More than 3,000 women and about 150 men took part in the European Assembly for Women's Rights that took place on November 12, 2003 in Bobigny on the outskirts of Paris. This was an undeniable success for an event that constitutes very much a "first" as a feminist initiative in Europe.
The idea first emerged in Florence [at the 1st European Social Forum (ESF) - NS] during a seminar organized by the European coordination of the World March of Women. The idea was put forward for a specific women's initiative during the 2nd ESF which was going to be held in Paris in 2003. Why such an initiative? The participants at this seminar felt the need to create an event around the next ESF that would mark a feminist presence and reflect the fact that the movement for global justice could not claim to build another world if it did not integrate the struggle against male domination.
There is no properly constituted feminist network at the European level, but there are some networks that often have different spheres of intervention. One of the issues at stake for the European Women's Assembly is to constitute a European feminist network, making it possible to improve the relationship of forces so as to impose a real equality between women and men.
In the morning, after an opening text, read by women from various countries, which clarified the meaning of this day, the participants split up into six workshops. Within each workshop, we tried to bring out the themes of common campaigns for the months to come.
In the workshop on employment, precarious work and poverty the goal was to discuss the effects of neoliberalism on women's employment in Europe and to begin the collective construction of a European response to this situation. Over the last 25 years, mass unemployment, part-time work and flexibility have become essential characteristics of female work. Everywhere in Europe, the effects of neoliberalism are particularly harsh for women. Some themes for campaigns were defined: real equality in rights at work; struggles against all work-related discrimination; increase in minimum social standards; attribution of social security benefits to individuals and not according to marital status; and the development of collective child care.
In the workshop on immigrant women, the view was strongly expressed that immigrant women contribute actively to the socio-cultural life of the host country, in spite of the phenomenon of double discrimination related to their condition as women and immigrants. Even if laws are not discriminatory, they have discriminatory effects, because they consolidate, indeed worsen the situation of inequality between men and women, institutionalize the dependence of women within the family framework (in particular by the application of personal status codes from the countries of origin, the non-renewal of residence permits in the event of rupture in cohabitation and so on) and maintain situations of violence (traffic of women, arranged or forced marriages) and of exploitation (work-related and/or sexual). The following axes of mobilization were adopted: the application of individual personal status in order to support autonomy and individual rights and to fight against marital dependence and double violence (familial and official); the application of the law of the host country as regards labour legislation; freedom of movement for all; recognition of the qualifications of immigrant women.
There was a workshop on violence. For the past 30 years or more, feminist associations have worked on the issue, often alone. Now it is important to involve the social movements to allow a real mobilization, because women can no longer tolerate being alone in these struggles. Three main questions were tackled in this workshop: violence within relationships, and violence towards women in a more widespread sense; the question of prostitution; the resistance of young women and prevention of sexist behaviour in relations between boys and girls. The struggle against violence against women must become a completely specific public policy. The axes of mobilization adopted were: harmonization of national laws on the struggle against violence against women on the basis of the most advanced situation, through the implementation of European directives; recognition of the responsibility of states if laws are not applied.
The workshop on sexual and reproductive rights addressed the disparity of women's rights in relation to control over their bodies in European countries constitutes an indicator of progress or regression. The right to abortion and contraception is the keystone of women's autonomy. Another issue is the growing importance of medical techniques of reproduction. From the sale of eggs to the sale of organs and the forced sterilization of Roma in Slovakia, a process of commodification and accentuation of relations of domination is underway.
The right to control one's body is called increasingly into question in European countries by religious institutions, both within society and at the level of the political institutions. At the same time there is a certain downplaying of sexual and reproductive rights in feminist struggles. It was decided to mobilize clearly for the basic right for women to control their bodies and for free access to abortion and contraception in every European country. This demand must be an integral part of the project of global justice. To this end, the workshop proposed the construction of a permanent network of struggle, information, debate, solidarity and vigilance for common mobilizations, like that initiated by the women of Portugal for abortion rights.
The workshop on women and war chose to emphasise resistance struggles through the testimony of Chechen, Palestinian, Russian, Israeli and Kurdish women, to show the specificity of the opposition of women to war, its political specificity and its overlap with feminism; relations of solidarity between women and their difficulties. The principal proposals for action were as follows: sponsoring of Palestinian prisoners and detainees; participation in the caravan of peace, which will leave Europe for Palestine and Iraq; a specific campaign so that Europe imposes peace in Chechnya; to build an international gathering in Turkey for September 2004 to support Turkish women peace activists; to make March 8, 2004 a day of mobilization against war.
The workshop on women and power proposed a shared analysis based on the fact that the feminine as a category is a historical construct whose consequence is the exclusion of women from the public sphere. Patriarchal domination persists in all types of society and the question of power runs through all spheres of social organization. That is why the presence of women in places where decisions are made is a major democratic issue. This workshop worked around proposals for mobilizations: to ensure that texts on equality between men and women become legally enforceable at the European level; for the effective exercise of parity in countries which have a law and parity in all European and national bodies whose members are nominated and elected, whether these structures are advisory or decision-making.
A springboard for the future
In the plenary session, reports from the workshops made it possible to develop an outline of the debates on each topic and take on the action proposals. One of the constants of the workshops was also opposition to the contents of the constitutional treaty [being proposed for the European Union - NS] and a stress on the need for Europe-wide struggles, to build common campaigns on the basis of the existing feminist networks, or by creating other bodies.
The Assembly then took to the streets of Bobigny, heading, symbolically, for the courtroom where a key legal case on abortion had been decided in 1972. There were more than 6,000 of us in the streets. Over and above the day's success, the potential for mobilizing the movements and feminist networks of various countries and the need to build a broad feminist network at the European level were obvious.
The debates of this day also informed the debates of the ESF. Many women attended the ESF and felt much more legitimate in contributing a feminist analysis to the debates.
This meeting made it possible to dynamize or redynamize the various women's groups, in particular because it showed that a feminist relationship of force could be built at the European level. The challenge is important: building another Europe which is feminist and anti-capitalist requires all our energies. As was clearly shown by this assembly, the backward moves contained in the constitutional treaty and the impact of neoliberal policies affect women particularly. This is a dimension that the global justice movement must take into account. If it does not integrate the struggle against male domination as a political dimension in the fight against neoliberal policies, it will be difficult to build another world. This is the message that the women's assembly tried to bring to the general assembly of social movements on November 16.
Anne Leclerc is an activist in the United Union Federation, the National Collective for the Rights of Women, the World March of Women Against Poverty and Violence Against Women, and the Revolutionary Communist League (French section of the Fourth International)