Even as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit was postponed, women’s and feminist organisations came together for a workshop on “Women Re-claiming the ASEAN Community as a Democratic Project” at the 2nd ASEAN Civil Society Conference in Cebu, Philippines on 10-12 December. The conference was supposed to be held parallel to the Summit—where the leaders of Southeast Asian countries were supposed to talk about issues confronting the region.

Representatives of 21 women’s organisations across the region fleshed-out the challenges and threats from state and non-state actors to women's rights, drew up strategies in addressing these threats and challenges, and debated on the elements and processes that might constitute a regional feminist democratic project along transnational movement building.

Women and state relations

Speaking at the workshop, Gigi Francisco of the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), explained that, historically, the relationship of the women's movement with the Southeast Asian states has always been difficult. Francisco says, “States in Southeast Asia have always disciplined women according to how women were important to state formation.” In addition to the state, religious, ethnic, cultural, and family systems jointly impose norms, social expectations, and cultural prescriptions to women, while women's rights are hardly taken into account, if not summarily dismissed. 

“When one looks at the state or the society [in Southeast Asia] in a more structural way,” Francisco continues, “one will find that there are some accommodation of some women's rights and gender equality in the social order, but this is for as long as it will not destabilise the patriarchal character of that social order.”

Violence against women

Several issues on violence against women in the region also arose during the talks, particularly on cases of sexual violence in Burma and Cambodia.

Charm Tong of the Burma-based Shan's Women's Action Network said that tribal women in Burma continue to be the target of war through sexual violence, and that rape is being used as a weapon to control and demoralise ethnic groups. The current military regime in the country is giving a green light for soldiers to continue committing violence against women since there is no punishment for soldiers who commit rape. “How can women in Burma seek justice in a country where there is no rule of law?” Tong said. Human rights defenders in Burma include women who speak out about rape and advocate for the end violence against women in the country.

In a similar vein, Womyns Agenda for Change representative Sophea Chrek talked about how neo-liberalism in Cambodia has forced women to work as sex workers or garment factory workers. Because of rampant trafficking, more and more Cambodian women become either sex workers, who constantly face danger because of the nature of their work, or underpaid garment factory workers, who have to work off their debts.

Way forward to a democratic and feminist ASEAN

As women’s and feminist organisations continue to re-assert their positions in the ASEAN, Aurora Javate de Dios of Miriam College’s Women and Gender Institute and former Chair of the Philippines’ National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, reported on a plan to put up a Commission on Women and Children in the ASEAN. Consultation among governments, NGOs, and experts on this plan was held last November 2006. The Commission is envisioned to be as strong as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and is planned to be in place before the end of 2010, but the group lobbying for this is hoping that this will materialise in 2008.

Isis International-Manila’s own Raijeli Nicole called for solidarity in terms of feminism without borders—those sources of tensions generated by issues of race, class, sexuality, and religion, which really exist within and among nations. Nicole said, “The rising religious and political fundamentalist movements today is partly a reaction to neo-liberal globalisation and the lack of progressive alternatives to it.”

“Feminism without borders outlines feminist solidarity as opposed to the vague assumptions of sisterhood or the images of complete identification with the other,” Nicole continued. “This solidarity is a political as well as an ethical goal.”

Source:
For the full recording of the workshop on “Women Re-claiming the ASEAN Community as a Democratic Project” during the 2nd ASEAN Civil Society Conference in Cebu, Philippines on 11 December 2006, go to <http://www.isiswomen.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=373&Itemid=173>.