Subject: [fem-women2000 578] Fw: [apwomen2000] Fw: Invitation for statement of support and solidarity to the World Court on Women Against War, For Peace
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 05:29:31 +0900
Seq: 578
see this url for letter in .doc or .rtf format http://www1.jca.apc.org/fem/news/women2000/578.doc http://www1.jca.apc.org/fem/news/women2000/578.rtf Forwarded by lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org> ---------------- Original message follows ---------------- From: "Eileen Pittaway" <Tuckway@nsw.bigpond.net.au> Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 06:56:54 +1100 Subject: [apwomen2000] Fw: Invitation for statement of support and solidarity to the World Court on Women Against War, For Peace -- ----- Original Message ----- >From: "Asian Women's Human Rights Council AWHRC" <awhrcmanila@yahoo.com> To: <17119128@tptsl.seed.net.tw> Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 5:32 AM Subject: Re: Invitation for statement of support and solidarity to the World Court on Women Against War, For Peace > 8 February 2001 > > Dear Friends, > > This is an invitation to each one of you and your > organization to send statements of support and > solidarity for the World Court on Women Against War, > for Peace taking place in Capetown, South Africa on > March 8, 2001. > > Thank you for your support which gives strength and > encouragement to all of us who share in the work to > promote visions of peace and the empowerment of women > and their communities. > > Please refer to the attached letter from the > organizers and sponsors of the World Court. > > With our best wishes, > > Asian Women Human Rights Council (AWHRC) > > ===== > Nelia R. Sancho > Manila Office Coordinator > Asian Women Human Rights Council(AWHRC) > 934-D Tuason Bldg., Aurora Blvd.cor.20th Avenue > Quezon City, Philippines > Fax: (632)439-4153 ; 912-5251 > Mobile phone: 0917-526-9144 > > __________________________________________________ 5 February 2001 Request for Statement of Support and Solidarity for the World Court on Women Dear friends, Many happy greetings for the year 2001! On behalf of the International Co-ordinating Committee, we invite you to the World Court of Women Against War, For Peace that is to be held in Cape Town, South Africa from March 6-9, 2001. The Court, through the voices and visions of women, will look at the wars of this century, the wars against women, the changing faces of wars. For this century has not only seen the increasing technologisation and nuclearisation of wars that have become destructive on a genocidal scale, but it has revealed to the other faces of modern wars. Wars in time of peace. Besides the wars of armed conflict, the Courts will also look at the wars of colonisation; the wars of racism; the wars of globalisation; the wars of poverty; the wars of subsistence. The World Court of Women, through personal testimonies of violence and of resistance, analyses of expert witnesses and inspiring vision statements of a jury of wise women and men, will seek to understand the roots of all wars in our times towards evolving more holistic perspectives for peace in the new millenium. A millenium in which we must begin to make wars against women and the violence of all wars, unthinkable. While The World Court of Women will be held on March 8, 2001, it will be preceded by two days of roundtables March 6 and 7, following three basic themes: the first theme will include issues ranging from globalisation, poverty and feminisation of poverty; to nation states and nationalisms to militarisation and militarism; the second theme will focus on International Tribunals and Public Hearings, the Truth Reconciliation Commission moving towards new alternative concepts of justice; the third theme will include women's initiatives for peace, ranging from the participation of women in international peace processes to the healing of communities, towards new visions of peace. Several simultaneous roundtables will be organised around these themes. On March 9, 2001 we will together create the World Women's Commission on Human Rights that we hope will provide the perspective and structure for extending and deepening the dominant human rights discourse, challenging it from the life world and visions of women and also from the communities and cultures of the global south. Other events that are being organised around the Court include an International Film Festival on wars we must never forget, on peace we must dream together; an exhibition putting together the quilting and weaving of women who have survived and resisted war and armed conflict situations; an art installation on Comfort Women Survivors and other exhibitions including publications; a Women in Black action for peace and women's caravans. In preparation for the Court, the women's caravans have already been initiated in different regions, countries, cities and villages to connect the local issues to the larger issues of the Court through song and story, dance, drama and drum. We should perhaps at this point tell you a little of the story of the Courts of Women that was a dream of many years ago; over ten years ago. For this World Court of Women, as many of you may know is the culmination of a process initiated by the Asian Women's Human Rights Council and several other women's and human rights group in Asia. In 1992, it held the first Court of Women on Violence Against Women in Lahore, Pakistan and subsequently held six or more Courts in the region. The issues that the regional Courts in Asia focussed on, included the Violence of Wars and Military Sexual Slavery (Japan, 1994); Violence against the Dalits (India, 1994); Reproductive Rights and Genetic Engineering (Cairo, 1994); the Violence of Development (India, 1995); and Trafficking of Women (Nepal, 1995). The First World Court of Women on Violence against Women was held during IV World Women's Conference in 1995 in Beijing. In September 1999, AWHRC, with Maori Women's Network, organized by Nga Wahine Pacifika, the Pacific Court of Women focussing on issues related to the nuclear testing, nuclear waste dumping and uranium mining in the Pacific and its effects on women. In June 1995, El Taller, an international ngo based in Tunis and connected with AWHRC, together with women's groups in Tunisia and Lebanon initiated the Mahkammet El Nissa (Permanent Court of Arab Women) and in March 1998 held its second Court on family laws in the Arab world. El Taller also organised the Mahakama Wa Mama Wa Afrika (Africa Court of Women) in Nairobi, Kenya in July 1999 with women's and human rights groups in Africa focussing on the war of poverty; and the Mediterranean Forum on Violence Against Women in Morocco in November 1999 in preparation for Meditarranean Court of Women that will focus on north-south issues. Besides these Courts that have been held, several more are in preparation. These include the International Court of Women on Violence of the Economic Blockade and its effects on women and children organised by El Taller with the Federation of Cuban Women and the Institute of Philosophy in Cuba; the European Tribunal on Refugees and Migrants organised by El Taller with migrant, a network of 140 refugee and migrant ngo's; the Asia-Arab Court on honour crimes; and a Court of Women in Racism; the Holocaust and Apartheid at the World Conference on Racism in September 2001. These Courts are scheduled to be held in 2001/2002. Many of you have been with us in the creation and holding of these Regional Courts. Many of you were among the over one hundred supporting women's and human rights organizations that extended their support to the First World Court of Women held in Beijing in 1995. We thank you for the strength and encouragement that your solidarity gave us. You will know therefore, that while the Courts are deeply symbolic and an attempt to define a new space for women; a new politics, they also offer a valuable input local, national and international campaigns against different forms of violence against women; serve to generate support from the national and international community for the victims and survivors of these violations while providing a valuable body of evidence that wish to seek redress and compensation through national and international legal institutions; contribute to a body of knowledge that will help question, transform and initiate alternative perspectives, institutions and instruments that seek to address the violation of women's human rights at regional, national and international levels. The Courts of Women provide a forum for human rights education and have been an extremely sensitive and powerful media to reveal the interconnections between the various forms of personal and public violence against women in different societies. Violence that has been increasing and escalating; a violence that has become brutal. The Courts of Women challenging the dominant ways to knowledge, seek to weave together the objective reality (through analyses of the issue) with the subjective testimonies of the women; the personal with the political; the logical with the lyrical (through video testimonies, artistic images and poetry) urging to discern fresh insights, to find a new political imagination. The Courts of Women attempt to write counter hegemonic histories by creating a space where we can listen with care to the voices speaking in their own centre. And in re-writing history the Courts of Women not only hear of the need to extend the dominant human rights discourse from the experience and perspective of women; they speak too of a new generation of women's human rights. We invite you or a representative of your organization to participate in the Court, its roundtables and events around it. Knowing of your concerns and involvement in these issues, we invite you very specially to support the World Court of Women Against War, For Peace. To enable us to include you among the friends of the Court, please send to us a letter of acceptance and solidarity. We would request you to send the original letter to our secretariat in South Africa and fax a copy to us at the secretariats in Tunis or India. The details related to the International Co-ordination Committee and the regional focal points are: Sylvanna Dantu of El Taller South Africa, telephone: 27-21-689 9290, fax: 27-21-686 1274, email: dantu@iafrica.com, Nelia Sancho, Coordinator of AWHRC-Manila Office, telephone: (632) (02) 913-3337, fax: (632) (02) 439-4153, 912-5258, email: awhrc_manila@yahoo.com,awhrc@edsamail.com.ph, Corinne Kumar of El Taller in Tunisia, telephone: 216-1-752 457/752 057, facsimile: 216-1-751 570, email: eltaller@gnet.tn. If you would wish for more information to enable your participation, please do contact us. We look forward to receiving your statement of support and solidarity. With kind wishes, Corinne Kumar Nelia Sancho International Coordinator AWHRC Manila Office Coordinator Courts of Women _________________________________________________________________________ fem-Women2000@jca.apc.org for Women 2000, UN Special Session on Beijing+5 Searcheable Archive http://www.jca.apc.org/fem/news/women2000/index.shtml visit fem-net HomePage for other mailing lists http://www.jca.apc.org/fem