IWRP-SA

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IWRP is incorporated as a Section 21 not-for-profit organization in South Africa, with a board of seven community members. The IWRP-SA projects are:

• Women and Constitutions Project Phase 2 - South Africa
  Putting Feminism on the Agenda
• Senakangwedi - Access to Justice for Rural Women
• African Gender Development Index
• Grandmothers
• Masiphumelele Youth Project
• Siyabongirla!

Women and Constitutions Project Phase 2 - South Africa
Putting Feminism on the Agenda

The IWRP, in partnership with the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, held a 2 day gathering of feminist activists, researchers, academics, civil society representatives, and legal practitioners. This meeting was held 16 years after the first Putting Women on the Agenda, and was designed to be reflective, about how far women have come in South Africa; and forward looking in addressing issues of fundamental transformation. The IWRP also coordinated the Girls Forum, facilitated by GirlsNet, a project of WomensNet. Details and papers from the conference can be found at http://www.womensnet.org.za/PFOTA.html. This symposium was funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), The Ford Foundation, and HIVOS.

Background

In South Africa, November 2006 marks the 15th anniversary of the conference and subsequent publication of Putting Women on the Agenda. This was the first regional conference held to galvanize the struggle for women's rights in the possibility of a new constitutional dispensation in South Africa. Together with others that followed, it was a significant event in the development of the South African women's movement as a place for engaging the new democracy: network building and consolidation, formulation of policy and advocacy strategies, legislative drafting, consultation on the creation of the national gender machinery; and providing support for women who moved from activism to the state.

The conference was attended by over 450 academics, activists, lawyers, judges, law professors, ANC members returning from exile, representatives from NGOs and participants from the Southern African region. Many went on to help shape the Constitution and the laws that would create the new democratic South Africa and many have become significant players in the new South Africa.

As democracy has become entrenched, the women's movement has engaged the state on a range of issues, often prioritising formal legal gains over building new leaders and capacity and strengthening links with community organisations. As the debate has shifted from opposition and protest politics to one of implementation and delivery, the national women's movement has became disparate and less visible, and the activists, legal advocates and scholars have necessarily shifted their focus to proactive policy and advocacy activities. Women have worked in a sector specific and segmented manner within the areas of their expertise and analysis such as land reform, gender violence, reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, constitutional litigation, customary law, health, etc. However, both the focus on formal gains in the state and the declining collaboration between and among sectors has weakened the movement's ability to advocate for women's rights in a more coherent way. Thus what was historically a national women's movement using opposition to the apartheid regime as a cohesive focus, became national and local women's movements, struggling with how to work with the newly elected democratic government, comprised of many of the feminists who came from the movement itself.

In addition, new gaps emerged. For example, the continuing focus on feminist policy analysis and advocacy by women outside the state became seen in many instances as an attack on the new fragile State structures rather than contributing valuable analysis and critique on how to entrench women's equality rights. In reverse, the feminists who went into government now found themselves confronted by the criticism of their sisters and former comrades because of the slow and hampered nature of the reconstruction and redevelopment of the inherited apartheid state. In effect, this was democracy at its fledgling inception; messy and contradictory and idealistic and frustrating - but revolutionary.

This herstory raises a number of critical questions for feminists about the nature of contemporary political institutions, the possibilities for radical change through the state (including the courts), and the kinds of processes within the women's movement that need to accompany state-focused political and legal strategies. South Africa is far from being representative of the continent as a whole, as well as other emerging democracies or established ones, but the dilemmas faced within the context of democratization finds resonance globally. The particular combination of political will, institutional development and linkages between activists in the state and in civil society suggested a different trajectory to the usual forms of engagement between the women's movement and the state.¹ The South African situation thus raises a set of interesting and important questions for women in SA, and globally:

• What is the relationship of the South African women's' movements to the state, and to other social movements?
• How can feminists continue to use constitutional rights to advance the position of women in South Africa, especially in a way that meets their fundamental needs, such as bodily integrity, economic inequality, poverty, protection in relation to HIV/AIDS etc?
• How can we build a feminist rights agenda that speaks to the needs of the most vulnerable women?
• How can we ensure that a new generation of feminist activists builds on these struggles?
• How can coalition building be re-vitalized and resourced?
• What is instructive for South African women is the experience of Canada and other regions of the world, and vice versa?
• How can the learning from civil society actors globally contribute to more effective advocacy and entrenchment of women's rights within the state?

South Africa women have begun to discuss, in a variety of fora, the need for engaging these issues. Ideas have been raised about the possibility of a National Women's Convention in early 2007 to revitalize these debates, and the movement itself. Other events are planned for 2006, including the Anniversary of the 1956 Women's Pass march and the Tenth Anniversary of the 1996 Constitution. However, these events are either celebratory in nature or will be broad based platforms for debate. They do not necessarily create the space for critical thinking, reflection and policy development, nor do they inevitably lead to strategic directions for the way forward.

Putting Women on the Agenda 2 (PWOTA2) as seen by the organizing committee members and by the lead organization, CALS, will be aimed at providing the space, time and reflection needed to further develop an explicity feminist (rights) agenda for the future. It is recognized and understood that "feminism" in an African context and within the South African disparate communities is often a controversial term. But the organizing committee quickly decided to re-name this gathering to Putting Feminism on the Agenda - PFOTA.

How to include feminist analysis and critique in large national gatherings is neither productive nor useful, as the debate becomes one of semantics and terminology rather than one of pragmatic policy development or political and legal strategies. Rather, reflection on the past twelve years during PWOTA2 will form the basis for critical thinking to develop rigorous policy proposals, political and legal strategies and "think pieces" that will be taken forward by activists at PWOTA2 as well as recommendations to the 2007 Women's National Convention. There is no other event or gathering planned for 2006 that will meet this critical and urgent need.

In conceptualising this conference, it has been agreed that it will focus especially on constitutional rights activism in critical areas of women's lives. These have been identified as

• Gender based violence
• Custom and culture
• Religion
• HIV and AIDS
• Sexual and reproductive rights
• Land Rights
• Socioeconomic policy
• Globalization and trade

In order to build capacity amongst lawyers, academics, government officials and civil society activists to engage these issues special attention will be paid to geographic and age representation. In addition, the sessions will have a strategic focus and a plenary session will be devoted to practical issues relating to legal strategies for securing rights (building a case, different forms of legal intervention, how to connect with political struggles etc).

Objectives

The objectives of PWOTA2 as outlined in the initial CALS proposal to IDRC are the following:

• To enable feminist advocates, lawyers, activists and academics to come together to identify and debate issues on how to make women's constitutional rights become real "lived rights"
• To learn from comparative experiences in Canada and the SADC region
• To enhance capacity and understanding of constitutional rights activism, including amongst young women and girls
• To identify practical legal and advocacy strategies for action in critical areas
• To further develop a feminist rights agenda and forward looking strategies
• To disseminate the contents of discussion and 'plan of action' through ongoing websites and listservs
• To improve local networking between organisations and with community based women and women's organisations, as well as with government
• To develop intergenerational networks and relationships
• To seek ways of establishing a regional mentoring network to assist in building the capacity of the next generation of leadership in the women's rights movements
• To develop consensus positions across the multiple sectors of women's rights issue to be used as ongoing policy documents
• To create a 'safe space' for dialogue, debate and discussion and to build support and solidarity for women's besiegement.

South AfriCanadian Partnership

The entire conceptualization of PWOTA2 has been a partnership between CALS at Wits University in South Africa, and the IWRP at the University of Victoria in Canada. The original PWOTA was held at Wits University, conceived and organized by Susan Bazilli, now Co-Director of the IWRP. This partnership is viewed as part of a longer term relationship between the Canadian and South African universities.

Canadian feminist legal scholars have been working in partnership with South African feminist legal scholars since the 1980's. Much exchange and learning has taken place between them, particularly regarding Canadian constitutional jurisprudence on the Charter of Rights, and South African jurisprudence especially on socioeconomic rights. It is a fundamental belief that the research, expertise, and learning is both South/North and North/South. It is also a fundamental commitment of the partnership that academics and legal scholars work in equal partnership with civil society feminist activists who have been working on the challenges of making women's constitutional rights become "lived rights" in both countries.

With IWRP based at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, and CALS based at Wits University, the two universities are also collaborative partners. CALS is linked to the School of Law at Wits, and similarly, IWRP to the UVic Law School. PWOTA2 is also an integral part of the IWRP Women and Constitutions Project, chaired by Marilou McPhedran² of IWRP, which conceived and convened the Ad Hoc Canadian Forum on Women's Activism in Constitutional and Democratic Reform, February 2006, in part funded by IDRC. The school and university curricula on women's constitutional activism that is the ultimate outcome of this longterm project is also a joint Canadian and South African collaboration. As with the Forum in Canada, there will be a significant component of PWOTA2 that will work with youth - young feminist activists, law students and young lawyers - to ensure that the intergenerational focus is maintained. A group of Wits law students will follow the IWRP Forum model of providing research on case studies and time during PWOTA2 to focus on issues of concern to the youth, in partnership with WomensNet and GirlsNet, South Africa. This work will then loop back to partner with the Youth Forum that came out of the Canadian Forum, working with TakingITGlobal, a Canadian based international youth IT network.

Note - the final report on PFOTA will be posted to the IWRP website at a later date.