Strengthening the capacity of women's rights organization

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Resisting and Challenging Religious
FundamentalismsAWID - Association For Womens
Rights in Development
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Introduction Background

• AWIDs mission is to strengthen the voice, impact
  influence of womens rights advocates,
  organizations and movements internationally to
  effectively advance the rights of women.
• Strategic initiatives including
• Challenging and Resisting Religious
  Fundamentalisms
• Wheres the Money for Womens Rights?
• Influencing Development Actors
• Feminist Responses to HIV and AIDS
• Building Stronger Feminist Movements and
  Organizations
• Womens Rights Information
• AWID Forum
• Young Feminist Activism

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Intro Backgroundcontd

• 2005 AWID awarded prize from The Sigrid Rausing
  Trust
• AWID proposed to work on religious
  fundamentalisms
• The Challenging and Resisting Fundamentalisms
  initiative was launched in Jan07.

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AWIDs Role

• AWID sees its role as
• Creating more knowledge on trends in
  fundamentalisms and their impact on womens
  rights across regions and religions.
• Strengthening the capacity of womens rights
  organizations and movements to intervene
  strategically to resist and challenge religious
  fundamentalisms.
• Increasing dialogue between womens rights orgs
  movts making strategic contributions to
  progress womens rights advocacy on the issue.

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Working Definition

• For the purposes of this project, we understand
  religious fundamentalisms (RFs) as
• The use of religion (sometimes in conjunction
  with ethnicity, culture and nationality) by
  certain political and religious leaders,
  institutions and parties to legitimize as divine
  - and thereby render unchallengeable -
  authoritarian political power and to essentialize
  social control. This has particularly negative
  consequences for womens rights.

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Program Strategy

• Womens rights advocates have done considerable
  work detailing how religious fundamentalisms
  impact on womens rights, and designing
  strategies
• However, there is no feminist research which
  synthesizes the broad trends of the impact of
  religious fundamentalisms on womens rights and
  strategies to combat religious fundamentalisms,
  that is cross-comparative across religions and
  regions, is credible, accessible and widely
  shared.

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Research Approach

• Literature Review of existing research, analysis
  and relevant reports
• Interviews with Womens Rights Advocates
• Online Survey
• Case Studies
• Stakeholders Meeting (Istanbul)

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Research Findings

• Preliminary data only still needs further
  discussion and analysis. Final results will be
  ready by November 2008 (AWID Forum)
• From Survey 98 of respondents identified as
  womens rights advocates, with 91 working with
  an organization

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Rise of Religious Fundamentalisms
Over the last ten years, how has the strength of
religious fundamentalisms changed in each of the
following contexts?
N1,552
Base 1,602 Women's Rights Activists/Advocates
Q14
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Some interesting issues

• Relationship between religious fundamentalisms
  and control
• Backlash against women's improved
  status/increased autonomy

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Impact of RF Forces on WHR
In the last ten years, what would you say has
been the overall impact of religious
fundamentalisms on women's rights in the context
of your work?

Total Negative 79
Base 789 Women's Rights Activists/Advocates
Q17
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Relative Influence of RF Forces
As compared to other political forces in the
context of your work, how much do religious
fundamentalisms obstruct womens rights?
Base 1,594 Women's Rights Activists/Advocates
Note 8 said Dont know or Not applicable
Q15
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Why is RF negative for WHR?
Please explain why you hold a negative view the
impact of religious fundamentalisms.
Depicts only the 79 of respondents who said RF
has had a negative impact on womens rights in
their context.
Base 555 Women's Rights Activists/Advocates
Q18
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Examples of RF Impacts- Overall Responses -
Please describe one or two specific examples of
obstructions to or violations of womens rights
caused by religious fundamentalisms in your
context.
Respondents could provide two examples.
Percentages will not total to 100.
Q22
Percentages based on 74 of respondents who
answered question.
Base 1,217 Women's Rights Activists/Advocates
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Examples of RF violations of WRs

• The North-West Frontier Province is ruled by an
  alliance of religious parties that has a very
  narrow view of what is permissible in Islam and
  what is not. It blackened and pulled down
  hoardings that had women's pictures, it closed
  down video shops, it ordered that female
  mannequins be removed from shops, girls schools
  were told to close down or ensure proper dress
  code, etc. Womens NGOs have been stopped from
  operating in certain areas and Shirkat Gah had to
  stop its work along with other NGOs who had set
  up girls schools after threats from the local
  religious leaders. SR
• The Orthodox Church's programs are incorporated
  into the legal public (primary) education,
  promoting inequality between women and men,
  naturalising women's role in society and
  demonising women's sexuality and rights for
  abortion these things are officially accepted.
  SR, Serbia Montenegro

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Examples of RF Impacts-Detailed Responses-
Please describe one or two specific examples of
obstructions to or violations of womens rights
caused by religious fundamentalisms in your
context.
Respondents could provide two examples.
Percentages will not total to 100. Categories
under 5 (23) omitted.
Q22
Percentages based on 74 of respondents who
answered question.
Base 1,217 Women's Rights Activists/Advocates
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RF- Did not campaign
In your work, what were the issues that the most
influential religious fundamentalists did not
campaign on in the past 10 years?
Q23
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RF Strategies
Over the past ten years, how important have the
following strategies been for religious
fundamentalisms in your work?
Q29
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Attacks by RFs
Within the past 10 years, have you personally or
a colleague experienced any of the following
reactions from religious fundamentalists because
of your work on women's human rights issues?
Percent saying each has happened either sometimes
or frequently.
Q31
Base 1,490 Women's Rights Activists/Advocates
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What would strengthen WRs responses?

• Top 7 needs identified
• More global efforts to find effective solutions
  to the causes of RFs
• More information about womens strategies of
  resistance
• More support from intl WR organizations
• More information and understanding of RFs
• More support from local/natl womens
  organizations
• More capacity to communicate impacts of RFs
• More support from HR organizations

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• Concluding Thoughts
• www.awid.org
• sanushka_at_awid.org