Mumbai, 16 January 2004 - Women are making their presence felt like never before at the ongoing World Social Forum (WSF) 2004 in Mumbai, India. A large venue for mass organisations and social movements to gather and build alliances to oppose anti-people globalisation and create a more just world, WSF has traditionally been dominated by males.

"Last year at the WSF in Porto Alegre, Brazil, only one woman was in the Opening Day panel, now there are four among the keynote speakers," Susanna George, Executive Director of Isis International Manila commented on the WSF's Opening Plenary at the NESCO Grounds venue in Goregaon. These women include social activist Medha Patkar, women's leader Brinda Karat, writer Arundhati Roy, actor Shabana Azmi and historian Tanika Sarkar. George was one of the panelists in the WSF conference "Women and Globalisation."

Women are more visible and more actively involved this year, confirmed Josefa "Gigi" Francisco, coordinator of the Development Alternatives for Women Network (DAWN)- South East Asia and member of the WSF International Council.

The improvement of women's presence and participation in the Forum can be attributed to two factors. One is the self-critical and open attitudes of the WSF Organising Committee regarding women's under-representation in the major panels/speakers despite being the majority gender. Two, and the more crucial factor, is the efforts of women themselves within the WSF spaces as well as those of the participating women's movements who have felt marginalised and have thus worked harder to bring their presence and issues into the forefront of this year's Forum. The result includes more venues and bigger physical spaces to surface and discuss issues from the perspective and specific experiences of women.

This is very evident in the line-up of the main WSF events. For the first time since the Forum's inception, women have a main WSF-organised official event--the "Wars against Women, Women against Wars" conference to be held on 18 January at the Maidan Hall 1, a venue that could accommodate 20,000 participants.

Three self-organised women's events also got venues with a larger capacity (4,000 - 8,000): "Women and Globalisation" conference on 17 January organised by the Women's Movement Caucus India; the "Intermovement Dialogue" on 19 January; and the panel discussion "Political bodies and the new emancipating/ liberating struggles that breed a radical democracy" on 19 January. Close to 150 other women-oriented events for 50 to 1,000 people are also included in this year's WSF.

For a complete listing of women/feminist events during WSF 2004, go to <http://www.isiswomen.org/onsite/wsf/womenevents.html>

Believing that "Another World Is Possible", WSF has been held yearly since 2001 in Brazil until its first cross-continental move to Mumbai, India this year.