- by Bev Hall
- The Guardian
- Issue #2143
Etching by Rini Templeton
Nairobi 1985
The first International Women’s Conference I attended was the third World Forum held in Nairobi Kenya in 1985. There were two sites, one for the government or official delegations and the other for Non-Government Organisation (NGO) participants. Being the end of the decade, an assessment was made in determining if goals were being met from the original 1975 World Plan of Action. In the Nairobi forum Forward Looking Strategies were drawn up and violence against women plus lesbian rights were added.
The leader of the US delegation at this formal venue was Maureen Reagan, the daughter of US president. Before the NGO forum began the US NGO women staged a march to the Kenyatta Centre led by Angela Davis to protest that Reagan’s daughter had not been elected as the representative of the US delegation and that ‘she did not represent US women.’ A large gathering was held in the central square of the University where Angela Davis spoke to a crowd of over 1,000 joined by other US NGO representatives. I still remember vividly how Angela Davis urged other NGO women’s delegations to support them in their struggle as they had “to live in the belly of the monster.”
In several cases, classrooms were overflowing, and attendees had to stand outside and listen. This was the case for my presentation on Multicultural Childcare and Children’s Services in Australia. An interesting aspect of this was that the wife of a prominent Australian misogynist came into the forum and tried to dominate with her views which were anti-childcare, anti-abortion, and anti-women in the workforce. Due to the programme stating I was from SA, several of my sisters from South Africa came in. I learnt to spell out in future the name of the state! After ten minutes the South Africans told the anti-childcare woman to leave as they were interested to learn about how to develop childcare programs applicable to communities using several languages, not simply looking at the merits or otherwise of childcare.
During one lunch break I assisted my South African sisters on a stall selling anti-apartheid books and materials in order to protect a number of women activists from South Africa who were kept in the shadows as they had been smuggled out to attend. Consequently, I had a BOSS (Apartheid South African spy organisation) agent approach me and wanting to know where I lived and had I been in jail. I wasn’t very cooperative in answering his questions. Several of my ANC sisters asked me afterwards if I realised who he was.
One of the interesting aspects of this forum was the number of ‘agents’ that were there. In one case the CIA were planning outside a venue where I was at the back and where I overheard them telling their agents to go into different presentations and report on the activities of certain people. There seemed to be agents from many countries which had dictatorships or oppressive governments, trying to silence anyone speaking up about issues which threatened the dominating system, even interjecting.
However, there was a wide range of issues including childcare, consumer education, credit, family planning, female genital mutilation, growth of women’s studies, legal rights, literacy, media portrayals of women, motherhood, political prisoners, prostitution, systemic discrimination and violence against women, women and development, women and religion (particularly under patriarchal systems), women and technology plus lesbian workshops.
Aboriginal women no matter where they were had to battle for land rights. Arab and Israeli women discussed the need for peace. Women generally felt they were subordinate and there was a need to promote women’s perspectives. All in all, 1,200 workshops were held. Helen Hill and I spent time attending the Pacific forums and we were the only ones from Australia showing any interest. In our part of the world, we learnt that NZ was respected far more than Australia, but we made some great friends despite this.
