Written 1:37 PM Sep 8, 1994 by icpd:ngonet in igc:icpd.general ---------- "WFS: The legacy of women's caucus" ---------- The legacy of the Women's Caucus By Women's Feature Service Cairo, Sept. 7 (WFS) -- On day two of the conference, the activity at the caucus was building up. The day before neither bad acoustics nor malfunctioning headsets could dampen the atmosphere of Sunday's Women's Caucus meeting, at the NGO Forum. Bella Abzug, president of Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), and key speaker of the opening session of the first Caucus meeting, greeted the delegates and encouraged them to approach the task with love for the planet and its people. As a response to the ICPD's draft Plan of Action, WEDO has published a parallel document. This document will provide the framework for the lobbying which will taking place over the next week. This week marks the culmination of the work of many of the NGO participants, most of whom have been working hard to make the reality of women's lives part of government country reports for the ICPD. Many women's organisations have successfully lobbied their government delegations to broaden the scope of the population debate to include reproductive rights, health and development issues. In January 1993, 19 women's health advocates representing women from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.S. and Western Europe met to discuss how women's voices might best be heard before and after the 1994 Conference on Population and Development to be held in Cairo, Egypt. The group initiated a "Women's Declaration on Population Policies", and a Women's Voices '94 Alliance to promote it, and asked the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC), a U.S. based organisation, to serve as the Secretariat. Between October 1992 and March 1993, the Declaration was modified and finalised by over 100 women's organisations in 23 countries. The Declaration asserted that sexual and reproductive health and rights are fundamental to all people. It spelt out a set of operating principles and programme strategies to ensure that these rights can be exercised. It called on national governments and international agencies to reshape their policies to ensure health and rights. In the eight months since the initiative was launched, over 2288 individuals and organisations from more than 105 countries signed and endorsed the Women's Declaration - women and men from many walks of life, professions, cultures and sectors, unions and village associations, major family planning agencies, feminist networks, and human rights groups. They are rich and poor, rural and urban. They differ as to whether population policies should exist, about the safety and appropriateness of particular methods of contraception, or about the best way to deliver sexual and reproductive health services. But they all share the values and agenda set forth in the Women's Declaration. The Women's Declaration is but one example of an initiative that attempts to bring together divergent views on an important subject that has often divided the women's community. It is pathbreaking in that so far the population control and the family planning lobbies have not exactly seen eye to eye on the subject. Even more important, women have not been at the centre stage of the debate. Men and male dominated organisations, both in the North and South, have determined what population policy should be about. Feminists have argued that women need a level of control over their reproductive roles as often their status in society is connected to child bearing and rearing -- activities that take the bulk of their productive years. For this, contraception for preventing pregnancy, postponing motherhood and spacing children is essential. Yet, chemical methods of contraception -- also supposedly more reliable, but not necessarily more safe or without side effects -- pose a major problem for women. In April at the ICPD precom in New York, women's groups also played a major role. "The people outside these walls would never have a voice at a conference like this if it weren't for women's groups and other NGOs," said New Zealander Brigid Inder of the Pacific Island NGO group. She explained that this was "not just because of our work at the grassroots level in our communities but also because of the analysis we were able to provide to government delegations." "Women's groups have been extremely helpful in keeping delegates on the right track," said Dr. Nafis Sadik, conference secretary-general. "They've given their suggestions to the working groups and the working groups have used many of the women's suggestions." Where views appeared most inflexible, women's groups lobbied the hardest. For example, during the debated on the section of the draft document that dealt with safe motherhood. This section stated that mortality resulting from complications of poorly performed abortions accounts for many maternal deaths in countries where abortions are unsafe and illegal. The women's caucus drafted its version, emphasising that the women's movement has never advocated abortion as a method of family planning. However, it pointed out that safe abortions should be made available to those seeking them. The women's lobby weighed in early at the conference against the traditional perspective on population issues by releasing a statement from more than a dozen international population and women's health organisations. At the heart of their statement was a call for an "enlightened" draft Programme of Action "which reflects the deep understanding that population change, poverty, gender inequality, patterns of consumption, and threats to the environment are so interconnected they cannot and should not be separated." In Brazil, in an exceptional move, about 80 percent of the proposals on population and reproductive health issues, tabled by feminists, were incorporated into the government's official report. Towards the end of 1993, almost 500 women from every corner of the country attended the 'National Encounter on Women and Development -- Our Rights at Cairo '94', held in the capital, Brasilia. It was here that the 'Brasilia Charter' emerged -- a document defining women's reproductive rights and outlining the population policies which Brazilian women would like their government to present at ICPD. The Encounter, a joint effort by seven women's NGOs, brought together representatives of over 70 different women's organisations, experts and institutions specialising in development and demographics. Several deputies and senators from various political parties also participated. The Brazilian women's movement is pressing for women's reproductive rights to be recognised. Equally significant, they are campaigning for women's access to education, training and jobs, especially in fields where gender discrimination persists, and in specialised areas. The dialogue with Brazil's social movements led the government to take an important step forward in recognising and accepting the distinction between population policies and family planning. Jacqueline Pitanguy, one of the organisers of the Encounter, applauded the Charter as the initiator of the historic process to build women's citizenship. She stressed that it has made the voices of Brazil's women more audible. The organising efforts of the last two years will be evident in the language finally adopted in the Plan of Action.