6000 Women Are on the Move

Here are some daily updates from another one of our delegates from Ottawa, Debbie Grisdale.

Day 1

I arrived in New York yesterday for UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) as a member of the International Anglican Women’s Network (IAWN)  - Canada delegation. We are about 15 on the IAWN–Canada delegation, part of a larger IAWN group and joining an unprecedented 6000 women (and some men) from civil society groups around the world, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The theme this year for the CSW is the Prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls.  

Today was the NGO CSW Forum Consultation Day. (Sorry about all the acronyms).  About 800 -1000 women gathered for the all day session.  The day opened with a theatre, song and dance performance from a group of young women ‘GIRL Be Heard’ you can see a short at http://girlbeheard.org/psa  The performance they did was on trafficking and was very moving – by the end I was overwhelmed and not sure I could last a whole week  of listening and watching to these and other stories. But things picked up after that after I could see how empowered these young women were to speak out. 

Several people made opening remarks including Under Secretary-General Michelle Bachelet who is Executive Director of the UN agency UN Women. She talked about how violence undermines sustainable development and the complexity of violence against women and girls needing our full attention. There were panels throughout the day were on trafficking of women and girls, on the role of men, best practices to prevent violence against women and girls and communications and social media.

 In the panel on the role of men, Mallika Dutt, CEO and founder of Breakthrough spoke about how the least safe place for a woman is in the home and that domestic violence is everyone’s business. She showed several short videos Breakthrough has made for the Indian audience called “Bell Bajae” (‘ring the bell’ in Hindi, as in the doorbell). If you scroll to the bottom of the home page of http://breakthrough.tv you can see one.  It is about interrupting domestic violence when you become aware of it occuring. 

Another speaker introduced an award winning program and app designed for college students so you can stay connected with friends through this app on your phone. http://www.circleof6app.com I’d be interested to know what any young person reading this thinks. 

The government sessions start tomorrow and the hundreds of side events too. 6000 women are on the move. I will keep in touch.

Days 2 & 3

She got on at the 36th floor of the hotel with me and we introduced ourselves. Her name was Anya and she was from India. We started talking immediately about the Commission and side events. She said how important the issue of gender-based violence is in her country.  As the elevator filled up stopping at various floors, she talked to me about the young woman who had died after being gang raped on a bus and why it has galvanized so much attention. “I am heartened by the reaction of people – especially the young and by women and men." she said. “There are hundreds if not thousands of similar cases that did not this kind of outrage." What was different this time, I asked. “She had done everything right”, Anya said “she was a strong student, she was out with a male friend, it wasn't late at night. People couldn’t say she was 'asking for it' by how she was dressed or by what she was doing. “ By the time we reached the lobby I felt enriched by this chance encounter with Anya who had brought this story to life for me. And for everyone else on the elevator, if they had been listening in. 

Well known Bangladeshi diplomat Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury spoke at the Episcopal Church Centre today. As the press release said, “The Ambassador’s biography is long and distinguished, but he is perhaps most notably accredited for work on development in struggling nations, global peace, and the rights of women and children.” He spoke to us about the essential role women play in fostering peace and resisting militarism. “Militarism is impoverishing the earth and humanity” he said. He also spoke at length about UN Security Council resolution 1325 'Women and Peace and Security', a landmark resolution adopted in 2000. But as testament to how slowly things are changing, he told us that less than 2% of peace agreement signatories are women and that only 7% of those who negotiate the treaties are women. 

At another workshop, a Tanzanian woman spoke about how when female genital mutilation was banned in her country in the 1970s, it went underground with a new name and a new story, but the same practice that often caused young girls to bleed to death. There had been no community dialogue and no community decision to stop the practice.  

A clear message being repeated in different ways in different forum is that gender-based violence is not a women’s issue – it is a societal issue and men and women young and old must address it together. 

The mornings start with an 8am ecumenical worship at Church House. The first day was a group of energetic young women leading the worship with song, dance and theatre in a beautiful and sacred space. An artist has created huge black silhouettes of women’s heads and groups of women painted on cloth and hung around the chapel – she will be developing these portraits over the course of the Commission. Today Presbyterian women led us ...…”Give ear to our prayers as we utter them in a thousand languages and in the silence of words unspoken, and walk with us as we sojourn this pathway to justice and righteousness for all women and girls.”