WLUML/VNC at the AWID Forum: The Nexus between Culture, Gender and Other Identities: Resisting Discrimination and Reclaiming Space

21 April 2012, from 2:30 – 4:00 PM

Cibali 1 & 2, Haliç Congress Center, Istanbul

Women in Rural Areas of Pakistan: Creating Space in the Fringes

Fauzia Viqar, Director Advocacy & Communications
Shirkat Gah- Women’s Resource Centre (Pakistan)

Women in rural areas of Pakistan are confronted with multiple sources of discrimination. This presentation examines the role of women in a peasant's movement for land rights in the Sindh province of Pakistan – particularly on their creative strategies to amplify their voices, to organize collectively, and to claim ownership over public roles and responsibilities.

Women Living with Disability: Demanding their Rights as Full Citizens and Sexual Beings

Codou Bop, Coordinator of WLUML-Africa and Middle East Office

GREFELS (Senegal)

In Senegal, people with disability are generally viewed as objects of pity and charity and the situation of women and girls are worse.  They are confronted with violence - insults, rejection, rape, forced and early marriage, and more – often legitimated by Senegalese culture and religion.  We explore how media and capacity building of individual and groups of young women living with disability had been used to demand respect for their sexual rights.

“Mini Skirt vs. Mini Brain”: Gender, Dress Codes and Public Space in Indonesia

Andi Asmawaty, Advocacy & Communication Coordinator

Solidaritas Perempuan (Indonesia) 

This presentation explores strategies of resistance in Indonesia against increasingly rigid interpretations of what constitutes ‘appropriate’ dress codes for women and men in Indonesia. Using arguments of ‘women’s protection’, these interpretations are often bound up in notions of ‘morality’ which some conservative forces use to legitimate acts of gender-based violence; including rape as an ‘expected’ consequence of women and girls wearing mini-skirts and other ‘inappropriate’ dress. 

Talk Show host:  Rochelle Terman, Violence is Not our Culture (VNC) Communication Team

“Visioning Cultures Free from Violence”

Transnational Advocacy & Communications using Visual Arts and Digital Media

21 April 2012, from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Kasimpasa 5,  Communications Hub Breakout Room

Haliç Congress Center, Istanbul

The ability of women and girls to exercise their freedom of expression is critical to countering the continued dissemination of cultural messages that excuse gender-based violence, as well as to evolving a culture that upholds and respects human dignity and rights for all.

By promoting the creative and strategic use of visual arts and digital technology, we increase our power to document and express our diverse realities, self-representation and contestation of beliefs, attitudes and practices.  We also harness the power to translate messages across contexts and reach audiences in diverse cultural and socio-economic contexts.  

In this session we’ll skill-share around strategies and experiences in visioning cultures free from violence, by the Violence is Not our Culture (VNC) campaign and the Association for Progressive Communication (APC) – including comics, documentary film making, online broadcasting, photography, and more.

Join us for a short film screening, digital-story telling workshop, and hands-on creative networking session documenting individual feminist responses to 'culturally-justified' violence against women (CVAW). Come ready to brainstorm, strategize and interview each other - bring your smartphones and cameras to create your own videos and podcasts!

Facilitators: Rima Athar and Rochelle Terman (VNC Campaign), and Jennifer Radloff and Erika Smith (APC-WNSP).

For more information on the VNC Campaign, visit: http://www.violenceisnotourculture.org or write to us at info@violenceisnotourculture.org.