Workshop co-ordinator: Gill Kerchhoff,
(Women and Human Rights Documentation Centre, University of Western Cape, South Africa)
and Barbara Terenzi Calamai,
(AIDOS, Italy).

Women's human rights demand more attention internationally now than ever before. Women's information is extremely valuable in assisting NGOs, government departments and international government agencies to improve the lives of women around the world. This workshop will cover a broad range of topics from specific issues including education, violence against women, migrant workers, and women's health, to more general aspects of policy, and national and international legislation. The goal of the workshop is to develop a strategy whereby women who are involved in information work can promote the protection of human rights for women at the global level. We will compare the situation of women in different regions; discuss different regional and international human rights information organisations and networks; and share ideas on how effective information dissemination can influence policy makers regionally and internationally.

General
As it was meant to be a workshop participants were asked to raise from their chairs and were divided into groups according age, North-South, democracy in land of origin, to know were we 'stand'. Discussion were very lively. Time was however a limited factor for well defined resolutions. Indigenous women from Chile asked for solidarity and will have a statement circulated about a battered (indigenous) social worker. This letter of protest will appear on the communication wall for support of all participants.

Presenters(papers and/or full abstracts are available):

1. Meryl Federl (Women's Health Project, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa) The Women's Health Research Centre is an NGO established in 1991, promotes women's understanding on health issues and hopes to raise awareness on health matters among policy makers as well as rural women. There are 4000 members getting free information and the NGO is independently funded by international donors.

 

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2. Dian Paramita (Women's Studies Centre, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia)

Since 1979 Indonesia is confronted with legal and illegal immigration of women workers to the Middle east, Philippines, Brunei, Japan etc. Illegal women migrants are usually victims of violence and have no access to any sort of security. Due to bureaucracy and very high costs of the legal channels for migration to foreign employers the problem of illegal women migrants remains and is much less visible because of lack of statistical data. Dian calls for communication and a dialogue between women NGOs and foreign employers.

 

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3. Gill Kerchhoff (Women and Human Rights Documentation Centre, South Africa) The Women and Human Rights Documentation Centre is set up by Gill and exists for only 2 years. Its strengths are the collection of grey literature. The publication side is in development as main activities are collecting and refining the collection. Drawbacks, challenges and successes are discussed.

 

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4. Alejandra Scampini (REPEM, Uruguay) Alejandra explains the CLADEM's declaration of human rights from a gender perspective and hopes to find support among the conference participants.

 

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5. Barbara Terenzi Calamai (AIDOS, Italy) AIDOS established documentation centres and information networks in Russia, Tanzania, Jordan Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine. Communication problems are discussed but the real basis for networking is sharing experiences and helping each other. Presenters Nazifa Aabedi (Afghan Institute of Learning, Pakistan) and Sudaba Timori (Afghan Women's Network, Pakistan) were absent as the Netherlands Embassy didn't grant their visa. The paper of Nazifa Abedi is available however. They were replaced by

 

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6. Diana Maclean-Zeverin, (Argentine Delegate Mercosur Mujeres Forum, South American Common Market) Department of Mujer Paz Desarorollo - Argentina This semi-governmental organisation has the potency to reach 95 million women with information on sociociology, health, democracy, education, legislation, women's rights and business opportunities for women. Diana reported on the international standards concerning women's rights in the region.

Workshop
We were divided into 6 groups discussing policy issues, challenges, achievements and failures in our work regarding either information dissemination or human rights. In summary the following issues were raised:

 1. How can the workshop contribute to improve access of information for people in developing countries and countries in transition who lack telecommunication/ internet?

 2. How to target the information (to women) search engines for women's information?

 3. Action alerts should appear more often on the internet, to share experiences, expertise and to establish networks?

 4.How can women overcome intimidation?

 5. What strategies have proved effective?

 6. What are effective fundraising strategies?

 7. How to get governments to implement laws, policies?

 8. How to raise men and children more gender sensitive?

 9. International Centre which gives all information not only English?

10. Available resources that can be used to network with women that are not wired/connected?

11. How to be active in the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

12. What strategies to change treatment or absence of women's issues in the media?

13. How to organise or sustain international exchange of information

14. How can we at the conference support each other?

Conclusion
Gertrude Mongella's opening speech was a good introduction for this workshop. She as well as other from this workshop focused on the importance of radio in Africa. A solution for the inaccessibility of e.g. rural African women was a repackaging of information via e-mail for radio stations. The general conclusion was to use any form of media in combination with others to reach people. Intermediaries and networking forms the key. Even the participation list of the conference could well form a start of networking as all the e-mails are listed. Sharing facilities and experience is the key. We have to promote networking ( see Track 4.II) among women NGOs. The gap between the technology-advanced and the technology disadvantaged, between grassroots 'victims' and policy-makers, and between theory and practice has to be bridged.
A start for inter-networking was giving by a hand-out with specific links.