Raising Our Voices / Spring 2011 by Global Fund for Women

GLOBAL FUND FOR WOMEN TOP 10 WINS FOR WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS Compiled by Christine Ahn and Lindsey Thomson-Levin, Communications Team

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PHOTO © JC MCILWAINE

On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, the Global Fund for Women (GFW) looks back over the past year and celebrates some of the extraordinary victories won by women’s movements around the world. From progressive new national and international legislation to mass mobilizations for peace, we celebrate the hard work of our grantee partners. These 10 victories remind us that despite enormous odds, women are paving the way to a more just and equal world.

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“…It is truly wonderful, unbelievable. The impossible is after all possible and achievable. There is a lot of work ahead, a lot of challenges, but right now I am just happy and enjoying the moment.” — Hoda Elsadda – Board Member, Global Fund for Women Tahrir Square, Cairo – 11 February 2011

The Global Fund for Women is a publicly supported grantmaking foundation that advances human rights by investing in women-led organizations worldwide. 222 Sutter Street, Suite 500 San Francisco, CA 94108, USA Phone 415.248.4800 Fax 415.248.4801 http://www.globalfundforwomen.org EDITORS Lindsey Thomson-Levin and Christine Ahn CONTRIBUTORS Christine Ahn, Devi Leiper, Diane Patterson, Erika Guevara Rosas, Laura Shapiro, Lindsey Thomson-Levin, Amelia Wu, Zeina Zaatari DESIGN amymade graphic design FOUNDING PRESIDENT Anne Firth Murray SENIOR ADVISOR Kavita N. Ramdas BOARD OF DIRECTORS Leila Hessini, Chair ALGERIA/UNITED STATES Stans Kleijnen, Treasurer THE NETHERLANDS/UNITED STATES Dina Dublon, Secretary UNITED STATES Kozue Akibayashi, JAPAN Julie Parker Benello, UNITED STATES Charlotte Bunch, UNITED STATES Myrna Cunningham, NICARAGUA Abigail Disney, UNITED STATES Nurgul Djanaeva, KYRGYZSTAN Lydia Alpízar Durán, COSTA RICA/MEXICO Hoda Elsadda, EGYPT Linda Gruber, UNITED STATES Boriana Jonsson, BULGARIA/SWEDEN Gay McDougall, UNITED STATES Zenebeworke Tadesse, ETHIOPIA Marissa Wesely, UNITED STATES Sakena Yacoobi, AFGHANISTAN

We welcome your input. Please contact Deborah Holmes at dholmes@globalfundforwomen.org with feedback on this issue.

Spring greetings, I am deeply honored to be chairing the board of the Global Fund for Women during this exciting time of transition and opportunity. I have witnessed the incredible growth and collective energy of the Global Fund since joining as an advisor in 1997 while based in Egypt and researching women’s rights in religious and cultural traditions. After becoming a member of the board in 2006, I worked to strengthen our ability to fund women’s groups in my motherland of Algeria and North Africa. Momentous events have captivated us over the past several months. In Egypt, scenes of young women and men standing shoulder-to-shoulder demanding regime change and a new way of doing the people’s business mesmerized us. Among the crowds on Tahrir Square were hundreds of our grantee partners, advisors and our board member Hoda Elsadda. The world is watching now as the hard work of creating a new government – one that respects the rights of all – is underway. This joy was followed by immense grief over the devastating earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan. The after effects of that tragedy have given us pause to once again seriously consider the very real environmental implications of nuclear power. Yet I am heartened, because while substantive, transformative change takes time, it does happen. Our “Top 10 Wins for Women’s Movements” are a testament to that. The seemingly impossible – from domestic workers’ rights to the creation of UN Women – were achieved just in the past year thanks to years of solidarity and support! Thanks to you, our staff, grantee partners, advisors and supporters, I continue to be energized and inspired by the values-based grant making, feminist-networking and powerful vision of the Global Fund for Women.

Warmly,

Leila Hessini Board Chair

Building Critical Connections Between Women in Colombia and United States By Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Team

Early this year, twelve U.S.-based Global Fund for Women supporters traveled with us to Colombia to stand in solidarity with the Colombian women’s rights movements. We traveled to the northern states of Bolivar, Atlantico and La Guajira to meet extraordinary women’s rights groups working under extremely difficult conditions to build a different Colombia.

about their struggles for justice, and particularly how Plan Colombia, which has provided $6 billion in U.S. aid to the Colombian military, has been impacting their lives. Women’s rights groups report that in Colombia, a woman dies every two days from “political” causes and that every fourteen days, a woman is the victim of forced disappearance. They told us that rebel and paramilitary groups have been torturing civilians, raping women and girls, as well as mutilating and executing them. Women have even been forced to observe war crimes committed against their families. Colombia boasts a strong, vibrant and diverse women’s movement. Yet, amid an increasingly conservative climate, the Colombian women’s movements are facing systematic attempts to control women’s freedom and violate their security. From human rights defenders to sexual and reproductive rights activists to those seeking justice for women survivors of sexual violence, all are under heightened assault.

PHOTO © CHRISTINE SWITZER

At the same time, we witnessed the strength, courage and resilience of Colombian women, who, despite their so-called absence from official “peace negotiations,” have been at the center of civil and political unrest. In spite of repeated attacks, disappearances, kidnappings and threats on their lives, women’s groups continue to organize, develop agendas for peace, and lobby for their implementation. We returned inspired by their courage and struggle for justice in the midst of armed conflict.

Over the past 45 years, the war in Colombia has evolved from a conflict over ideology to one driven by economic interests and territorial control. In our meetings with grantee partners, we learned how the Colombian military is colluding with paramilitary death squads to seize territory and natural resources largely from indigenous communities on behalf of multinational economic interests. We learned

While the trip did involve educating donors about their philanthropic investments and discussions on how to mobilize more resources for women’s movements, the real goal was to build bridges between the women, who together, are helping to improve the conditions in their communities. In Colombia, we learned that in this exquisitely connected world, it is never a question of “critical mass,” but always about “critical connections.”

TELLING OUR STORIES: WOMEN’S VOICES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA By Zeina Zaatari, MENA Team

This summer, the Global Fund for Women will release a new publication of women’s perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). “Telling Our Stories” is a compendium of reflections from several Advisors, Board Members, and staff on lessons learned from the MENA women’s movements. The collection of essays covers a broad array of issues facing women in the region: legal reform, domestic violence, taboos, sexuality,

economic empowerment, political participation, women’s lives under occupation, rural women’s conditions, the politics of funding and fundraising, young women’s involvement in the movement, sexual violence, feminism and militarism. “Telling Our Stories” highlights the significance of the MENA women’s movement, its challenges and successes, and the future given the current revolutionary fervor sweeping the region. GLOBAL FUND FOR WOMEN

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GFW TOP 10 WINS FOR WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS

DOMESTIC WORKERS TO WIN WORKERS’ RIGHTS

Despite restrictive working conditions and limited infrastructure, domestic workers worldwide organized, advocated for, and won a victory that could ultimately guarantee basic labor protections to millions of women employed in other people’s homes. GFW is proud to have supported domestic worker groups who were instrumental to pushing for domestic worker’s rights at the International Labor Organization (ILO) 2010 Conference, including our grantee partner Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility (CARAM Asia). Next up, GFW grantee partners and others will be pushing for the Convention for Decent Work to be adopted at the June 2011 ILO Conference. If they are successful, it will be the result of incredible organizing by this vibrant movement, considered by many the most exciting in the world. 2. WOMEN AND GIRLS GET A STRONG VOICE AT THE UN Last year, the UN finally responded to a longstanding demand from the women’s movement: it created the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women. The superagency consolidates four existing UN offices for gender equality and women’s rights into a single entity, 4

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with Undersecretary General Michelle Bachelet, former Chilean president, at the helm. The creation of UN Women was indeed the result of years of advocacy for reform within the UN by the Gender Equality Architecture Reform campaign (GEAR), which mobilized more than 300 groups to hold the General Assembly accountable to its promises for women’s equality and empowerment. According to Charlotte Bunch, GFW Board Member and leader of GEAR, “Over the past 20 years, the Global Fund for Women has been a major funder for women’s groups to monitor the UN and attend events like UN world conferences and the Commission on the Status of Women, which has been crucial to creating the ground work for UN Women.” 3. FIRST SUCCESSFUL USE OF CEDAW IN RAPE CASE In the Philippines, women won a historic victory when they successfully used the Optional Protocol of CEDAW

(Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) in the first rape case ever to be decided under CEDAW. A UN committee ruled that the Philippines government violated the rights of Karen Vertido, a female rape survivor, when a local court dismissed her rape allegations due to “gender-based myths and stereotypes.” The Women’s Legal Bureau of the Philippines, a longtime GFW grantee partner, appealed to CEDAW, and in collaboration with several grantee partners across the Asia Pacific, secured this historic verdict for the survivor. The Philippine Government must now implement the recommendations made by CEDAW, including ensuring immediate measures in rape cases and impartial and fair legal procedures. CEDAW also urged the government to review its definition of rape and to train its judges, lawyers, law enforcement officers and medical personnel in a gender-sensitive manner to understand crimes of rape and other sexual offenses.

4. HUMAN RIGHTS COURT RULES AGAINST IRELAND’S BAN ON ABORTION In another groundbreaking decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously ruled that abortion, in certain cases, should be legalized in Ireland and that its ban violates the rights of pregnant women to receive proper medical care in lifethreatening cases. This legal victory was due to the persistence of the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), a GFW grantee, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of three women who argued that Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws threatened their health and wellbeing because it forced them to travel abroad for abortion. IFPA’s successful strategy argued that reproductive rights are human rights. GFW grants helped IFPA research and bring the case before the ECHR, as well as leverage other funding for costly litigation. This case also set precedence for women in other countries to challenge discriminatory laws through the ECHR, which makes legally binding decisions on human rights issues in the 47-member Council of Europe.

6. NATIONALITY LAWS SWEEP MIDDLE EAST Women’s quest for equality took a giant leap forward with the passage of nationality laws in Libya, Palestine, Tunisia and Yemen and first steps in Lebanon. Nationality laws grant women equal treatment under the law and ensure that even if they marry a man of a different nationality, their children will not be denied citizenship in their own country. This legal guarantee is also critical to ensuring women and children have access to basic resources, like education, health care and employment. Since 2001, GFW grantees have engaged in research, advocacy, media reform, and protests to support women’s full citizenship across nine countries – Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. These victories were the outcome of the “Arab Women’s Right to Nationality” regional campaign led by our grantee partners with regional coordination by the Collective for Research and Training on Development in Action (CRTD-A) in Lebanon. With democratic uprisings sweeping the Middle East, the struggle towards equal citizenship continues and grows.

7. NIGERIAN WOMEN DEFEAT NUDITY BILL Amid a rising tide of religious fundamentalism and cultural conservatism, Nigerian women’s groups succeeded last year in defeating the so-called Nudity Bill, introduced in 2008, which would have imposed state control over girl’s and women’s bodies. Had the bill passed, women over age 14 would be punished for exposing too much of their necklines or any parts of their belly, waist, or thighs. Fines for violations ranged from $65 to $325 or up to six-months in prison. The bill also would have lowered the age of marriage consent from 18 to 14 years. A network of women’s organizations, including grantee partners Alliances for Africa, CIRDDOC, and the Nigerian Feminist Forum, spearheaded the campaign that eventually quashed the Bill in 2010. Over 500 women activists attended the packed public hearing that eventually quashed the bill; their energy has motivated similar efforts to defeat repressive bills in other African countries. continued on page 8

MASS MARCH FOR WOMEN AND PEACE IN CONGO For three days in October, 220 women from 41 countries gathered in Bukavu, in eastern Congo to peacefully march in solidarity with 20,000 Congolese women and men against war and gender violence. Women proudly proclaimed, “we are all survivors, we’re still here, and we’re marching together for the women of the Congo,” and in doing so brought global attention to the mass rapes committed by multiple armies and militias. The gathering was organized by GFW grantee partner World March of Women in cooperation with local Congolese groups working to end violence against women. We supported several grantees’ participation in the march, which called for an end to government impunity from sexual violence. Their work is paying off: in February, a Congolese army colonel was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for ordering his troops to rape dozens of defenseless civilians in the village of Fizi on New Years Day. PHOTO © PIERRE-YVES GINET

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Donor Profile: Beret Strong Interview by Diane Patterson, Development Team

“Being a donor to the Global Fund For Women is a relationship I really value. Though I’m just one person, giving makes me feel connected and part of global change.” Beret Strong, a long-time monthly Corazón donor, is a documentary filmmaker whose work has focused on marginalized populations and other important issues of our time. “Investing in women’s rights and empowerment is the key to an equitable planet,” says Beret. “ I’m a member of the Corazón Network because these funds support invaluable work. Giving monthly allows more funding for grants, and every time I donate it feels valuable.” Beret is not just a check-writing donor. She has mined through our website, including our new grant search tool. “The Global Fund is so often ahead of the curve,” Beret says after seeing that one of our first grants in 1988 was to a group working on HIV/AIDS. “This was an issue people were just starting to become aware of,” she noted. “The Global Fund recognized that HIV/AIDS was having a tremendous impact on women and families, and it let the world know. What I see there is bravery.” When asked why she gives to the Global Fund for Women, Beret said so that the incredibly capable women “can do the work they know how to do best.” She gives especially to us because we’re not “some outside organization coming in.” Rather, we “enable and trust women to go forward themselves. I firmly believe in this model.”

MAKING I.T. OUR OWN: ISIS INTERNATIONAL EMPOWERS WOMEN THROUGH I.T. By Devi Leiper, Asia/Oceania Team

Have you ever used Facebook to post a video about an issue that matters to you? Has a radio announcement ever moved you to make a donation in support of a social justice movement? How often do you receive email petitions that advocate for policy changes?

Global Fund for Women grantee partner Isis International, based in Manila, Philippines, launched the Activist School for Feminist Development Communications in April 2010. The school is an interactive and participatory learning space

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At each Activist School, participants swap stories of their experiences using Twitter, showcase videos produced by their own grassroots communities, and share lessons on how to compete in the male-dominated worlds of journalism and communication.“I traveled to a strange place, met lovely people, and learned meaningful things,” says Ou Xiaoou, a participant from Yunnan, China. A truly feminist site for the dreams and actions of women, the Activist School is enabling women to remain the world’s best story-tellers, whether on the radio or on YouTube.

Rapid advances in information and communication technology are changing our world, raising voices, and bridging communities. Yet according to the Global Media Monitoring Project, only 24% of people in the news media are women. Moreover, women in the news are not seen as experts, and are more often than men asked their age and identified by their family status.

for activists to come together to share skills, knowledge, and experiences on how media technology can be used as an advocacy tool for women’s issues.

By Amelia Wu, Development Team

On March 8, the Global Fund for Women celebrated the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day with a lively group of supporters. We shared food, wine, and camaraderie, and were inspired by speaker Lepa Mladjenovic, a self-described “radical feminist lesbian” from Serbia with 18 years of history with the Global Fund for Women as a grantee and Advisor. Lepa is a leading anti-violence and anti-war activist in her country, where she currently heads the Autonomous Women’s Center. Lepa shared stories of first becoming a feminist as a teen, fighting social injustice in her community, and dedicating her life to ending all forms of violence and oppression.

NEW STAFF ANNOUNCEMENT The GFW is happy to announce several new additions to our team: Sara Ferree (Grant Writer), Violeta Krasnic (Program Director, Europe and Central Asia), Sara Kriksciun (Regional Director, New York), Anjali Mutucumarana (Development Officer for Philanthropic Partnerships), Chris Pallatto (Director of Human Resources and Organizational Development), Christine Switzer (Director of Development, Major Gifts), Noelle Williams (Administrative Assistant, New York). A warm welcome to all!

Explore Our Grantmaking History By Laura Shapiro, Communications Team

We’re thrilled to share a new online resource to showcase all the women’s groups we’ve funded over the years. Our new grant search tool allows you to research our grants and grantee partners since 1988. Search and sort grants by thematic issue (such as Building Peace and Ending Gender-Based Violence), by country, by year, or by grant amount. View profiles of all of our grantees and dig deeper into their work — and ours. Visit our freshly redesigned website to learn more!

Host a House Party, Grow the GFW Community 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year to party for a cause-the Global Fund for Women. Supporters opened their homes for International Women’s Day celebrations to raise awareness of and money for GFW. 55 hosts in seven countries, 18 U.S. states and 45 cities around the world, hosted parties for the global women’s movement. Want to have a party for women changing our world? We have everything you need to get started. Contact events@globalfundforwomen.org to receive our Event Organizing Kit today.

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Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. Article 2 of the Argentinean Civil Code now describes matrimony as a union between a “couple” versus between “man and woman.” Under the new legislation, same-sex couples have the same social rights as heterosexual couples, including parental rights to adopt, the right to their partner’s inheritance and pensions, among others. To date, some 1,000 lesbian and gay couples have been married. We have been proud to support the tireless efforts of lesbian rights groups in Argentina to achieve equality over the past two decades. Several GFW grantee partners, including Lesbianas a la Vista, Desalambrando, and Colectiva Feminista la Revuelta, used multiple strategies to win this legal victory, including increasing the public’s acceptance of LGBTQI equality. Inspired by Argentina, in Peru same-sex marriage is now a topic in the 2011 presidential debates. 9. MATERNAL DEATHS DROP BY 34 PERCENT In 2010, major studies by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and the World Bank revealed that the number of women dying annually during pregnancy or childbirth has dropped by more than one-third over the last 30 years. The Global Fund for Women is proud to have played a role in the global movement to save mothers’ lives. Since 1987, GFW has provided over $17.6 million in grants to 950 womenled organizations in 121 countries to improve women’s access to maternal and reproductive health care. In Bangladesh, where only 18 percent of births are attended by a skilled medical professional, grantee partner is Narigrantha Prabartana training traditional birth attendants and has formed a network of midwives who collectively purchase and distribute portable technology and medical equipment. In rural Nigeria, Gender Development Organization (GDO) helps women suffering from fistulae developed during complications in childbirth by transporting them to hospitals, paying for their treatment and surgery, and helping them reintegrate into their families after they have healed.

GFW has provided over $17.6 million in grants to 950 women-led organizations... to improve women’s access to maternal and reproductive health care. 8

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10. REVOLUTION BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE: TUNISIA, EGYPT AND BEYOND The year leading up to the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day closed with revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt where women played a central role. In Tunisia, groups supported by GFW, including the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, were at the forefront of the uprisings. After the ouster of Ben Ali, women’s groups demanded that a women’s rights agenda and human rights law serve as the foundation for the new democracy. In Egypt, our grantees were in Tahrir Square for weeks running makeshift clinics, transporting medical supplies, giving legal aid and documenting abuses. The revolutions not only opened opportunities for women to engage politically, they sparked the beginning of a transformation in gender relations. Men and women, across class and religions, worked and slept on the sidewalks side by side. And as men and women demanded respect and freedom from their government, they began treating each other with more dignity and viewing the well being of their countries and its peoples as everyone’s responsibility. These revolutions have now similarly awakened people in Bahrain, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen. The world is witnessing ordinary people’s desire for democracy and dignity, and realizing that their direct action can actually lead to real political and social change.