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2 |
| Thema 2 |
Frieden und Sicherheit |
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Workshop 2.2 |
"WWW - Women, Water, War" |
 Freitag, 09.09.2005, 14.45-16.30 h
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
| Referentinnen
Moderation: Heidi Meinzolt-Depner, Europakoordinatorin WILPF
Insufficient water resources, unjust distribution of water and access to clean water are not only ticking time-bombs, but developing as a the cause of conflict number 1 worldwide. Women are specifically concerned by that and engaged in local communities, nationally and internationally. WILPF has made the water campaign one of its international priorities.
The effects of lacking water resources, bad water quality, unjust distribution of water are not felt in the acclimatised offices of the elites while there is dealt with geostrategic resources, big development projects are decided on the basis of international financing or in the framework of privatisation measures. That’s the same case everywhere - in the North and the South. But in Tansania, in Sierra Leone, in the middle East, in Bolivia and Costa Rica, in India and Bangla Desh there are women, still running kilometres in order to get water, waiting for hours at suspect pumps, their children are born malformed or suffer of water diseases. They don’t have the money , to buy water, always more expensive and often poisoned . Women are mostly affected if their families are displaced by dam projects and after inundations. They flee with their children , if water is a reason to war. Water is part of their life and therefore the women who know about it, who are concerned want to be heard and integrated in the planning and execution of all measures locally and in international bodies and institutions - right in the sense of UN res.1325 on participation of women in the prevention and the solution of conflicts.
The WILPF member Dr. Roula Zoubiane from Libanon will present how the fighting for water is a fighting for survival in the middle East, which has juridical and political implications; the women in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon are aware that their future is only a commonone and therefore they are in the same boat in the water campaign: they request equal and just access to clean water and protest for example against a secret plan of a desalination plant planned by the Israeli government for the Palestinian population - at high costs, under Israeli control exclusively – because the natural water resources in the occupied territories are only reserved for Israelis. These women participate under extremely difficult circumstances in projects for education and information beyond borders and check points and are by this way ambassadors of a dreamed future in peace and solidarity.
Professor Regina Birchem, the biologist from the US is following since many years how women in Bolivia and Costa Rica fight against the ongoing privatisation of water by multinational corporations, how they inform the population about their rights, sensibilise people , especially women’s groups for health aspects of clean water and at the same time negotiate in acute social confrontations for a just access to water. She supports with her knowledge women of the Indian section of WILPF, in order to provide scientific materials which help the women to lead local actions against gigantic dam projects.
In the conference we will also focus on how in Tansania women are engaged in small scaled projects of greater ecological and social dimension for pump and main systems for a more effective exploitation of rare water resources for plants; they request a privileged access of private utilisers and indigenous women to springs and wells , they establish international relations and propose alternative legislations ...
| Kontakt
Heidi Meinzolt-Depner, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
E-Mail Meinzolt-Depner@T-Online.de, Homepage http://www.internationalefrauenliga.de/
| Links
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Internationale Frauenliga für Frieden und Freiheit) WILPF-IFFF, Beraterstatus bei den Vereinten Nationen, ECOSOC, UNCTAD und UNESCO, Sonderberaterstatus bei FAO, ILO und UNICEF http://www.wilpf.org/
WIPLF - Deutsche Sektion http://www.internationalefrauenliga.de/
WILPF Schweiz http://www.wilpf.ch/,
Peacewomen http://www.peacewomen.org/,
http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/
Mehr über die WLPF >> Download PDF
Aktualisiert: 11.08.2005, hbr
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