On groups
MUVMAN LIBERAYSON FAM 5,rue St.Therese Curepipe Mauritius
This group has been in existence for several years now, and has been involved in many varied actions and activities from self-help health groups and legal counselling, to opposition to US air bases in the area and to restricted abortion legislation. Recently they opened a new women's centre, and this is what they write about it :
last May (1982), has been a major step forward in the women's struggle here. Now, we have a place where we can meet freely and discuss about formal or informal matters.
"We already have a kindergarten school running for children in the neighbourhood; the Domestic Employees' Union are presently sharing an office as well as the meeting rooms with us as well as a secretary, a fulltimer whom we are employing. Two MLF members are renting two rooms where they are living.
"We plan to set up a documentation centre as well as a cafeteria-pub which would be open to women only. We will also carry out sessions on theatre, music, self-defence and manual work. A laundry will be operated on a cooperative basis.
"In order to become self-sufficient, we shall launch a massive recruitment programme- due to start this July, all over the island. This recruitment programme — which will also help us to gather women's support for the centre — will run concurrently with a mobilisation programme to put forward a feminist demand : Equal Pay for Equal Work. So, as we usually say in French, "II y a du pain sur la planche."
WOMEN'S ACTION FORUM P.O. Box 3287 Gulberg, Lahore Pakistan.
In September 1981 a Shariat Court in Karachi pronounced sentence of one hundred lashes and stoning to death for Zina* to a school girl and a bus driver who had eloped and got married. The case was widely reported in the newspapers and the confusion of facts coupled with the extreme severity of the sentence worried and angered a
number of women who felt the need to meet and discuss the case. The consequent open meeting was hosted by Shirkat Gah on September 5, 1981.
It became apparent that although the Zina case was the burning issue of the moment, there was a general feeUng that an atmosphere of repression and persecution against women existed in the country, and that unless women mobilised in an effective manner and made their opinions heard and felt, the views of an obscurantist minority of men might weO introduce legislation which would adversely affect the lives of a vast majority of women.
Accordingly, it was deciced that a lobby cum-pressure group would be formed, called the Women's Action Forum which would be composed of individuals and organisations who were concerned to ensure that the hard-won rights of Pakistani women were not taken from them and that the present trend of repression be arrested and reversed.
The WOMEN'S ACTION FORUM (WAF) was therefore not setting itself up as a separate women's organisation in the traditional sense, but a platform for all women's organisations and their representatives, and other concerned individuals who would create a place, i.e. a "forum", to meet, discuss and plan strategy on such issues as affect the lives of Pakistani women.
The FORUM launched a signature campaign with the aim of collecting at least 5,000 signatures in protest against such issues as adversely affect women's status.
Amongst other issues, the signature document demanded the maintenance and strengthening of the Family Laws Ordinance, the protection of women in the custody of the law, the promotion of female education, the lifting of all restrictions on cultural activities in educational institutions, and the lifting of all restrictions on women's participation in spectator sports. Within the space of one short month, WAF collected over 7,000 signatures from all over Pakistan and presented this to the President who later
* Zina is defined as "being sexual intercourse between two consenting sane adults who are not married to each other and who do not suspect themselves to be married to
each other".
"clarified" that the Family Laws Ordinance was not being touched. Most of all, though, the campaign had the effect of making WAF known, and encouraging
membership and mobilisation of women.
WAF particularly concentrates on issues which affect Pakistani women in law. There are many such issues, but one on which WAF is currently mobilizing
is the question of the Law of Evidence (Qisas and Diyat), about which their September 1982 newsletter says:]
"According to recent reports {Pakistan Times, 25.8.82), the Council of Islamic Ideology is proposing a law whereby it becomes necessary to produce two male witnesses before it is possible to give the maximum punishment for murder and assault. In all other matters, two male witnesses are required, failing which one male and two females
are considered sufficient. This reduces a woman's witness to half that of a man's. One woman's evidence will be considered sufficient only in 'feminist' matters like delivery, menstruation, virginity etc. This is tantamount to saying women are only half human beings .
"In practical terms, this means that if a murder is committed in the presence of even 50 women, the criminal cannot be awarded the maximum punishment, because women cannot testify. Not only this, but in any case where the victim is a woman, the blood-money (diyat) to be paid for murder or injury is only half that fixed for a man
at 30.4 kg. silver. On the other hand a woman who commits a crime will have to pay the punishment in full. This is blatant discrimination and as such is against the principles of Islam.
"Such laws have already been passed. The law pertaining to Zina-al-Jabr (rape) is a case in point. According to the Hudood Ordinance Zina, four male Muslim adult eye-witnesses to the crime are needed before a man can be given the maximum punishment. The Quran does not mention rape anywhere. This law is based on the injunctions
pertaining to adultery, where four male witnesses to the act were required in order to protect the innocent from wrong accusations. Applying the law of adultery to rape protects the criminal and exposes women (usually the victims) to unpunished violence. The recent reports of District Count judgements on rape cases being quashed
by the Federal Shariat Court give credence to women's fear that this law clears the way for crimes against women. Someone who rapes a woman is not going to be stupid enough to do so in the presence of four male aduh witnesses."
WOMEN'S ACTION FORUM is asking for support and involvement from women from all over Pakistan, but they would very much like to hear from women in other Muslim countries who may be struggling with similar issues. They feel this kind of sohdarity will be invaluable to all women in these countries.
SAHELI A Women's Resource Center 10 Nizamuddin East New Delhi - 110013 India.
SAHELI was set up in 1982 by a small group of women concerned to set up some kind of structure to provide services and support to women. This is what they write about how they started and their experiences.
"Many of us who had been involved in the anti-dowry and the anti-rape campaigns in Delhi felt the need for a women's resource centre. We had become acutely aware that a lot of our action in cases of dowry deaths particularly was undertaken when it was already too late for the women concerned. We also felt an increasing need
to respond to the problems that women, hearing of the campaigns came to us with - problems which required an infrastructure to work out, that is, a place, regular volunteers etc. We felt very strongly that the women's movement had to provide an alternative support structure for women so that they could take constructive actions
for their own lives. We started with 8 women and a garage... we are now over 20 and growing fast. Many women who initially came to SAHELI for help have today become Sahelis and are supporting other women in their struggles.
"We do not have any formal structure or a very homogenous ideology amongst all of us. We have different conceptions of feminism but feel that SAHELI provides us the space to work together with a minimum common basis and a desire to develop and extend our ideas over time.
What we do at Saheli "One of the main aims of SAHELI is to provide services and support to women. We have a panel of lawyers and doctors who are contacted if a
woman has to fight a case or is just in need of legal or medical advice. We are also starting an employment network service.
"We do not provide any 'counselling service' since we do not see ourselves in the role of 'advisers or experts' on women's or marital problems! Our aim is to provide space for women to share their experiences and struggles, and through this process of sharing, build confidence and solidarity amongst women.
"As a result of this orientation a number of special interest groups have Mothers Group' has been meeting for some time and they hope to produce a booklet on the transition to motherhood with the aim of demystifying motherhood by explaining the pain, ambivalence as well as the joys that come from it. Another study group has been
formed to explore the relationship between feminism and sociaHsm.
"SAHELI is also undertaking a programme of general consciousness-raising through discussions, exhibitions and publications. So far we have had a series of discussions on menstruation, the organisation of domestic workers in Puna, the experiences of battered
women's centres in the U.K. and the need for feminist organisation.
Funding
"So far we have not needed too much money. Our office is in a garage of one of the members and individual donations from friends in cash and kind
have kept us going. All of us work on a part-time voluntary basis. From March 1982 we have had a full-time person whose salary comes from regular contributions
made by all the Sahelis."
In explaining some of the insights the women have got from their work, they stress the fact that most of the women who came to SAHELI had been employed
both before and after they got married,but had lost control over their assets, either through the "dowry" system or through a generally-accepted notion that all goods are shared in marriage - except that the woman cannot get her share back if she leaves. One of the main points the Sahelis stress is that women must keep control
over their own assets, and they see the role of SAHELI helping women to do this. They feel they must work with women where they are at. "
The women who come to SAHELI and the women who work in SAHELI are mainly middle class women. Over time we hope to set up similar women centres in different parts of the city especially in bastis and working class areas. However, we feel very strongly that we have to start with ourselves, we do not beheve in taking up external issues and 'other women's' problems without confronting ourselves. This is why we do not distinguish between the women who come to SAHELI and ourselves and feel the necessity to build real links between middle class and working class women through a common sharing of the experience of being women in a male dominated and class divided society. It is through this that we feel an infrastructure can be built to support the women's movement in India."
"SAHELI is where visions, dreams and fantasies of a women's community, women's art, women's literature... a whole new world opens for us."
CHANGE Exchange 29 Great James Street London WC1N3ES England.
CHANGE Exchange is a human resource bank. It emerged from the small but productive educational charitable trust, CHANGE International, which publishes a widely used series of "reports" on the socio-economic status of women, and the continuous activities of the Decade Network. This is a group which presses for implementation
of the objectives of the UN Decade for Women, and provides a forum for visiting female experts and scholars from all over the world.
CHANGE has identified women from a number of countries from around the world, with experience of non-industriahsed countries. Between them they cover skills in the following areas: agriculture, breast-feeding legislation, commercial training, community development, demography, industrial relations, management skills, project
evaluation, resource planning, science, time-budget analysis, agrarian reform, childcare provision, communications, cooperatives, health education, nutrition, rural sociology, social administration, urban sociology. It will supply potential employers with relevant names.
WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE SERVICE (WIRE) 2700 Broadway 7 New York, NY 10025 USA.
WIRE functions as a clearinghouse and distribution center for the evaluation and dissemination of materials about women in the Third World and Third World women in the United States. These materials range from previously published articles to unpublished pieces by unknown writers, to poems from the Salvadoran or Southern African
battlefronts, to selected materials from small women's magazines in Japan and India. The range of topics covered in these materials is equally broad: the issues surrounding population control in Latin America, women in Puerto Rico's labor force, problems confronting Chilean women living in exile, the 'untouchable' women of India,
Southeast-Asian women and multinationals, Christianity and feminism in Latin America, to name a few.
The underlying and unifying basis for this work is the belief shared by the seven women of WIRE that mixed progressive groups must be exposed to the realities of women's struggles, especially in the Third World, while at the same time women's organizations, especially feminist ones, must have the opportunity to learn about the poUtical,
economic and social realities which affect the lives of women in other parts of the world. The WIRE women are committed to anti-imperialism and feminism, it is their conviction that these two struggles are indivisible. (Information taken from WIRE'S press release.)
An updated catalogue of their materials will be provided on request from the above address, free of charge.
MONEY
In each ISIS Bulletin from now on, we will reserve this space for bringing you news about sources of money, scholarships or job possibilities and ideas available
to women.
A Guide to Community Revolving Loan Funds
The Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women Room DC-1002 One United Nations Plaza
United Nations New York, NY 10017 USA.
"A revolving loan fund is a pool of money which really does revolve. That is, it goes from one person to another, and another. When a person borrows from the fund and pays back her loan, that money is used by the next borrower, who borrows, then repays." This booklet is a practical guide to women's groups (in developing countries)
on setting up revolving loan funds, how to manage them and how to form one. It gives good insights into how organised women's groups can set up in small business and make money through the use of revolving loans. The booklet runs through all the practical steps necessary, including basic concepts of accounting. The only lack is
that the booklet does not suggest to women where to get their fund in the first place — only indicating "an international development agency". Write to the Voluntary Fund for the UN Decade for Women for further details. Copies of the Guide are available free from them.
You should also know that the resources of the Voluntary Fund are used to support innovative or experimental activities especially in the least developed, land-locked and island countries among developing countries, and special consideration is given to programmes and projects which benefit rural women and poor women in urban areas. Areas of activities include development planning, project planning, revolving loan funds, village industries, community development programmes, training change agents, planting woodlots, and improving stove designs. Total number of projects being currently supported is 220 with an amount of USSI3 million in all.