Rejuvenating Pacific Feminism

Saying helloFriday 14th November 2008 CAPETOWN: From the south of Auckland to the southern Highlands of PNG, women of the Pacific will claim a historic moment at this morning’s opening of the 11th AWID International Forum at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in South Africa.
It will be the first time they have gathered in numbers this large at any global forum since close to 100 delegates from all corners of the Pacific went to Beijing, China, in 1995 for the 4th United Nations World Conference on Women.
15 years later, less than half that number are attending this meeting; but given it’s on a much smaller scale – some 2,000 delegates compared to the 20,000 who went to China; the representation and talking spaces by the Pacific at this event is already encouraging for the younger Pacific women who are here.
Fiji’s Tara Chetty and Michelle Reddy, Tonga’s Ofa-ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki and Papua New Guinea’s Maya Popul are amongst those keen to close the gap between the new generation of Pacific feminists and older women from the region who formed the early awareness of women’s rights as a social movement for change.pacific activism
“I would hope that the movement for us back home anyway would be about mentoring young women because I think that’s the future for women,” says Popul, who is a board member for the YWCA in PNG. She says there’s a need for older women to give of their knowledge very generously to younger women, “and to just have that culture of encouragement in there. Yes, there are a few barriers in there unfortunately but once we start embracing the mentoring of young women we’ll know what it means to grow a movement, and make it move on.”
Fiji Women’s Rights Director Virisila Buadromo sees the energy from the younger delegates as a positive part of the undercurrent of change running through gender equality work in the Pacific.
“We’re rejuvenating Pacific feminism. Currently, it needs some rejuvenation and nourishing and it’s important that young women get involved in this process,” says Buadromo.
meeting points“If we’re going to have any kind of movement in the Pacific; to be part of any change that’s social; the women’s movement and the feminist movement need to have solidarity.”
Tara Chetty, who is now with the FWRM, has been working closely with Noeleen Nabulivou from the Fiji-based Women’s Action for Change network. Like FemLINKpacific’s Sharon Rolls, who is part of a global women’s media training initiative targeting young women during AWID 08, Chetty has actively shaped input into the AWID program aimed at helping young women share their stories using a range of media.
Based on her experience at the last AWID in Bangkok two years ago, where Chetty says delegates from the Pacific met up during the meeting, and only while in the conference, she has used the internet to prepare delegates, share information and support AWID international committee member Noelene Nabulivou. Together with DAWN activist Michelle Reddy, also of FWRM, they have managed a strong online discussion group of the Pacific delegates coming to South Africa sharing information, program and arrival details and ideas well in advance of arrival.
That networking and organising commitment to keep those in gender activism in the Pacific aware of others in the same field is welcomed by Buadromo who says it has helped broaden the Pacific presence at this event – where Pacific delegates can talk about rights for women without the usual backlash.
“Unfortunately in the pacific feminism is still considered the f word — people still identify themselves as women’s rights activists or defenders. They have all these different sorts of identities – and have to make the journey towards realising we are all working in one direction in their own time.”
Part of that journey involves claiming Pacific spaces on conferences such as AWID, and putting the rest of the world on notice that the Pacific advocates have arrived.
United Nations ESCAP adviser Vanessa Griffin of Fiji, who is part of the AWID board of Directors along with New Zealand’s Marilyn Waring, says the higher profile and numbers for Pacific women at the global event bodes well for a Pacific impact on the program of events and speaker panels.
She says the AWID forum provides a chance for the Pacific delegates to “think and reflect; and connect with what’s important in the Pacific from your priorities.”
The overall ‘power of movements’ theme to AWID will allow women from the Pacific to talk about what movements mean for them, what movement building is, and how it can be done; in the same ways that women from other regions of the world are coming together to discuss the same issues.
“Having a large number of Pacific women allows you to think about that together because that is quite rare to have so many in one place such as this,” says Griffin.
Key plenary speakers include Cook Islander Lynnsay Rongokea-Francis, currently based in Thailand as the Regional Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific forum on Women, Law and Development. Pacific-led panels or Pacific speakers on international panels are a feature of the daily program of parallel sessions and a Pacific space is also going to double as a daily meeting point for the conference which ends on the 17th. ENDS
BACKGROUND: The AWID international forum on Women’s Rights and Development is held every two years, and the 11th forum is happening in Cape Town South Africa from 14-17th November. The 2008 theme is ‘The power of Movements’ and will examine the challenges around the notion of movements and movement building for women.
PROGRAM DETAILS: www.awid.org
MEDIA queries for delegate contacts to: lisa.lahari@gmail.com