IPPF’s Declaration of Sexual Rights aims to support an inclusive vision of sexuality. This vision seeks to respect, protect and advance the rights of all persons to sexual autonomy and to promote sexual health and rights within a framework of non-discrimination. It is in this sense that IPPF is interested in hearing and sharing the views of a number of movements, including the feminist; gay, lesbian, transgender and queer; HIV/AIDS; sexual and reproductive rights; and human rights, on what synergies are created amongst different movements in order to create long term impact and change, both at the policy, community, and service provision levels. Throughout the years, the sexual rights movement has been successfully able to bring all these movements together in an alliance in solidarity, an interesting example of how solidarity between social movements can be forged during periods of intense struggle on behalf of human rights.

Is feminism alien to Muslim contexts? Was the defence of women’s rights a modern invention, introduced by thinkers in the West? Exploding the myths that surround Muslim women’s agency and their diverse histories, Great Ancestors reintroduces us to women who defended the rights of women from Africa, Asia and the Middle East between the eighth century and the 1950s.

Silence Speaks is an international digital storytelling initiative that provides survivors and witnesses of gender-based violence and other forms of trauma with a supportive environment in which to tell their stories. Workshop participants share and bear witness to each other’s stories; record voiceover narration; collect and generate photos and video clips; and learn to combine these materials into short videos. The process challenges journalistic legacies of voyeurism and naturalized representation by placing control over what stories get told directly into the hands of survivors. In this session, we will explore theoretical and ethical issues in digital storytelling; screen stories from South Africa and Uganda; and guide participants through a series of story sharing and writing activities. Participants will also engage in a strategy session to brainstorm the use of personal narrative and digital storytelling in movement-building work for women’s development worldwide.

This session uses a case studies-based-learning format to explore the complexity of issues where the positive women’s movement often diverges from the human/women’s rights position and explores how we work together to create nuanced, joint responses. The session looks at HIV testing, Criminalization of HIV transmission, reproductive rights, and PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child transmission).

This session will focus on the lessons and challenges reflected in the Bolivian experience of creating an intercultural movement of women as political actors in the process before the Constituent Assembly. The objective of the session is to create a mutual learning space that will allow the audience to familiarize themselves with the Bolivian Women's Movement and their efforts to incorporate women's proposals in the constituent process.

This panel will be highly engaging and comprise members of the Southern Africa Protocol Alliance that is campaigning for the adoption and implementation of a gender Protocol, as well as intergovernmental and government gender experts that have played a key role in the move towards adoption of the Protocol.

The idea of universality - or universal values - underpins the women's movement, but so does the idea of difference, particularly in various forms of identity politics. Are universal values, particularly as they are represented in the human rights framework, useful? Or are they part of an imperialist project? What are the challenges for women’s rights advocates facing serious global crises such as the attack on reproductive rights, the War on Terror, or mass murder? In what ways does policy-making reflect these dilemmas? How do feminists build universalist movements from below? The objective of the session is to explore how these difficult issues play out in practice in social movements. It will address key obstacles to movement building today, asking why critical theorists, the radical left and religious right come together to attack the idea of universality.

The number of members organized in Korean Women’s Trade Unions has reached 6,000. This union was formed in 1999 by developing tools to organize women workers, mainly those employed as irregular workers. This presentation will focus on the strategies and key tactics that the Korean Women’s Trade Union has employed in their struggle for the improved labour rights of women workers.

This session will explore a new book, "Women, Metamorphosis of the Butterfly Effect," as well as the play and movement building process based on it. Maria Suarez Toro (the author), Valerie Miller (International Advisory Group of Wings of the Butterfly) and Ailyn Morera ( the play's director and script writer) will use music, video, metaphor and storytelling, examining feminist popular education methodologies of "resonance", "butterfly effect," and artistic expression, which connects us beyond the limits of language.

This interactive skills-building workshop aims to provide a practical exploration of how web 2.0 and new media tools can be used to champion women’s rights. Using practical examples from W.TEC’s work and also from participants’ experiences, we will explore how these ICTs can be used within organisations and groups to build and sustain movements. This session will address the questions of what new tools are available for movement building and how they can be used innovatively to achieve societal progress and how to use these tools to build better networks and work more effectively. Participants will work in groups to create a blog that speaks to an aspect of women’s rights, with the aim of helping participants think through how to use blogs to pull together support for an issue, inform and educate, and mobilize people to take action that would improve the quality of women’s lives.

The relative democratization of communication technologies due to globalization has seen the revival of radio among grassroots movements in South Asia. In Uttaranchal, N. India, the founding of Hevalvani Community Radio has meant empowering communities of youth, and an increase in participation of women in public life. Our panel examines how community radio in Uttaranchal contributes to democratic participation and active citizenship of an agricultural, forest dependent semi-rural community.

Petro-Politics and Petro-Wars is a burning issue not only for the CEE/EU region but globally. Petro-wars mean financial defaults and mass unemployment, as well as re-distribution of national budgets toward increasing arms race at expense of dramatic cuts of social programs, which always hit women and children first. All humanitarian values turn upside down: the world’s worst dictators all of a sudden become “friends of democracy” and good allies if they agree to host military bases; governments welcome the dialogue and loosen sanctions against the worst totalitarian regimes.

First Nations women from South Africa, descendants of the First People of Southern Africa, Africa, and arguably the world, the KhoeSan, discuss various aspects of women-centred indigeneity, including reverence for Mother Earth, resisting hetero-patriarchal religions, practicing the indigenous gift economy, as well as indigenous fluidities regarding genders and sexualities. The objective of this session is to reclaim and advance feminist indigenous knowledge systems and ways of being, as part of global movements that transcend hetero-patriarchal capitalisms.

This will be a talk show that focuses on: Sexual and Reproductive Rights of Women in Africa; Hate Crimes against black working class lesbian and transgender women in Africa; and Creative Expression ( poetry, song, wall of remembrance, wall of celebration, photographic expression, storytelling, etc.).

Reproductive rights continue to stir public controversy and motivate feminist organizations and anti-choice opponents all over the globe. Movements for women’s equality, youth empowerment, public health and human rights all play important and different roles, if antagonistic at times, in defending and advancing these and other human rights. This panel will contribute to critical introspection and sharing experiences that are at the centre of so many struggles for women’s autonomy, privacy, equality and non-discrimination. 

Medical abortion gives women the possibility to take their lives in their own hands again independent of the legality of abortion and the willingness of doctors. The workshop will train in the provision of information and guidance for women who are interested in medical abortions.

The Women’s Health and Rights Advocacy Partnership (WHRAP) is a multi-country advocacy partnership that brings together NGOs committed to strengthening civil society’s capacity to advocate for improved sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in South Asia. The goal of this session is to use the WHRAP model as a framework for critical reflection and analysis related to building strong and effective advocacy partnerships across multiple levels within the SRHR movement. The session will provide a space to share learnings and to draw from the experiences of audience members in order to arrive at effective advocacy and movement strengthening strategies that can be applied across a broad range of partnerships.

This session aims to serve as a forum of discussion on how to underscore the essential nature of the role of organizations and institutions in protecting individuals at risk in conflict situations. The organizations at the community level play a key role: they provide resources and protection to those at risk, and thus they are the backbone of the women’s movement; on the other hand they serve as a bridge to the rest of the movement, ensuring communication between the ground and the international level. This session will also explore on how to achieve an effective link among the different levels and how to mobilize resources for women’s organizations in conflict situations.

HIV AIDS is the leading cause of death among young African women. The response to efforts to build a strong, well-networked advocacy movement for woman-initiated HIV prevention tools has been varied. Some women-focused NGOs see this evolving field as a “women’s issue”. Others see it as a “HIV issue” that does not require their attention until new tools (such as Microbicides) become publicly available. Do these efforts complement or distract from other urgent priorities? The session explores this controversy by asking: Should women’s groups lead the demand for women-initiated HIV prevention? ; Does this issue complement or distract from other urgent advocacy priorities?; Should we focus on getting new prevention tools or solely on structural changes that empower women?; Is HIV prevention an essential SRHR issue – or is attention to it fragmenting the women’s larger movement? 

This show brings together the Dakar collective, a fiery group of feminists (both men and women), who want to talk about how we build links between men and women working for gender justice. The Dakar collective first met at a conference on 'Politicizing Masculinities' in Dakar, Senegal in 2007. 

The Cyber Quilting Experiment examines how Web 2.0 and various Social Medias can be used as a resource for social justice work and movement building activities. As with the Highlander Folk School in the US Civil Rights Movement, the cyber quilting experiment is to be a space where activism, cognitive engagement, and skill development intersect, equipping women of color activists and organizations with the cyber-tools needed to bring about radical social change. Our long-term goal is to build a feminist owned and operated autonomous web structure that allows women, and youth of color to plug in, reach out to each other and share resources in a secure environments through various cyber-mediums. This panel features a Cyberquilting Skill Share Model where youth, elders (intergenerational), organizers, and community groups will work together to show how various internet technologies as well as traditional forms of mobilization/protest can strengthen current and future social justice work.

The debate about whether change can be made from within or apart from political structures is a long-standing one, and feminists around the world continue to exchange views on this. There is also the issue of not only dealing with access to decision making, but also the need to strengthen women’s leadership within hostile, patriarchal structures. There have been several notable gains in the Africa region over the past ten years. There are more women in parliament (Rwanda has a world-breaking record of over 50%), more women holding non-traditional portfolios, a female President for the Pan-African Parliament, and the first democratically elected female President. In this lively, fun, yet serious Great Debate, we will be addressing the following questions: What difference has having women in decision making made in our countries? Is having more women in political office the answer to the need for accountability? Can we count on women in decision-making to stand up for women’s rights? What is our responsibility as a women’s movement towards our colleagues in positions of decision-making?

interactive talk show will look at the issue of religion and feminisms in light of the increasing political, social and cultural influence of religious fundamentalisms. It will engage key women’s rights activists to share their diverse views and experiences on religious fundamentalisms, and will provide an opportunity to debate the potential of engaging with religion and promoting secularization as strategies for challenging and resisting religious fundamentalisms. The debate will delve into the complexities of these two broad strategies, attempting to break down false dichotomies that exist within these realms and to advance the dialogue on this subject.

This session will open the debate on policy conditionalities from a women’s rights perspective based on the publication developed by AWID, WIDE, DAWN and IGTN entitled: Conditionalities undermine the Right to Development: an analysis from the women’s rights perspective. Some years ago, when women’s rights organizations used to argue against economic policy conditionalities, some actors from the international community reacted, defining this debate as an “old-fashion” argument. With new windows of opportunity and new challenges, this debate is pertinent again. The moment to talk and act is now!

This session will debate the history, strategy, and current situation of women's organizing at and around the United Nations as a success/challenge to movement building. It will explore its political consequences and impact, as well as look at the experiences of how it advances or hinders working on building a global women's movement and forming coalitions across movements (eg human rights and the environment).

The problem of inclusion which FemAct and its partners face, in spite of its exemplary work in analysis and action at different levels, is common to many other feminist/women organizations/networks in Africa and beyond. The diversity of the organizations and their representatives in terms of focus and age, and their shared experiences in FemAct, will provide a creative mix of outlooks and actions. Participants will support the panelists in exploring alternative strategies to ground the African Feminist movement locally in grassroots activism, which hopefully lead to a stronger movement regionally and globally.

The session will explore how definitions of "gender" and "feminism" in French, English, and Portuguese-speaking Africa influence the relationships between the women's movements and other social movements.

We will try to present the current picture and address the situation of the Queer and LGBTQI Women groups in the Arab world. We will focus on the obstacles we face toward building a community that would develop the Arab LGBTQI women movement, and answer the question: where are the sources of power to build such a movement in the Arab world?

Join Deborah Richardson, Chief Program Officer for the Women’s Funding Network, in a discussion about starting an individual donor program. The Women’s Funding Network has helped many organizations to launch these programs and to increase the success of existing campaigns. Hear about tried and true methods of cultivation, engaging your donors as leaders, and ensuring the financial stability of your organization. Deborah will share insights gleaned directly from donors themselves during the “Women Moving Millions” campaign about what inspires them to give.

Through interactive dialogue among donors and grantee partners, this session aims to concretize strategies towards building a social justice feminist movement. It will provide an overview of progressive women's funds moves towards this framework and scope of funding, and will underscore the importance of using intersectional analyses in our work.

Women have always come together over food to discuss their lives and dreams. Tok Talk is a virtual feast of ideas where feminists will address some of the key questions facing our Asia-Pacific region. The talk show includes video clips and hard hitting guests to spark an interactive discussion with the in-studio audience. How can younger and older feminists collaborate to address the diverse challenges of our region? How can we get past old conflicts to build a stronger feminist movement?

This session will share information about Musawah, a new, global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, which will be launched in February 2009 in Kuala Lumpur. The meeting, organized by Sisters in Islam and an international planning committee, will bring together about 200 activists and scholars working on women’s rights in the family in Muslim contexts to create an international public voice demanding that equality in the family is necessary and possible now. The presenters will share the movement's Framework for Action, a holistic approach that brings together Islamic teachings, universal human rights principles, constitutional and fundamental rights guarantees, and the lived realities of women, to justify why equality in the family is necessary and possible.

Six panelists who represent various social, economic, political and geographical realities, among others, will speak from their first-hand experiences about the campaigns surrounding the right to abortion. They will discuss the search for positive examples and lessons to help us think collectively about how to confront the new challenges presented by this old problem.

Brigid Inder, Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, The Netherlands

Srilatha Batliwala, Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), India

Aninha Adeve, Jovens Feministas de Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sindi Blose, Treatment Action Campaign,South Africa

After four intense and thought-provoking days, how to make sense of what we have learned and unlearned? What new ideas have emerged to shape our thinking and practice when we leave the forum? Our brave speakers will share the key themes, bold insights and new ideas that resonated with them throughout these days. They will set our sights on the path ahead and how we carry this momentum back to our sisters, our organizations and our communities as we build stronger movements for women’s rights.
We’ll also have time to hear from you if you would like to share what you’ll be taking away from this Forum experience.