Plenary Transcripts

This Plenary highlighted the absolutely critical need for women’s movements to engage with and explore current and possible alliances with other social movements such as the disability, youth, Indigenous and LGBTQI movements.

This plenary (like our feminism) was interwoven with digital stories, song and poetry, creating a comfortable space for the interesting and perhaps awkward task of looking inside our movements. If we held a mirror to our movements, what would we see? How can we take all of the threads and weave more inclusive, cohesive movements with healthy, accountable leadership? How can we constructively manage power dynamics and tensions within?

In this plenary, speakers shared the key contextual forces shaping their movements – the challenges in closed and transitioning societies, the deeply entrenched stigmas that women face, and some of the strategies that are being used to mobilise against these forces. Using a fluid, talk-show model - and moderated by AWID’s former Executive Director Joanna Kerr - this plenary framed women’s organising within the very different contexts of Iran, Poland, Zimbabwe and Indonesia, and within the sectors of sex work, HIV/AIDS, economic rights, and reproductive rights.

The final plenary was a chance to reflect on the experiences, trends - good things and bad - that happened at the 11th AWID Forum. It was also an opportunity for participants to raise some final issues and share some stories from home.