In the shadow of the start of the Commission on the Status of Women meeting at the United Nations, twenty-five US Women of Color gathered by phone and in person at the Urban Justice Center in downtown Manhattan to revisit an old unresolved topic, the obscurity of our issues and voices on the global stage. The meeting was convened by Women of Color United and the Women of Color Resource Center. We were service providers, advocates, foundations, organizers, policy analysts, etc all sharing a similar lamentation regarding a dearth of women of color representation in United Nations and other international spaces.
We discussed barriers impeding engagement. Some stated that barriers were because of schisms between what is defined as “domestic” and what is defined as “International.” Lourdes Rivera of the Ford Foundation observed, “There is a deep and basic barrier. There is domestic and there is international work. Never the two shall meet.” She went on to add that when time and attention are limited, questions of relevancy and effectiveness of engaging in international spaces arise. The question then becomes “Why spend time in this international space when they are stretched thin working on issues in our communities?” Further to this point, Naina Khanna of the US Positive Women’s Network stated, “Being positive women we are dealing with our everyday struggles and we need to focus on something that will affect the lives and policies affecting positive women. We need to question spending 10 hours per week learning about international processes when we are not sure of the outcome.” Others stated that there was a lack of resources available for US women of color to engage in these spaces, as compared to our global sisters. According to Elmira Nazombe of the Racial Justice Office of the United Methodist Office at the UN, ”People pay to bring people from other countries to come to the Commission on the Status of Women. There is never a penny for US women to come to the door.” Both Elmira and Naina noted a tension in wanting to form relationships with our sisters across the globe, but also not wanting to be viewed as trying to take more space than is our due given our position of relative access and privilege.
The group brainstormed several ideas to address these barriers and to begin to insert our issues and voices into the discourse. Margo Kaplan of the Center for HIV Law and Policy mentioned that even lawyers and policy makers don’t use a human rights framework and she suggested that change needs to happen from the grassroots. One suggestion by Elmira was to challenge mainstream women’s organizations to devote more than a passing mention to the intersection of race, class, and gender. Elmira also shared Kensington Welfare Rights Union’s strategy of holding tribunals which raise awareness and help local people see instantly how their struggles fit into a human rights frame that is applied globally.
Several speakers introduced UN Processes of relevance to the groups gathered: a. Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination; b. Durban Review; c. UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS; d. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; e. Commission on the Status of Women; e. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and f. Financing for Development.
Existing initiatives, that have provided leadership in the area of engaging WOC in international spaces and with a human rights frame, are the US Human Rights Network and WILD for Human Rights. SisterSong and Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice have also facilitated training of women of color organizations around use of a human rights frame in organizing and advocacy.
As we wrapped up, Krishanti Dharmaraj of WILD offered three potential areas of focus for this initiative: 1) The Durban Review; 2) The Ratification of CEDAW; and 3) Climate Change. The group concluded with a decision to form a listserv and steering committee to guide our work going forward.
