Jass Annual Report 2013 | 1
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
YOU ADD, WE MULTIPLY! ANNUAL REPORT 2013 Strengthening and Sustaining Women’s Collective Power for Justice JASS (Just Associates) is a global network of activists, popular educators and scholars in 26 countries working to strengthen and amplify the voice, visibility and collective power of women for a just and sustainable world for all. We put women’s leadership and rights at the heart of cutting edge economic, environmental and human rights strategies while promoting women’s freedom of expression, health, sexual rights and the protection of women human rights defenders. Our priorities and programs are defined and driven by the women and organizations we work with and supported by regional teams and partners in Mesoamerica, Southern Africa and Southeast Asia. Our strategies train diverse local leaders, strengthen community organizing, build broad alliances, and link grassroots solutions to global advocacy. Using creative communications and documentation strategies, we publicize the innovative ways women are making change happen, building inclusive communities and deepening democracy. JASS’ holistic strategies empower women activists and strengthen women’s movements by: ●● equipping activist leaders from all walks of life with the confidence, information, skills, strategies, and connections they need to organize women for democratic change and to navigate risky contexts; ●● promoting and sustaining grassroots and local-to-global organizing to build broad, flexible alliances that are responsive to urgencies and opportunities as well as rooted in the concrete demands of diverse women’s constituencies; ●● mobilizing alliances for strategic political action to engage and persuade governments and international actors to respond effectively to violations of women’s rights and to advance gender equality and human rights; ●● maximizing women’s use of media to amplify the visibility, appeal, and reach of women’s rights agendas and the role of women’s movements in advancing democracy and justice; and ●● documenting and publishing knowledge from practice—in multiple formats from videos to analysis to training tools—to contribute to smarter thinking and responses to inequality and women’s rights challenges. JASS ANNUAL REPORT 2013 | 1 Contents FROM THE Director’s DESK 2 JASS IN NUMBERS 4 JASS AROUND THE WORLD 5 CONTINUUM OF MOVEMENT-BUILDING 6 1. THE CHANGING TERRAIN FOR WOMEN AND RIGHTS 7 View From Southern Africa: “Women’s Participation for What?” 8 View From Mexico and Central America: Violence Against Women Human Rights Defenders 9 View From Southeast Asia: The Scramble for Resources 10 2. YOUNG WOMEN SPEAK OUT 11 Zimbabwe: Unleashing Voices, Unleashing Change 12 Indonesia: Challenging Official “Morality” 13 3. DEFENDING OUR TERRITORIES, DEFENDING OURSELVES 15 Honduras: Indigenous Women and Communities Defend Their Territories 16 Mesoamerica: Movement-Building Approaches to Activist Protection 17 Liberia: Women on the Frontlines of Building Peace 20 4. EQUIPPING ACTIVISTS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS 22 5. NARROWING THE GAP BETWEEN POLICIES AND REALITY 24 Malawi: Collective Power Essential to Ensuring Quality Medicine 25 LGBTI Rights in Zambia and Zimbabwe: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back 27 6. ELECTIONS ≠ DEMOCRACY 28 Zimbabwe: Elections Heighten Safety Concerns for Activists 29 Honduras: Questionable Election Outcomes for Women 30 Cambodia: Young Women Activists Protest Post-Election Violence 31 FINANCES AND DONOR PARTNERS 33 PEOPLE 34 ALLIES AND NETWORKS 35 2 | JASS ANNUAL REPORT 2013 “We need to know that we have power within ourselves, that we have rights, and we have to advocate for change that is right for us. Women have power within themselves, but alone, we can’t make big changes. from the We can come together to do something great.” director’s DORICA MAGUBA, OUR BODIES, OUR LIVES CAMPAIGN, MALAWI desk Dear friends, public safety, impunity, economic exclusion, violence against women This year’s many highpoints and human rights defenders, land turning points for JASS began in grabs and the depletion of natural January with a trip to Liberia with resources. the Nobel Women’s Initiative to learn from renowned women peace- Here are a few highlights that vividly builders, and concluded in December demonstrate how women-led local with a joint action for a UN resolution solutions hold the key to global solutions: to protect women human rights . defenders ●● In Malawi, after winning a Linking these two pivotal moments commitment from the Ministry is the extraordinary courage and of Health to replace outdated ingenuity of women most affected by toxic medicines with better deepening inequality and violence antiretrovirals (ARVs) in 2012, the who are mobilizing for peace, justice HIV positive women mobilizing and a better life for all, often with Our Bodies, Our Lives— minimal resources and at great risk. an 8,000-strong grassroots With new challenges and crises campaign—embarked on an reverberating across the globe, fed ambitious treatment literacy effort. by militarization and global resource Their goal: ensure that all women extraction, women have never been (and men) in every community more active or more creative in understood how to stay healthy defending their own rights and those living with HIV and to demand of their communities. quality medicines and respect! By the end of 2013, they had This report brings you stories and educated thousands of women insights from across the JASS covering 26 of 28 districts who network. Here, you’ll read how had, in turn, pressured local different women see their world governments and clinics to deliver and the innovative ways they on the promise made to them are challenging abuses of power by the Minister of Health. Today, and building deeply democratic more women living with HIV are alternatives. Zimbabwe, Malawi, not only healthy, they’ve upended Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, stigma, lifted taboos about Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, and sex and sexuality, and remain Cambodia: these are some of the unstoppable citizen leaders taking places where the JASS network of on other issues such as inheritance activists and allies are tackling HIV, and the rights of lesbian, gay, teen pregnancy, sexual violence, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) JASS ANNUAL REPORT 2013 | 3 people. One of the leaders ●● After years of groundwork in empowerment is neither linear nor a in this process wrote to me in Myanmar, JASS and its partners, simple technical equation. But when early 2013 to ask if we could Urgent Action Fund and Women’s women are at the forefront of change, arrange a meeting directly with League of Burma, launched the they don’t just address issues, they GlaxoKlein or one of the other first step in a long-term initiative transform communities and systems. pharmaceutical companies. to strengthen grassroots women’s Unstoppable. leadership and organizing to Thank you to all our extraordinary better influence the process of partners and to all of you who ●● The Honduran Defenders peace-building and reconstruction accompany and support us in this Network played a critical role while addressing violence and journey to unleash and defend in protecting the life of an poverty in their communities. women’s dreams and innovations for a indigenous woman activist better world. leading the Lenca community What have we learned? We see fighting to protect their farmland more clearly than ever that our Onward and forward, from the construction of a dam core mission— building women’s Lisa VeneKlasen and hydroelectric plant—the collective leadership and product of a corrupt deal organizational power—is not between the government and just about being louder and more a transnational company. The effective in holding governments network activated a call list— and others to account. It’s also phones rang from Tegucigalpa about creating networks for mutual to Washington DC—to secure support and protection in the face her release. JASS Mesoamerica of backlash and violence. We call Executive Director and Co-Founder has helped to build the regional this a movement-building approach and national Defenders to protection and security—we Networks, agile alliances of are weaving relationships of trust women activists and leaders from among diverse women, building our different communities and social capacities and leading the change we movements, that leverage this need. local and yet global network to ensure their safety and visibility. The touchstone for all our work continues to be the lives, experiences ●● JASS Southern Africa, building and dreams of women. A woman’s on the insights learned from absorb the conversations with colleagues heart, mind and body grim reality of discrimination. For in Mesoamerica, piloted a deep and lasting change, women’s security and wellbeing training in whole selves must be at the center of Zimbabwe with young and LBT leadership and organizing, a principle activists, kicking off a region- that gives meaning to the phrase to-region peer-exchange that . From is improving activist protection from survivors to defenders this starting point, social change and across oceans. 4 | JASS ANNUAL REPORT 2013 jass in BUILDING NETWORKS local and national organizations450+ in Mexico, Central America, Southern Africa and Southeast numbers Asia regional and international100+ human rights organizations organizations and alliances formed10 through JASS’ movement- building work EQUIPPING LEADERS women activists and grassroots1,500 leaders from 26 countries PERSUADING trained Decision makers women human rights Village