I am Kthi Win from Myanmar and I am a sex worker. I manage a national organisation for female, male and transgender sex workers in Burma and I am also the chairperson of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers. Until now, organising anything in Myanmar has been very difficult. People ask, How did you set up a […]
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They don’t need to eat, pay rent or any of those boring things. I was standing chatting to a friend of mine who works with young women human rights activists in South Africa when I witnessed a frustrating, damaging and quite frankly fucking ridiculous event. The one in nine campaign is a SouthAfrican, membership based […]
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A Guest Post from Sarah van Brussel. “One thing I kept hearing over and over again was how feminists have made sex workers’ work so much more difficult.” The following is a guest post from Sarah van Brussel. I’m a regular reader of your blog and a big fan of your work. I’m a feminist […]
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The AWID Forum brought together women from all corners of the globe, from all walks of life in the name of Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women Rights and Justice. The Forum was endowed with so much knowledge and inspiration especially for a young woman like me. Although in some sessions I found myself struggling with […]
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In 2008 the US Government gave Malaysia the lowest rating in its annual Trafficking In Persons Report. Rather than address the real labour trafficking issues, the government set out to close down the sex industry. Now nearly all brothels in KL have been shut. Sex workers are forced to work in dangerous and difficult conditions […]
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“Everyone in society knows all about ‘prostitution,’ or ‘the big ‘P’,’ but no one knows about the real lives of sex workers.” So began the session “…7 hours and 55 Minutes: Exploring money and work in sex work,” an educational game designed by sex workers and presented by the Empower Foundation, a Thailand-based sex workers’ collective […]
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Emily Esplen. The benefits of getting women into work have been widely acclaimed in donor circles, popularised by the World Bank’s catchy slogan ‘Gender equality is smart economics’. For feminists who have long been advocating for women’s economic independence as a fundamental cornerstone of women’s liberation, the current preoccupation with stimulating women’s income-generating capacities is […]
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TABARA NDIAYE. Twenty years of conflict has destroyed the social fabric of Casamance.The only way to re-instate security and eradicate famine in an area once known as the bread-basket of Senegal is to ask the women farmers, says Tabara Ndiaye “How many times have we seen the experts ask our grandfathers questions about the rice […]
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Jennifer Allsopp. How can we empower women to participate in existing economic structures but transform them? We need a model of economic power and citizenship that is not simply about sustaining capital or growth, but sustaining and celebrating life itself. Jenny Allsopp reports directly from the AWID Forum 2012. Here are parts two and three of her report. […]
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MARILYN WARING. If you are invisible as a producer in the GDP, you are invisible in the distribution of benefits in the economic framework of the national budget. As feminists we must embrace an ecological model if we are to transform economic power, and the market and commodification must be seen as the servants of […]
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FRIDAY FILE: Domestic workers contribute greatly to the global economy. They bolster local and foreign economies by taking on care-giving roles, and migrant workers send home remittances that form a substantial part of their home countries’ gross domestic product. Yet for a long time domestic labour has been unregulated and domestic workers have experienced violations […]
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Against the backdrop of ancient mosques, 2,400 people from across the globe gathered in April at the 12th Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) International Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. It was a special gathering in many respects. The crowd consisted mostly of women, the majority of whom were from the global South, and we were […]
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The AWID Forum brought together women from all corners of the globe, from all walks of life in the name of Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women Rights and Justice. The Forum was endowed with so much knowledge and inspiration especially for a young woman like me. Although in some sessions I found myself struggling with […]
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Facts and Issues, No. 10. August 2004 All women work, whether in factories, fields, organizations, markets, corporations, banks, schools, etc., and/or in their communities and in the home. In fact, women spend much of their lifetime working and the work they do is essential to our societies and our economies. Despite the prevalence of women’s […]
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Formal, informal, subsistence, household, community, caring, voluntary, reproductive—women are in a number of these ‘classes’ of work at any one time. Yet a large part of women’s work is rendered invisible and is often either outside of what is officially counted as work or is undervalued and underpaid. Women face barriers to advancement across the […]
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Militarism, Violence & Conflict
Labour & Work
The Role of the State
Sexuality
The Planet and Ecological Health
Financial Flows
Access to and Control of Resources
Private Sector and Corporate Power
Culture and Religion
Global Governance