Center for Women's Global Leadership
Douglass College, Rutgers University
160 Ryders Lane
New Brunswick, NJ- USA
www.cwgl.rutgers.edu

Media Advisory

Contact in Durban: Charlotte Bunch, Exec. Director 082-858-6384 charlottebunch@hotmail.com

Rita Raj, Hearing Coordinator 09-1-646-2207570 cwglritaraj@cs.com

Contact in USA: Jewel Daney, Assoc. Director 1-732-932-8782 jndaney@rci.rutgers.edu

August 27, 2001

For immediate release:

Center for Women's Global Leadership to host hearing on race and gender at the World Conference on Racism

HEAR THEIR STORIES.   HEAR THEIR STRATEGIES.  WOMEN SPEAK OUT.

A dozen women from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America will offer testimony on the interlocking influences of discrimination based on race, gender and class at a hearing organized by the Center for Women's Global Leadership as part of its work at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

Women at the Intersection of Racism and Other Oppressions: a Human Rights Hearing will be held on August 31, 2001 from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m at the ML Sultan Technikon 41/43 Centenary Road in Durban.

Statements will focus on human rights violations in three main areas:  war, conflict and genocide; migration and immigration; and bodily integrity and sexuality.  Speakers will share their experiences and the strategies they are using to address the abuses.  Testimonies will include:

. Dalit woman from Nepal describes how women in her caste are trafficked as sex workers to India and the organizing being done to assist them;

. A Roma (gypsy) woman from Serbia on the low status of women in the Roma community which is  compounded by the discrimination and violence the community faces within Europe;

. Sexual abuse of Afro-American women incarcerated in the United States;

. South African HIV positive woman on global apartheid and racism against victims of HIV/AIDS;

. Chinese women in Indonesia and Congolese [Brazzaville] women raped and victimized during ethnic conflicts in their countries;

. Indigenous woman from Guatemala on genocide against her community;

. Sexual assault and brutality of workers in Malaysia, Germany, and the US and how they organize for migrant women's rights;

. Xenophobia faced by Haitian women in the Dominican Republic

Testimonies will be followed by commentaries from experienced respondents from the human rights field, who will speak about what governments, the UN and non-governmental organizations need to do to address the issues of the World Conference.  The commentators are Betty Murungi, a Kenyan human rights lawyer and a member of the Women's Caucus of the International Criminal Court; and Ruth Manorama, an activist for dalit rights and President of the National Alliance of Women.

In addition to the hearing, the Center, in collaboration with the Women's International Coalition on Economic Justice (WICEJ) will hold a public education program on race and gender, and will join other activists in advocacy efforts during the conference.

One of the Global Center's goals at the conference is to bring to the surface the multiple and intersecting realities for women, which are often submerged or hidden in the single identity of race or gender.

 "The World Conference presents an opportunity for the international women's human rights movement to influence a platform of action that fully recognizes the diversity of women and the different ways they experience racism, racial discrimination, and other forms of intolerance," said Charlotte Bunch, founder and executive director of the Global Center.

Founded in 1990, the Center for Women's Global Leadership works to enhance the leadership of women on global issues and human rights, organizing an annual Women's Global Leadership Institute and engaging in numerous leadership development and global education initiatives.  It is based at Douglass College, the college for women at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.

It has successfully used the hearing/tribunal format over it's 11 year history, including the 1993 Vienna Tribunal on women's human rights violations, a climatic turning point in the movement to redefine women's rights as human rights.

For more information and to schedule interviews, contact Jewel Daney at the Global Center's office in the United States or Charlotte Bunch or Rita Raj in Durban, South Africa.