This was the motto of the six-days of the self-organized World Women’s Conference of grassroots women in Kathmandu, Nepal. 1,300 participants from 48 countries took part, including 74 delegates from 40 countries and more than 200 volunteer helpers. In ten workshops, the participants discussed central issues of the women’s movement. Women’s organisations from 61 countries were actively involved in the preparation programme.
About the Kurdistan Women’s Liberation Movement: Having a history of 40 years in total, the women within the Kurdish National Liberation Struggle are organising themselves autonomously since the early 1990’s. This process that started first within the guerrilla ranks by establishing a women’s guerrilla army today has reached a level of equal participation and representation in all parts of the struggle. Inside the women are organised autonomously and are the ones that take all decisions on women. But the ideological and practical struggle for true liberation continues as it aims to liberate both women and men from the patriarchal and capitalist-modernist mind of state. The women’s struggle within the Kurdish liberation movement marks a revolution within a revolution. It is based on the idea that true revolutions must be female; that liberation theories and ideologies need to take the issue of women’s liberation in it’s centre. The one who started first analysis on women’s status within the society and the liberation of women was the founder and leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah O He was abducted through a NATO-operation in 1999 and since then kept in solitary confinement on a prison island in Turkey. Sakine Cansiz, nom de guerre ‘Sara’, was one of the first female revolutionaries in Kurdistan. Cansiz was founding member of the PKK. She was imprisoned in 1980 and brutally tortured. By leading the resistance in the prisons against the colonialist Turkish state she became a living legend. She was at the same time a living history of the Kurdish women’s liberation struggle. On January 9, 2013 Sakine Cansiz, together with her comrades Fidan Dogan and Leyla Saylemez, was assassinated by the Turkish intelligence service in Paris/France.
European Coordinators of the World Women’s Conference
Halinka Augustin / Netherlands
Susanne Bader / Germany
World women focus their strategic view!
They call for participation in the International Seminar on the Theory of the Liberation of Women!
In accordance with the resolutions of the 2nd World Women‘s Conference of grassroots women in 2016, the World Coordinators are preparing an International Seminar on the Theory of the Liberation of Women.
It will take place from 2nd to 4th December in India, Bangalore.
We are delighted with the invitation from representatives of the Indian women’s movement. They will welcome us in Bangalore, the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka in the southwest of the country.
For three days, the seminar will offer all interested women the opportunity to discuss theories of women’s liberation in a spirit of solidarity and militancy.
The seminar is based on the realization from the Second World Women‘s Conference that
“The increasing crises of imperialism … challenge the masses, especially the women of the world, to take up the struggle for their future. Increasingly, we need to discuss and search for alternatives. We need to look for answers.“
(Kathmandu resolution 2016)
After these three days we will have the opportunity to visit Indian women’s organisations.
To prepare for this trip, study meetings are currently taking place in several cities in Germany and the Netherlands. Interested women are welcome to join in.
Every woman who is interested can participate in the international seminar in India. We will circulate all known contact addresses via the homepage of the World Women‘s Conference. In this way, interested women can get together to prepare and organise the trip together. In Germany, information can also be obtained from the women’s association Courage.
Flights must be booked to Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru. We will continuously inform you about further facts such as accommodation, conference site etc. on the homepage.
For now the following is important: You will need a tourist visa which you should apply for as soon as possible. Your passport must remain valid for at least 6 months after your return.
We hope to hear from you and we look forward to seeing you in India!
Our world woman Sharmistha and her fellow campaigners are free again!
We have just received this wonderful news from India:
“We thank you for the message of solidarity with Sharmistha. We are pleased to inform you that Sharmistha and the others who were abducted with her were released the same evening after a massive protest by the people.”
And further they write that the situation is very tense but Sharmistha and other activists are in a safe place.
“(…) We thank you again for your support and promise you that the fight will continue.”
We, the workers of „Fortuna” Gračanica shoe factory and participants of European world womens conference of grasrootswoman, strongly condemn the brutal attack and abduction of activist Sharmista Choudhury and other leaders of the Bhangor-Movement!
As woman, workers and fighters for worker rights in Bosnia and Herzegowina we were also victims of physical and psychic attacks and it is our obligation to the society and to the world to stand up against such attacks on individuals and activist groups.
We demand for immediate and unharmed release of Sharmista and other activists!
We call on the government to take action against such criminal activities and also we call upon the government to take steps to protect the activists in the country.
Free Sharmista!
The workers of “Fortuna ” Gračanica Shoe Factory / Bosnia and Herzegowina
In the name of the Women’s Political counsel we protest against the brutal attacks and the kidnapping of our friend Sharmista Choudhury and ather leaders of the Bhangor-Movement.
Sharmista Choudhury is an well known woman here in germany, she often visited our Women’s Political Counsel, the greatest self organized women event in germany. She is an aktivist of the worlwomen’s conference movement and we work strongly together.
We ask the government to take action against these criminal activities.
With absolute horror and great anger we learned about Sharmista’s kidnapping and other guides last night. We know Sharmista as a combative and very committed woman.
Her struggle for the environmental and popular movement “For land, livelihoods, ecology and environmental protection” is obviously also the reason for the cowardly attack on her and that she was attacked and abducted by thugs of the ruling party TMC.
dear friends,
today we turn again to you with an urgent request for solidarity
Our activist and world woman Sharmista was kidnapped in Westbangal/ India by hooligans and brutally beaten up. We fear for her life.
Sharmista is a leader of the movement for the protection of people, livelihoods and the environment.
Please write protests to me to forward. Currently I have no mail address from India.
long live international solidarity, Suse / European coordinator from Germany
Halinka Augustin/ Netherlands
Susanne Bader/ Germany
European Coordinators of the world womens conferences of the grasrootswomen
25.4.18
We, women of the World Women’s Conference, strongly condemn the brutal attacks on and abduction of our activist Sharmistha Choudhury and the other leaders of the Bhangor-Movement.
Sharmistha is an activist of the World Women’s Conference, that will organize a worldwide protest against this abduction.
We demand the immediate release of Sharmistha and her fellow activists. They must be released unharmed.
We call on all democratic forces in India and abroad to take to the streets for the release of the kidnapped leaders.
We demand the government to take immediate action against these criminal acts.
We call on the women of the world – help to free our activist Sharmistha!
She must be released at once to join our ranks again!
We, more than 60 participants from about 15 countries have heard about your struggle at our European Conference of World Conferences on Women. Your courageous women, Aida, Dita, Borac, have told us how the rights of workers* are trampled underfoot, how you are criminalized and humiliated.
We send you our warmest greetings of solidarity. Your protest and struggle for your jobs, the punishment of the director for corruption and fraud that led to the destruction of your livelihoods are justified.
Likewise, the punishment of bankruptcy trustees who have proved to be henchmen of capital is justified.
Your struggle is one of many international struggles, so we need to strengthen our mutual consultation, information and coordination. This was a result of our European Conference of World Women.
From 13 – 15.4.18 60 participants met in Mannenbach/Switzerland for the
8th European Conference of grassroots women. Delegations from Albania, Bosnia, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey and the Ukraine were able to meet in the middle of nature with a view of Lake Constance and well supplied by many helping hands. Complemented by numerous written contributions from other countries such as Greece and Spain, the conference gave an impressive picture of the situation and struggles of women in Europe. Everywhere, the women’s movement faces a cutback of hard-won, democratic rights and freedoms. Governments everywhere are moving to the right and more and more women are standing up for their rights.
We learned of the brave industrial action of Bosnian women workers. They camp in front of their closed factory for their workplaces – “neither batons nor silence can break our resistance!” Of the wage struggles of employees in hospitals, day-care centres and nursing facilities in Germany. Only 15% of the women farmers in Switzerland are paid on family farms, 56% are not paid for their work and only 6% head a farm. From the difficult situation in Turkey where arrests and dismissals are commonplace. In Ukraine, where there is hardly any work, the young people have to go abroad. Women also receive 25% less pay, with an average pension of €42. On Women’s Day, the demand was “Protection of Women’s Rights”. In the Netherlands, the cleaning women are active thanks to the cleaning women’s union. In Russia, young women in particular protest despite the threat of arrest. Poverty, unemployment, poorer pay, fewer rights, are absorbed in the organization of everyday life, and that happens in the 21st century! And we heard from the trauma of mass rape as a weapon of war in the Bosnian war, which continues to this day. And the fight to punish the guilty! The national strike organised in Spain on International Women’s Day is the militant response to all this!
The conference positioned itself unanimously for the struggle for world peace and demands:
“Active resistance to the bombardments by the United States, France and Great Britain!
Active resistance to the dangerous escalation that threatens world peace.
Our contribution is to work actively to build a new peace movement. (decision)
The most important decision of this conference is to strengthen coordination and cooperation. We agreed that more effort must be put into building up the women’s movement in our own countries. Therefore we will visit each other and inform ourselves about the website.
The Bosnian workers start by coming to Germany to exchange ideas with workers from many companies. On the weekend at the workers’ platform of the Internationalist Alliance in Hildesheim near Hannover, Germany.
European coordinators of the World Women Conferences
