WUNRN
Dear Friends,
Please Send us your Stories on Women and Livelihood for a Compilation
of a Database on Women’s Right to Livelihood
PWESCR (Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) - http://www.pwescr.org/ in partnership with several organizations globally is initiating an international Network on Women’s Right to livelihood. In order to develop an inclusive concept of right to livelihood, PWESCR is compiling a database on women’s stories from around the world on livelihood. This compilation will help in developing common analysis and provide conceptual clarity on the issue, which will then help in developing a collaborative action plan.
We invite you to join the
Network and to participate by sharing your thoughts on the topic.
In today’s social economic
and political environment, livelihoods of people are being threatened in
various ways. Several development projects such as dams and extractive
activities result in mass displacements, environmental degradation, and the
destruction of natural resources. In addition, sustainable forms of agriculture
are disappearing, and so are traditional forms of sustenance. Disaster—both manmade
and natural coupled with climate change - is getting worse. Losing livelihood
options and breaking up of socio-cultural fabric of the society brings about
new forms of violence and exploitation – and women are the worst sufferers.
This also leads to massive migration, vulnerable to trafficking and
exploitation and extreme hardship. The global phenomena of using women’s labour
as a cheap option to substitute development investment and the targeting of
women through promotion of micro-finance as a means to access women’s resources
for development and profit is rapidly increasing. As a result of all these,
people, especially women including women from marginalized communities such as
Dalits, indigenous are daily pushed away from self-reliant sources of livelihood
to welfare dependency, sexual exploitation, trafficking and poverty.
Network on Women’s Right to Livelihood seeks to
expand the concept of women’s economic, social and cultural rights so that
having the means to achieve a decent life becomes recognized as a basic human
right. Conversations with women throughout the world have made us understand
that this is a key issue for women. The goals of this project are grounded in
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
which provides that “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the
rights of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his
family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous
improvement of living conditions.” While this provision is sometimes
interpreted as “the right to work”, the Network has expanded its analysis to
include the right to livelihood, which focuses on the conditions that
are necessary to support, sustain, and advance the lives of women and their families
in dignity.
We invite you to participate in the process of
evolving a campaign to demand women’s right to livelihoods as a human right. There is a need to
dialogue with various groups, social movements including indigenous,
dalit groups, land rights, environment, anti poverty, trade, housing,
agriculture, worker’s rights etc to develop a common understanding and to
develop a collective strategy to have livelihood recognized as a human right. There is a critical need for a collective voice to
emerge to articulate the severity of the situation faced by women. In order to
mobilize a global network for sharing and to develop a collective action, join
PWESCR’s efforts in partnership with several organizations globally.
PWESCR is compiling a database on women’s stories
around livelihood. Do send us your stories, or stories of communities you work
with or are associated with. You can send us stories in any form, this
includes, testimonies, photo, videos, press clippings, articles, poems, legal
cases, etc.
Additionally,
if you can answer the following questions:
At
the World Social Forum (WSF),
Send us your stories by
January 10th, 2009 at livelihood@pwescr.org
and we will include them in the WSF exhibitions and
presentations. For
all hard copies you can mail them to
PWESCR
DD 29 Nehru Enclave, Kalkaji, Second Floor
To
join the Network on Women’s Right to Livelihood send an email to livelihood@pwescr.org indicating that
you want to be part of this global network. You can join the network individually or as an organization. Send
us the following:
I
look forward to working with you on this very important issue.
Priiti Darooka
Executive Director
PWESCR (Programme on Women
DD 29 Nehru Enclave, Kalkaji, Second
Floor
Phone: +91 (0)11-40536091/92
Fax: +91 (0)11-40536095
skype id: pritidarooka
Priiti Darooka - pdarooka@pwescr.org
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