adopt the first principle of Security Council Resolution 1325: equal participation of women at all levels of decision-making.

There is still a long way to go. Conflict and violence affect the lives of many women and their families in Africa. ‘Men also suffer, but their suffering has an additional impact on women.’ And 2007 is election year in Kenya: local women are afraid this will turn nasty. ‘How do we organise ourselves better to prevent it?’

There are a number of women’s peace coalitions at the forum and their sessions will culminate in collective action-planning on Wednesday. Despite the scale of the task, there is a sense of passion and energy – and hope – in this connection between peace women across the globe.

As women, we feel that food should never be traded

In contrast at the event run by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung on gender, food, agriculture and trade, there were microphones to pass round so that everyone’s comments could be heard. I missed the presentations, but the discussion was wide-ranging and pointed, with contributions from both women and men (there was a 50.50 audience).

One participant put up an argument for including governments and international finance institutions like the World Bank in these dialogues – since it is they who call the tune.

Women from Africa and Central America highlighted poor development decisions made by donor-government partnerships – which adversely affect people’s livelihoods, with resulting polarisation between government and civil society and increased state violence.

Unfortunately, when the panellists came to sum up, there was not much to suggest as regards practical action, apart from social mobilisation against adverse policies.

While the German speaker claimed that ‘Germany takes the WSF very seriously’ he held to the position of major donor strategies, such as alignment with national government priorities. He did not seem to have considered what participants were saying about their own experiences and had not recognised the question posed earlier: ‘what is Germany’s interest here in relation to her own trade liberalisation?’

In the end, although the exchange of experiences was useful, this session went around the status quo in circles, rather than visioning the future.