The Third World Forum on Women,
​Law & Development

Preparation

The Central American Legal Services project highlighted the lack of a knowledge base that could have provided theoretical or programmatic guidance about strategies that use the law to advantage women within the context of third world development. There was little documentation about what women were doing in Africa or Asia—or even in South America--and how they saw women’s problems with regard to the law and the strategies employed to address them. Filling this gap led the way to the forum in Nairobi.
The UN plan to hold a World Conference on Women in 1985 about equality, development and peace also envisioned space for non-governmental organizations to explore issues and network among themselves. This contemplated NGO Forum, then, would become our vehicle for promoting an international dialog about women, law and development issues and strategies. In 1983 OEF encouraged me to present a proposal to the Ford Foundation seeking funding to explore the possibilities. In early 1984 with a grant from the foundation, I began a yearlong research and outreach initiative to find and connect with third world women who were using the law in some way to promote or defend women's rights. 

Making Connections
Armed with nothing more than a few names and phone numbers, I set out for India as my first stop on a three-month trip across Asia to find activists and practitioners, see their work firsthand and begin a dialog with them. I had spent ten years working in Latin America but I had never been to Asia, so I was looking forward to whole new experience. I was not disappointed. But landing at the airport alone in New Delhi at 2 AM one obscure Thursday in March 1984, I suddenly panicked as I realized that I didn't have a hotel reservation, know where I was going or how to get there. On the other side of the immigration and customs gate I approached the information desk and asked them to help me figure it out. A few minutes later I was on my way to the small hotel where I was to stay in Connaught Circus. I still felt a little apprehensive during the hour-long drive into the city in the dark.  The next day I made a telephone call to an Indian woman I had met in Washington a few months earlier, hoping she would remember me. She answered immediately and I was off to the races!  One contact led to another and that to still more. My two weeks there were filled with dynamic meetings and exciting conversations as people told about their work. The scary rides in auto rickshaws careening around busses and through gnarled traffic separating my numerous appointments only fed my sense of adventure. 
The time in New Delhi came quickly to an end and before I knew it I was off for to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, each one with its own surprises, dynamism and challenges. Arriving without secure hotel accommodations became "old hat." Nothing to it. Things always worked out due to the generosity of the people I met along the way.  Most of the women I met were with non-governmental organizations supported by foundations, churches and mosques, political parties, and in some cases government. In some countries making contact was difficult; in others, organizations made it easy for me by quickly convening large gatherings to talk about women, law and development and introduce the idea of setting up an interregional forum to share ideas and experiences, to learn from one another and establish new relationships. 
The Asian trip was followed by outreach to the South American countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina followed by the same in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Tanzania in Africa. The process and results were similar.  The list of contacts grew and my understanding of their efforts did too.

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The outreach year: meeting activists ​around the world

Issues and Strategies
I had encountered a wide variety of problem areas being addressed and an even wider array of approaches and levels of sophistication in describing the work and the rationale for the approach. In many countries, there was at least one instance of women lawyers providing legal services to women, some even training paralegals to assist with the task.  In many places women were working on labor issues where women’s rights were being violated by corporations or the state itself. Some were struggling to change land and inheritance laws. Many were trying to raise public awareness about issues of inequality in family or personal laws, especially where customary or religious law superseded statutory law in practice if not in theory. Still others were working on violence issues, such as rape, domestic violence and sexual exploitation, although work on violence was inconsistent from place to place. Few in Africa were working on violence issues at that time, some even denying that it was a problem for women. Even in programs where the law played a minimal role, it was recognized as important somehow. 
 Throughout the process, the women I met understood that patterns of legally sanctioned, and, in some instances, constitutionally guaranteed, subordination of women existed. They recognized this manifest in labor law, penal law, and civil law governing legal capacity, rights and obligations in marriage, guardianship, inheritance, income, land rights, and participation in public affairs. They saw that in some instances women's inferior status is formally legislated; in others, it is produced and maintained through prejudicial social practices as well as through ignorance of the law by its intended beneficiaries, who consequently are unable to exercise the minimal rights the law does provide. Many also understood that the very concept of rights is conditioned by attitudes toward gender. Regardless of the operative legal system or cultural context, laws touching the public arena (e.g., labor law) have been modernized, that is, brought into line with more enlightened thinking, while family and personal laws in the private sphere have been left untouched by the state, despite the fact that they reinforce women's oppression.
As I analyzed the efforts of the women I met, I could see clearly that the inferior legal status of women centered around several key issues:

• The laws themselves are often unjust or discriminatory, limiting the rights of women;
• The application of the law—even when adequate—is often arbitrary or prejudicial toward women; and
• Cultural attitudes and behaviors restrict the content and exercise of rights--and many women share these attitudes: consequently, they tend to be unaware of their own legal status, of the rights they do possess, of the effect laws have on them, or even that they are the objects of injustice.

I was very eager to share this information, but even more to do what could be done to facilitate a direct dialog among these creative, dedicated women.  I had envisioned a forum where women would have the opportunity to explain the what, how and why of their programs to an audience composed of women from very different cultural and legal contexts. The forum would also be interdisciplinary and include both academics and activists/advocates/practitioners.  The need and enthusiasm for such an encounter was there, it just needed to come together.

Conceptual Framework

I knew that one of the challenges of organizing such a forum was figuring out how to structure a means to foster productive communication. In my outreach to the women activists during my research year, I was struck by their varied approaches taken to explaining common phenomena. It was clear that the use of terms can often be a source of confusion, especially when different words are used by people for the same thing, or when the same term is used to denote different things. Cultural, ideological and linguistic factors all played a role. Educational levels and fields of study varied among the women, some being profoundly aware of development theories and critiques, of current feminist thought and critical legal theory; others, not so much. It seemed essential, therefore, to design a methodology that would accommodate the differences and allow participants to develop analyses of their programs that would be understood by everyone. What was needed was an analytical and diagnostic tool to make conceptual distinctions and organize ideas. ​​​
After meeting with dozens of groups on the Aisan leg of the journey, I set to work drafting a framework for preparing case studies to be presented at the WLD Forum, building on the insights derived from both the Asian participants and the Central American project described before. The result was a draft "workbook," a guide that offered a conceptulal framework, identified issues, defined ambiguous terms and set out a series of questions to be addressed in the case studies. The Spanish translation was then vetted rigorously by numerous groups throughout my subsequent trip to the six Andean countries in South America. The input from the participants in these countries improved upon the original draft, adding nuance and clarity. The resulting revised workbook became the framework for writers to prepare their papers for the WLD Forum.
The workbook was distributed to any group I met who showed interest in sharing the story of their work, the issue they were working on and the strategy being implemented.  The forum and the preparatory process was conceived as an participatory educational one though which everyone engaged in an intitiaive would contribute and learn at the same time. The recommended process was collective, encouraging not just one individual writer but the entire oragnization to revisit its program and engage in a renewed program assessment.

Here is a link to view the original 1984 WLD Forum Workbook

Planning and Organizing

With the knowledge gained from the year’s outreach, a group of women drawn from each of the three regions met with me at OEF offices in Washington DC in November 1984 to plan the forum.  This planning group consisted of Radhika Coomaraswamy (Sri Lanka), Ranjana Kumari (India), Terry Kantai (Kenya), Luisa Compos (Dominican Republic), Sonia Davila (Bolivia) and me. We assessed the case studies already received, identified speakers and designed the structure of the five-day forum. Sixty of the core group of potential participants were selected to participate as presenters in what was then designated the "Third World Forum on Women, Law and Development."  ​
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Purpose 
The planning group agreed that the WLD Forum should seek to clarify the relationship between the law and the social, cultural, and economic structures of society and how the legal system functions to promote or hinder women’s participation in development. To achieve this purpose, the Forum would examine the concerns and experiences of Third World women who had developed and implemented action strategies to raise the legal status of women in their countries, and thus, to promote and defend women’s rights.  specific objectives would be:

1. To broaden, systematize, and document understandings about the relationship between the law and the socioeconomic development process as it affects women,  the legal and cultural mechanisms that maintain women's marginal status, and successful strategies to improve women's legal status.
2. To develop a network among Third World women working to promote and improve the legal status of women.
3. To contribute to the articulation of effective action strategies utilizing both the law and other innovative methodologies.
4. To encourage women's organizations to develop and implement their own action-oriented programs and strategies.
5. To focus world attention on this issue and heighten general awareness about the significance of the law in conditioning women's participation in development.

Themes
​The group affirmed that the WLD Forum in Nairobi tshould be structured around the themes that surfaced from the papers and case studies, themes that were both issue-specific and strategic, in which they identified the principal legal constraints facing women and described collective action strategies in response to these problems. Three substantive themes emerged.

1. The State, Law, and Development, focused on the character of law in a given state and the state’s response to the needs and demands of women, making reference to consti­tutional issues and development policies. Specific areas of interest were land tenure systems, labor laws and practices, and family law.
2. Custom, Religion, Law, and Ethnicity, discussed efforts to bring to light and resolve the contradictions that exist among state law, custom, cus­tomary law, religion, and women's rights.
3. Violence and Exploitation explored strategies to identify and confront the ways in which society legitimizes violence against women, particularly rape, prostitution, domestic violence, exploitation in the workplace, and human rights violations. ​

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Logistics
​Following the planning meeting, with the objectives, themes and structure of the forum in place and participants invited, the focus of the WLD team at OEF turned to fundraising and logistical planning. Getting several dozen participants from far flung corners of the world to Nairobi Kenya for two weeks required enormous resources and complicated logistical planning. Working together with the participants, we approached US and European foundations, churches, individuals and governments for support. To accomplish this task, Trish Ahern joined me and my assistant, Robin Forrest, in the OEF office in Washington to head up the logistical work. 
Communication was a considerable challenge as this was before internet, email, even fax. Telephone connections were very unreliable and not always possible given the time changes across the globe. Instead, we had to rely primarily on regular mail, telex, and where necessary, expensive DHL. Each participant needed funding to cover her expenses. That was one task. A separate task was to make specific travel arrangements for each participant with a physical airline ticket sent to her well in advance and a hotel reservation in her name.  I made one more trip to  Africa in early 1985. I attended the African Prepcom in Arusha, Tanzania and then went to Nairobi, Kenya to make the logistical arrangements necessary for hosting such a large group In July. Securing hotel reservations was a priority.
By June, we had done everything conceivable to assure that the forum would actually take place. But despite our vigorous fund raising efforts, we started to panic as it seemed that reaching the goal would not be possible, It would have been very disappointing to cancel the event due to a lack of funds after all the work that so many people had already put into it. But by some miracle in the end, we managed to raise enough funds from various sources to cover the travel and lodging expenses of most of the participants.  Tickets were sent, hotel reservations secured and materials packed. A New York artist had donated her skills to create a design, so we even had our own WLD poster. We were ready to go!

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Implementation

Arrival
In July 1985 forum participants arrived as planned, checked into their rooms and began to plan their week. The official Conference would be taking place in KANU Towers just a few city-blocks away from University of Nairobi campus, the NGO venue. Excitement was high.  Everything was going well. Who would have expected anything to go wrong at that point?  That illusion was abruptly broken. Just days before the scheduled opening of the conference the government of Kenya, having miscalculated how many official delegates would arrive for the UN meeting, asked the NGOs in nearby hotels to relocate to university student housing. That meant us!
Most of the NGOs relocated as directed, but the WLD participants would have none of it. Most of them, after all, were used to defending people’s rights and resisting oppressive governmental dictates. A committee was quickly formed, strategy meetings held and a resistance plan formulated. The executive director and president of OEF asked me to request the participants to comply, but there was no thought of doing so as the key figures in the resistance group were WLD participants. After a couple of days, the government official responsible for this order agreed to come to the hotel where the WLD group was staying. At a meeting, with perhaps 50 people attending, there seemed to be a stalemate until a slight, elderly Korean women stood up and in a quiet voice made a proposal that stunned everyone and resolved the matter, once and for all.
“We understand” she said, “that governmental attendees do not want to be without lodging, but neither do we. Therefore, I propose that we will open our arms to the government delegates and invite then to share our rooms.” 
At that point, the Kenyan official seized on this “win/win” idea and graciously said he would accept her proposal. This was followed by cheers and celebratory hugs. In the end, our WLD group gave up a few rooms and added extra beds in the others, but never had to leave the hotel to relocate in student housing. Tai Young Lee, the legendary Korean woman lawyer, won the day for everyone.
The dynamic of that struggle produced a sense of solidarity among participants and enhanced communication even before the forum began. People already knew one another, had a sense of commitment to one another and were ready to share their experiences and ideas. I've often thought that if that struggle hadn't happened as it did, the spirit of camaraderie and cohesion among the participants might not have happened and the creativity of the outcome might have been diminished. 
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Opening Day
The Forum itself opened with an address by Nawal el Saadawi, Egyptian doctor, writer, and women’s rights activist who had braved prison, exile and death threats in her fight against female oppression. She started by affirming our vision by saying,
     "While I was on my way to this hall, I ran into friends going to a workshop on women and health. They said to me, "You are a medical doctor; you should be here, not there."
     "No," she replied, "this is just the point."
She went on to speak of women's oppression, patriarchy, religion and their relationship to the law. She encouraged the audience of women's rights advocates to keep up their good work, reminding them that to change laws and achieve equality for women takes political power and a willingness to challenge the system. 
Following Dr. Saadawi was an address by the Honorable Justice Annie Jiagge of Ghana, the first African woman judge and one of the first to serve on the UN Commission on the Status of Women. She also addressed the concept of discrimination and the inferior status of women in society as enshrined in law. She too, encouraged women to press forward with the changes needed in the law and in society. The words of these two women inspired the participants to get down to serious work.
Because the WLD forum took place within the context of the larger NGO Forum, we were able to count on adequate space for the plenary sessions with simultaneous interpretation in five languages: French, Spanish, English, Arabic, and Swahili.  English was the lingua franca for most of the attendees, but having simultaneous interpretation available for the Latin American and Francophone participants was critical, however imperfect. Workshops were a little more difficult as they were without interpretation, but bilingual participants pitched in and made them work as well.  Without such practical considerations, communication and dialog among the whole group wouldn't have been possible.
Following the opening addresses, the rest of the forum was structured around the selected forum themes: 1) the State, Law, and Development, 2) Custom, Religion, Law, and 3) Ethnicity and Violence and Exploitation. Each day, the morning began with a plenary session in a large assembly room in which a panel of three or four presenters addressed the theme of the day. General discussion followed.  These plenary sessions lasted throughout the morning. In the afternoon, workshops covering the many related themes took place in classrooms led by case study writers. Each of these workshops generated recommendations  from participants. In the evening volunteer participants worked late into the night to consolidate the workshop reports and reproduce them for distribution the next day. On the following morning, the assembly discussed and approved the recommendations of the previous day with a high degree of consensus. Following the plenary discussion, a new pannel with a new theme took the stage and the process repeated. In this manner, a substantive set of recommendations on issues relating to women, law and development was put forth. 
The intensive work of these four days was followed by a party and a time to relax an interact!

Photos from WLD Nairobi Forum

Recommendations

The participants affirmed that the next decade required building on and broadening the strategies of education, service, and reform, making them tools of empowerment for women, and stated that the goal for the upcoming decade is the empowerment of women—so they can make law a truly effective instrument to further justice and equality for all women.

The Third World Forum on Women, Law, and Development, which concluded its week-long sesssions in Nairobi on July 18, 1985, decided by consensus to:

1. Establish an Emergency Committee of Third World Women for voicing concern about, and mobilizing world opinion against, any violations of the civil, legal, and human rights of women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America;
2. Work toward the establishment of an International Commission on Women's Rights which would: create a network of women's organizations throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America to share information and experiences about women's struggles for their rights in various parts of the Third World; formulate draft legislation on specific issues concerning women at regional and international levels. Specifically, the group expressed an urgent need to draft a uniform code on family relations which would articulate and protect fundamental rights for women vis-a-vis their position in the family; conduct research in areas of special concern to women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America;
3. Implement regional conferences which will bring together women's organizations in order to exchange information and share experiences with strategies addressing issues of women, law, and development, and to coordinate research and action at the regional level;
4. Launch a campaign entitled Know Your Legal Rights with the goal of empowering women throughout the Third World. Such a campaign would include: popularizing the language of the law by using mass media and other strategies to demystify the law and make it more accessible to the people; working toward an "alternative law," which maximizes women's rights and which is drawn from the language, reality, and experiences of the vast majority of Third World peoples, whose interests historically have been ignored.

In making these recommendations, the Forum Planning Committee requested the continued assistance of the WLD team of OEF to help in bringing these actions to fruition. The recommendations and request laid the foundation for the future work of WLD.

A second set of action recommendations represented a consensus regarding the three themes of the forum and their sub-topics.
 ​State, Law and Development

1. The nature of law in a given society is inextricably linked to the character of the state. Especially in developing countries where autonomous legal institutions have yet to take root, law cannot be separated from politics. Any understanding of law must be supplemented by political and economic analysis.
2. One cannot understand the issues of state, law, and development in Third World societies without reference to the international exploitative system. Problems such as foreign debt, unequal exchange, and multinational investment have made women's struggles increasingly difficult in the Third World. In fighting for their rights, women must join other forces in society struggling against exploitation at all levels.

Constitutional Issues

1. There was general agreement that throughout the UN Decade for Women, the principle of equality between men and women was formally enacted as a constitutional provision in many Third World countries. This was done either as part of a nationalist movement, as in India, as an aspect of social liberation, as in Nicaragua, or with the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, as in Argentina and Bangladesh. A comparative analysis of constitutions of Arab states shows that, despite Islamic revivalist movements, the principle of equality between the sexes has been accepted as a constitutional norm in that region of the world as well.
2. Though formally acknowledged in the constitutions of the Third World, equality has not been achieved in fact and is not a part of the daily lives of most Third World women. Women's organizations throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa have begun to devise various strategies to make equality real and relevant to the majority of women in these societies.
3. For many women, the search for equality during the past decade was part of the struggle for greater democratic rights within their society. For example, in Brazil, after pressure from women's organizations which played an active part in the struggle for democracy, the House of Representatives approved the project of a new civil code.
4. In other parts of the world, women's search for equality was part of social liberation struggles. In Nicaragua, after the revolution, women began to draft and lobby for just laws through large public meetings. As a result, they have managed to bring about constitutional and legislative changes in the civil code and in the mass media laws.
5. In some countries, women activists put pressure directly on the existing legal system, especially the courts, to bring about far-reaching changes. In India, for example, open letter jurisdiction allowed courts to entertain cases of oppression against women, such as dowry violence, rape, and women's remand home. Moreover, women activists have brought cases before the court in an attempt to challenge oppressive aspects of the family law.
6. In most countries, however, the equality clause of the constitution and ratification of the convention on discrimination have not been truly implemented. Women's rights have remained on paper, formal and meaningless. It is hoped that the next decade will ensure that these formal provisions become the living law, and as such, instruments for social change and social transformation which will result in true equality for women.
7. Many participants felt that during the next decade women should strive for the establishment of tribunals at the regional and international levels which would take an active interest in protecting the rights of women.

Development

1. Economic development programs generally have been discriminatory toward women because they assume men are heads of households and the primary producers in society. As a result, women are excluded from economic modernization, often being denied access to technical skills and credit facilities. Women's organizations have spent much of the decade attempting to remedy this imbalance in development planning.
2. Throughout the decade, it was assumed that development would be a benevolent process. However, economic structures of patriarchy, class, and race at national and international levels have ensured that women of the poorest classes reap the least benefit from the so-called development process. It is essential that these women be organized to acquire economic power and to use that power to assure that development leads to social transformation.
3. Though some participants felt that economic development is the key to the empowerment of women, the majority felt that women's strategies should be multi-pronged, i.e., that consciousness-raising and organizing are vital components of any empowering processes and should, therefore, accompany economic development.

Land

1. Traditional patterns of landholding in many Third World societies were often biased against women. Inheritance laws and systems of community property often ensured that women did not receive their due share. Thus, many campaigns in the Third World have centered around making the family law more equitable with regard to inheritance.
2. Modernization, especially in rural areas where land has been nationalized or sold to large companies, has resulted in hardships for women who have been primary producers in the agricultural sector. Women's organizations in Asia and Latin America have been organizing women to secure their legal property rights, thereby defending their right to livelihood. In the Philippines, women who have begun to organize themselves are squatting on their land to pressure the authorities to recognize their right to ownership. In India, women in the Chipko movement hugged trees which had provided them with firewood when bulldozers arrived to level the forest, forcing the authorities to reverse their decision to deforest the area. It is essential that women, in particular rural women, organize themselves and pressure patriarchal development organizations, which traditionally have been insensitive to the plight of poor rural women.

Family

1. Family law, especially when expressed as customary law, is generally weighted against women on the issues of divorce, property ownership, maintenance, and child custody.
2. Women's organizations during the last decade have pushed for amendments in family laws so as to remedy this imbalance. For example, in Kenya, new succession laws have been enacted; in Indonesia, new marriage laws have been passed; and in Zimbabwe, women's minor status has been elevated to that of major.
3. Though several countries have passed progressive laws and have made family law slightly more equitable, these actions are meaningless unless and until women are made aware of their newly acquired rights. Thus, women's organizations have become involved in fostering legal literacy. For example, Peru Mujer in Peru and the Women's Legal Services Project in Nepal have been actively engaged in legal literacy schemes to educate women about their legal status and rights. The Family Law Centre in Nigeria, CESAP (Centro al Servicio de la Accion Popular) in Venezuela, and projects in Zimbabwe have been similarly engaged. In Vanuatu, in the Central Pacific, legal literacy has been connected to grassroots discussions on gaps in the law that could be amended. In the next decade, participants agreed, legal literacy will be a major goal of women in Third World countries. In addition, it was felt that law and legal clinics must not be the monopoly of lawyers, and that women must equip themselves to defend their own rights.
4. Though some participants felt that government cooperation is necessary for the success of these programs, the majority believe that autonomous women's organizations should take the initiative in organizing, designing, and planning such programs.

Labor

1. Occupations in which women are primarily engaged usually offer little protection in terms of labor rights. In addition, these occupations are devalued and are located at the lowest level of the wage structure. Women workers often are not organized and are, therefore, subject to greater exploitation, as is the case with women domestic laborers and others working in the informal sector.
2. The productive and reproductive value of the labor of unprotected women workers is either underestimated or ignored. The problem is compounded by the reluctance of women in some labor sectors, particularly domestic laborers, to organize themselves for fear of losing their jobs in conditions of high unemployment, as in Mauritius and Colombia. Nevertheless, some legal aid organizations and other concerned groups have been successful in encouraging women in such occupations to mobilize or unionize to confront issues which concern and affect them, and in sensitizing other women to these problems.
3. Women vendors in the informal sector are an important part of Third World social and economic reality. Once these women mobilize and unionize, they can gain greater dignity for their occupations and ensure both a minimal level of monetary remuneration and reasonable working conditions. In India, women vendors have used their collective strength to articulate their demands to the state, which then responded by setting up facilities corresponding to their needs.

Custom, Law and Ethnicity

1. Throughout the Third World, especially in Asia and Africa, there appears to be an ethnic revivalism, often connected to nationalism and national liberation movements. There has also been a resurgence of religious fundamentalism. These developments have become some of the most dynamic forces in Asia and North Africa.
2. Ethnic revivalism and religious fundamentalism have major implications for the status of women because it is in the area of family life and social relations that they are given maximum expression. They contribute to the duality in legal systems which reflects an artificial distinction between public and personal life, whereby laws with regard to public life grow and change with time, but laws and practices regarding personal life are stagnant, unchanging, and oppressive to women.
3. Ethnic minority women within a particular nation-state have special difficulties in demanding their rights because they do not wish to dilute and divide their group identity. Special strategies are necessary to help these women come to terms with both their ethnicity and their womanhood. It was noted that women members of minority communities remain tied to their traditions, while their sisters in countries where their community is a majority have begun to enjoy equal rights.
4. Ethnic revivalism and religious fundamentalism are phenomena yet to be understood by the disciplines of politics, economics, and law. Existing legal concepts, instititions, and strategies are not adequate to confront the many dilemmas of ethnicity and religiosity, especially with regard to the status of women. What is needed are strategies and concepts which will allow for diversity of cultural traditions without isolating fundamental human rights—such as the rights of women. This is a major challenge for women in the next decade.
5. It was reiterated by many participants that religion, as a spiritual humanistic force, is not oppressive to women. Religious interpretation and practice, though, do discriminate against women. It is the latter aspect which must be challenged and transformed. However, some participants were of the belief that these practices are so closely linked to religion that only secular strategies will truly help women fight oppression.
6. Many participants felt that women in the next decade should strive for the formulation and enactment of uniform civil codes based on common values of justice and equality.
7. Some participants were of the belief that custom and customary law are reflections of men's desire to perpetuate their ownership of property and to control female sexuality. It was felt by these participants that even the modern family law and amendments suggested should be critically assessed as they are also generated by a capitalist, patriarchal order.

Custom and Customary Law

1. Several Third World countries, particularly those in Asia and Africa, have more than one body of law used in the implementation of justice. There is a body of state law or general law, and one or more bodies of customary law. The general law usually has its roots in those laws that were imposed on indigenous peoples by colonial powers, while customary law refers to that which was utilized in the precolonial era. Today, while the general law informs transactions in the so-called public sphere, customary law regulates interpersonal relationships and dynamics within the family. Since it is applied in matters of inheritance, divorce, and maintenance, for example, it affects women to a significant degree.
2. Initially, the colonizing powers usually permitted indigenous peoples to maintain their customary laws. Subsequently, they implanted their own sexist laws, particularly Roman-Dutch law, and labor markets which took precedence over indigenous systems and undermined women's existing positions in society. Codes of indigenous law that were comparatively liberal toward women (for example, the Kandyan Sinhalese in Sri Lanka) were overridden by the strongly patriarchal legal systems of the imperialist powers.
3. In certain national contexts, customs and customary laws have affected women adversely. In many countries it is not usually acceptable for women to participate in activities of communal leadership, and social acceptance of male- dominated kinship hierarchies makes it difficult for women to attempt transformation of their position in society. In addition, customary laws of patrilineal inheritance, and marriage and divorce laws which favor men, deny women socioeconomic independence. Communities may tend to cling to customary practices by romanticizing them, or due to fear of change. While some customs, such as the communal ownership of land, may be beneficial to both women and men, it is necessary that communities find means of rejecting practices that are detrimental to women.
4. Women from indigenous minorities and tribal groups face special problems. They often must protect their livelihood, which is linked to the land in their traditional homelands. Kalinga women in the Philippines, for example, have been in the forefront of the struggle against attempts to divest them of their land rights, and have succeeded in making the authorities reverse their insensitive land policies.

Religion

1. It was generally accepted that religious traditions in their truly spiritual sense do not necessarily discriminate against women. However, religious interpretation and custom in certain localities have led to oppressive conditions for women living within particular religious traditions.
2. Ethnic revivalism and religious fundamentalism have often served to reinforce these practices which have relegated women to a subordinate position in society. For example, progressive laws, such as the family law in Pakistan, have been threatened with repeal as a concession to fundamentalism.
3. Women's groups in some countries, however, have begun to organize effectively within religious traditions to forestall the repeal of just laws and to raise awareness of the true nature of rights to be enjoyed by women if the spirit of religion were accepted without distorted interpretation by men. They have done this by taking their battle to the courts, as in Pakistan, or by popularizing the issues of social justice, as in Bangladesh.
4. In other countries, where the state has made an explicit commitment to secularism, as in India, women are attempting to challenge religious practices that discriminate against them by invoking the equal protection clauses of their constitutions, which provide that all women, regardless of religion, should be treated alike. In addition, they have been pushing for a uniform civil code. The secular strategy is particularly effective in a multi-racial, multi-religious society.

Violence and Exploitation

1. Violence directed at women by men knows no boundaries—neither of age, caste, class, nor ethnicity. It takes the form of either physical mutilation and/or sexual aggression. Violence may be direct or indirect; it may be aimed at an individual or a group, or it may take the form of institutionalized violence, exploitative of the lower classes in particular.
2. While violence is universal, exploitation is particularly the lot of Third World women, due to a combination of oppressive forces—patriarchy, class, and race. The global economic system places a heavy burden on Third World nations in general, but it leaves women in these societies particularly vulnerable. Even in the family context, women's labor is exploited, as is their sexuality through pornography and prostitution. Hence, exploitation, a form of violence in itself, permeates nearly eveiy aspect of life for Third World women.

Rape, Prostitution and Domestic Violence

1. In discussing violence, the socioeconomic and political reality of the society under examination must be considered. Certain types of violence directed at women, such as battering, are not solely acts of aggression by an individual; they are a reflection of the power struggles in greater society.
2. Domestic violence, ranging from woman battering to conjugal rape, often tends to be underplayed because the patriarchal family is deemed sacrosanct and intervention by forces outside this unit is unacceptable. Society's condoning of such violent means of control has often left women with little support and few means of counteraction. Moreover, law itself tends to be dismissive of domestic violence. It was suggested that women work for the establishment of "battered homes" so that victims of this type of violence have a refuge and do not feel isolated.
3. Acts of violence range from genital mutilation and battering to rape and murder of women. They are basically attempts to control women's sexuality. While battering and rape are universal, genital mutilation and crimes of honor are relatively more culture-specific. Regarding rape and crimes of honor, legal systems, such as those in the Mediterranean countries, tend to further victimize the victim, while permitting the perpetrators of this violence, always men, either to go free or serve greatly mitigated sentences. Rape has been a weapon used in wars between nations, and in caste and class struggles. The rape of women of lower classes and castes by the powerful not only subjugates women, but attempts to humiliate the comparatively powerless men of these groups. It is also true that in certain contexts, women perpetrate violence against other women, such as in cases of dowry deaths in India.
4. Prostitution is a major problem in many of our countries where, due to economic deprivation, increasing numbers of women are resorting to exploiting their sexuality. Prostitution has been accentuated in recent years through certain forms of economic development, such as tourism. In some countries, such as the Philippines, organized sex tours, a phenomenon emerging from the development process, have aided in exploiting women en masse, including children. Although society takes a condemnatory stand against prostitution, its condemnation is directed only toward the woman. This attitude is reflected in the laws, which weigh heavily against prostitutes, while permitting their clients to go free.
5. Several women's groups and legal organizations have mobilized against violence directed at women and the exploitation of their sexuality. However, to confront these issues effectively, groups must simultaneously address the political and economic conditions prevailing in their societies.
6. Pornography and the use of women as sexual commodities in the media must be combatted by women everywhere. The debasement of the female body is an affront to the dignity of women and constitutes the worst type of exploitation.
7. Many participants felt that penal codes are outdated and do not consider the new types of violence directed against women. For example, there is often no remedy against custodial rape, where the victim is supposedly under the protection of the law. Women throughout the world should push for changes in the laws so that they more adequately reflect contemporary social reality.
8. Workplace Exploitation
9. The past decade witnessed new economic developments in the Third World which are particularly exploitative of women's labor. One such development was the proliferation of Free Trade Zones, where multinationals invest capital, but rely on cheap labor to produce their goods for international markets. This new phase of the international capitalist system relies predominantly on female labor. Women are, in fact, the new industrial proletariat of the Third World. They are factory workers, laboring long hours for low wages. They are prevented by law or by coercion from organizing themselves into unions. During the next decade, women in Free Trade Zones should be mobilized and unionized to fight for and to defend their rights.
10. The women's decade also witnessed a large exodus of women domestic servants and unskilled laborers from their native countries, searching for opportunities in other parts of the world. Little attention has been paid to this situation, in which women are separated from their families and have to suffer difficulties due to ignorance of the customs of other societies. They are often the victims of international labor brokers who provide them with no protection and little security. During the next decade women should strive for international regulation which will prevent this type of exploitation.
11. Women's search for justice must be closely linked to labor’s struggle for equality. The labor laws of any society are the most pertinent area of the laws for working women. It is essential that women lobby and struggle for changes in labor legislation which will protect their interests, as well as those of the larger working class.

Human rights violations

1. Women in many Third World societies live in extremely repressive national security states, which resist even minimum expression of democratic rights. Even in societies deemed democratic, periods of emergency often result in large- scale violations of human rights. All participants felt that superpowers which support repressive regimes with military aid should be condemned. Women in such societies are politically oppressed and are, therefore, denied freedom to speak out against injustice. Those women who do, risk imprisonment and torture. Women's organizations throughout the world must show solidarity and support for women prisoners of conscience. The next decade should witness the establishment of an international commission so as to bring about international pressure in the eventuality of human rights violations directed against women.
2. Torture and cruel conditions of imprisonment are a reality for many women political activists in the Third World. Though the problem of torture is receiving worldwide attention, its effect on women, which is particularly devastating, is not fully addressed. The grave repercussions of torture go beyond the individual, for the brutalization of a personality always results in the brutalization of society.
3. Women in many countries have realized that organizing around legal rights serves to raise awareness of human rights in general. It results in empowerment and political activism which makes women acutely sensitive to injustice. A rights- conscious women's movement will further the cause of justice in society as a whole.
4. Many participants pointed to the issue of large-scale deprivations of collective rights, such as the right to self- determination of ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. Women in these groups are especially vulnerable to human rights violations, and, as a result, suffer dual oppression—as women and as members of an ethnic group.
5. Most participants agreed that the question of political rights is integrally linked to the issues of poverty and exploitation. Individual political rights are only one part of the struggle for justice. They must be supplemented by an understanding of economic, social, and cultural rights. In societies where less than ten percent of the population owns eighty percent of the resources, where the unemployment rate is over twenty percent, and the minimum wage is below subsistence level, the struggle for women's rights must be part of the broader search for social justice.

Strategies for Collective Action
Successful strategies for the realization of women's rights during the past decade have fallen into three major categories: legal education and legal literacy, legal aid, law reform

1. Legal education strategies have involved setting up programs which: popularize the issue of women's rights by using booklets in the venacular language; train paralegals to work in communities and to educate women about their rights; work with the mass media (television and radio) on education programs regarding the law; and work with labor unions and community organizations to incorporate women’s rights into their agendas.
2. Legal aid strategies usually have involved the establishment of legal aid and family law centers which give free legal advice to women, especially low-income women. In some parts of the world, the concept of legal aid is that of taking the law to the people. Lawyers and women activists, on a regular basis, visit remote villages and barrios, ascertain the problems of women living in those areas, and provide advice regarding possible courses of action.
3. National campaigns for law reform have been very successful in some countries, often focusing on traditional practices which are oppressive to women, such as dowry. In these cases, women have campaigned to pressure legislative bodies, staged sit-ins and demonstrations, and conducted plays and sing-ins in an effort to focus public attention on the need for effective legal remedies. In other cases, women have lobbied and used the media and other tactics to mobilize support and to influence lawmakers.
4. Each societal context poses particular problems to women, as well as its own set of parameters within which to work. Therefore, women have adapted the above strategies, emphasizing some more than others, to respond to their own situations. In countries where trends have created a climate unfavorable for the exercise of women's rights, strategies of vigilance to safeguard legislated rights have been particularly important. In this context, women have had to organize to prevent existing rights from being taken away and/or to ensure proper application of laws protecting those rights. 
5. Many countries in the Third World are post revolutionary societies living in the aftermath of armed struggle for national or social liberation. In these societies, the ideological force for equality which inspired the armed struggle created a favorable climate for women to secure their rights. However, women in these societies recognize that lasting changes in ideology require the transformation of societal attitudes and values. Their efforts, therefore, have focused on long-term strategies for conscientization.
6. With so many women's organizations working on women's rights, many groups were unaware of one another and therefore had not shared information and experiences. Increasing emphasis on networking has since ensured coordination and lack of duplication among these groups so that women's efforts toward justice can be maximized.

Participants

It is difficult to know exactly how many people participated in the WLD forum as it was open to anyone attending the NGO Forum in Nairobi. It is fair, however, to calculate that several hundred attended some or all of the WLD Forum, either plenary or workshop sessions. All who submitted papers and who presented or are listed below. A few people submitted papers but were unable to be in Nairobi. The post-forum publication, Empowerment and the Law: Strategies of Third World Women, published in 1986, includes all submitted papers.

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Jade O. Akande, Nigeria
Alba Alonzo de Quesada, Honduras
Shirin Aumeeruddy-Cziffra, Mauritius
Balghis Badri , Sudan
Mildred Beltre, Dominican Republic
Ela Bhatt, Ahmedabad India
Rabia Bhuiyan, Bangladesh
Luisa Campos, Dominican Republic
Lucia Carrion, Ecuador
Chandermani, India
Radhika Coomaraswamy, Sri Lanka
Elizabeth Dasso, Peru
Asma El Dareer , Sudan
Nawal El Saadawi, Egypt
Teresa Fernandez, Philippines
Savitri Goonesekere, Sri Lanka
Mirta Henault , Argentina
Sigma Huda, Bangladesh
Lucy Jara, Peru
Rani Jethmalani , India
Justice A. R. Jiagge , Ghana
Rosemary, Kenya
Amarjit Kaur, Malaysia
Joyce Kazembe, Zimbabwe
Prabha Krishnan, India
Ranjana Kumari, India
Tai-Young Lee, Korea
Magdalena Leon, Colombia
Fabiola Letelier, Chile
Victor Lora, Peru
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Publication

Mothokoa Mamashela, Lesotho
Myrtle Mason, Jamaica
Laure Moghaizel, Lebanon
Marjon Mol, Zimbabwe
Athaliah Molokomme, Botswana
Julieta Montano, Bolivia
Sheila Mukherjee, India
Rosa Paredes, Venezuela
Rashida Patel, Pakistan
Veena Patel, India
Soledad Perpinan, Philippines
Silvia Pimentel, Brazil
Jing Porte, Philippines
Mere Pulea, Nauru (Central Pacific)
Emelina Quintilian, Philippines
Sara Rioja, Argentina
Ayala Rocha, Brazil
Lilia Rodriguez, Ecuador
Saparinah Sadli, Indonesia
Amartiwi Saleh  Bandung, Indonesia
Mahjouba Mohamed Salih, Sudan
Olga Amparo Sanchez, Colombia
Silu Singh, Nepal
Yasmin Tambiah, Sri  Lanka
Marta Uribe,  Colombia
Milu Vargas,  Nicaragua
Roxana Vasquez, Peru
Nani Yamin, Indonesia
Gina Yanez, Peru
Cristina Zurutuza, Argentina
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Empowerment and the Law:
Strategies of Third World Women

Margaret Schuler (editor)

OEF International, 1986
Washington D.C.
ISBN 0-912917-11-3

 The collection of papers presented at the Forum were published in 1986 as Empowerment and the Law: Strategies of Third World Women.  The papers document the deepening  understanding of the legal, cultural, political, and economic underpinnings of women's subordination. They describe women gaining the skills needed to utilize the “system” (where possible), or challenge and even subvert it (where necessary), in order to assert rights, redress injustices, and access economic and political resources. It is about partial successes and tentative understandings. It is about ongoing processes of articulating ever more adequate analyses and implementing more effective and congruent action strategies.
​Download the book here: Empowerment and the Law

Documentation of the Preparatory Process to Provide a Framework for Discussion and Dialogue at the WLD Forum Held at the World Conference of Women, in Nairobi 1985
Download the Workbook here: Women, Law, and Development Workbook

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