LONDON — The first Trust Women conference, hosted by Thomson Reuters Foundation and the International Herald Tribune in London this week, boasted an impressive line up of speakers — from Melanne Verveer, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues to Christy Turlington Burns of Every Mother Counts to Queen Noor of Jordan, to name a few.
The conference confronted difficult subjects like modern-day slavery, the role of women after the Arab Spring, child marriage, corruption and development. The opening speech was delivered by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by video.
When she was small, she said, growing up with her widowed mother, she thought women ruled the world. The Burmese politician, the second woman in history to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said she couldn’t empathize more with the title of the conference “Trust Women.” “We women have to learn to trust ourselves much more than society has perhaps allowed us to do,” she said.
Sessions on how to change laws, enforce existing laws and change mindsets to empower women led inevitably to discussion of the role women themselves play in passing their predicament on to future generations. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and human rights activist featured in my film “Lili’s Journey,” said, “Men are children of women, they are raised by women, and often these notions of patriarchy are carried from generation to generation even more fiercely by the women themselves.”
Dr. Ebadi, also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has set out with volunteers to collect one million signatures in Iran to address the gender discrimination laws in the country’s constitution. “The aim is not to simply gather these million signatures, but to engage the entire society so that they themselves can be the change from within.”
“We tell them useful facts, unbeknownst to many like: Did you know that in an accident, the law dictates that compensation for your male counterpart will be twice the amount of yours?”
Nazir Afzal, Britain’s chief crown prosecutor for the northwest, told the conference that he was on a drive to bring those guilty of “the organized crime that is honor killing” to justice.
Most shockingly, he explained to the audience that a missing underage girl in Britain who is forced into marriage and sent back to her parents’ native country is not protected by the laws of the Western country in which she was born.
He noted of such girls, “Nobody looks for them when they go missing. When your own family is at the origin of the harm that is being done to you, there is no one else to ring the alarm bell for them.”
Home-grown grass-roots action and leadership is needed to change some of these vast issues in different cultures, which are intrinsically linked to strong traditions.
And while the concept of the “white savior complex” crossed a few minds at the conference, it was very obvious that the activists represented today need support but are deemed best placed to know how far to stretch their own communities, challenging their own specific circumstances and heritage.
They are not expecting anybody else to do it for them. Mabel van Oranje, senior adviser to the group of global leaders known as The Elders, said, for instance, that “in the African countries where we are active, we are often told to keep our nose out, but the word of Desmond Tutu, the word of Kofi Annan is highly respected … to
them, it is the voice that comes from within” Africa.
The panel on the role of women and the Arab Spring brought out some of these perspectives. When the journalist Katrin Bennhold of the International Herald Tribune asked the panel of women from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt whether they perceive Western women to be charging around with notions of what is best for them, the answer was rather candid.
“We are not here to import Western laws,” said Alaa Murabit, the founder of Voice of Libyan Women. Then she added, “We need a more accurate interpretation of the Shariah law to establish our new constitution.”
The comment upset an Iranian delegate who begged for clarification on what exactly it meant for women to be subjected to Shariah. What is the provision for women in a correct interpretation of Shariah law when it comes to gender equality, access to your children and to financial independence? The outburst threw a lot of questions into the air. They remained unanswered.
Personally, since producing my film, “Lili’s Journey,” on women’s empowerment, I am compelled by the topic of public-private partnerships to achieve some of the important development goals broached during the conference.
At the end of a two-day meeting that created dozens of new connections, fresh stories and much determination to act, Emma Bonino took the stage — epitomizing all that energy, and vowing to take it to Yangon, where she plans to spend time over the Christmas holidays with Aung San Suu Kyi. Who knows, she speculated, perhaps we can go there next year?
Noting that much of the conference had dwelled on how to empower women and get things moving in Africa, Asia or the Middle East, Emma reminded everyone in no uncertain fashion that ”we in Europe still have a very, very long way to go.”
The latest example, she said, was the failure to get a woman on to the board of the European Central Bank. Comparing the many struggles faced by women today to one of her first campaigns — to legalize abortion in Italy in the 1970s — she urged everyone present to stay focused, and to fight for laws because they do make a difference. They are the first step to ensuring that achievements are ”set in stone,” so ”that there is no going back,” she insisted, recalling the joy she had felt when abortion was allowed in Italy, that she was no longer someone campaigning for something illegal, but working to make something that was legal work well.
Activists should remember, she added, that it is important to ask governments, politicians and other individuals and institutions to do their social duty. ”We must pretend that institutions are capable of reacting to the needs of people,” she said. ”We must mob them….The more we leave them alone, the happier they are!”
Laetitia Belmadani is a Paris-based writer and film director.
