The permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations sponsored the session on ‘Dignity and the Politics of Financing of Women’s Rights’, and Karama organised the panel. It took place in the Dag Haamarskjold Library Auditorium of the UN (which they had fought ‘tooth and nail’ to get). Earlier in the week they’d been worried that the room was too big, but after four days of raising Arab women’s voices at every and any opportunity during the CSW, they attracted a large audience. Afaf Jabiri opened the session by saying “we want to talk about violence in relation to the reality we live in, which in our region is one of conflict war and occupation, so one of our priorities is to work with refugee women and statelessness”. The panel was made up of Sabah al_Hallaq from Syria, Afaf Marei from Egypt, Joumana Merhy from Lebanon, Saadia Wadah from Morocco, Rugaia Abdelgader from Sudan, Teraza al-Ryyan and Afaf Jabiri from Jordan.
The discussion focussed on how displacement and statelessness have led to invisibility, voicelessness, and denial of the resources that would enable women to live with dignity and security. The panel took turns to describe the daily living conditions of women refugees across their region – lives led out of sight and out of mind to the rest of the world. They described the way in which refugee women are often subjected to forms of violence and discrimination, both formally and informally, the different ways in which women refugees are working to support their families in spite of everything - and of those so desperate that they are being forced to sell their bodies and work in ‘survival sex’.
The panel outlined the way in which the international protections for refugees, (from the 1948 UDHR onwards) are applied in a haphazard patchwork that doesn’t reflect today’s refugee movements or needs, and how the lack of national legislation in line with international norms prevents refugees from accessing services to which they are entitled. They stressed that underlying and exacerbating this humanitarian crisis is the constant lack of finance at all levels to alleviate the suffering and protect the fundamental human rights of millions of people in their region.
There wasn’t enough time, there never is at the CSW, but the nine country-wide Karama movement has raised the voice of Arab women this week at the UN, both their own and that of the women they live with who have no voice. Last year at the CSW there were only four in their delegation and they struggled with not having Arabic interpreted. This year they were twelve and came with their own interpreter. As they left for the airport to go home, they were already planning how to have an Arab Women’s Caucus next year. As Hibaaq Osman told one audience: “You used to talk for us, forget it, we’ll talk for ourselves”.
The CSW continues this week. The next session I’ll report from is “The impact of Guns on Women’s Lives”…
