24 March 2015
953
DHAKA, BANGLADESH – In time for the International Women’s Day on March 8, rural women representatives from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and India have gathered today to launch the third Women’s Travelling Journal (WTJ), with the theme food sovereignty. A collaborative work of the Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC), PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) and OXFAM’s GROW Campaign in Asia, this biggest compilation of 50 different stories of rural women in 6 countries recorded the personal, daily accounts of their lives, leadership experiences, and struggles for change. This edition of the WTJ features 10 women from Bangladesh, 5 from India, 15 from Indonesia, 5 from Nepal, 6 from Pakistan and 9 from the Philippines. While the issues faced by Asian rural women differ from one country to another, common issues raised on the travelling journal include widespread poverty, hunger and landlessness. However, amid these issues, the journal entries of the 50 rural women are brimming with hope, courage, inspiration and determination. “This effort only proves that despite many difficulties, rural women are hopeful, inspired and committed to struggle and rise above challenges for a better life for their family, community & society,” says Marjo Busto of PANAP, which also acts as Secretariat for the ARWC. She added that “this also reminds us that no oppression is insurmountable—that women are not weak, but instead they hold the power to change the course of history.” The groups also revealed that according to the UN Social and Economic Council, 60% of women across Asia suffers the grave effects of hunger due to landlessness, an irony considering that they play crucial and vital roles in food and agriculture – as seed savers and land tillers and as community leaders and family managers. They mainly put the blame to aggressive land-grabbing of monopoly production, use of transnational corporations-owned hazardous technologies such as pesticides and genetically-engineered crops, lack of government support for domestic food production, and lack of genuine land reform. The groups have been raising these issues as part of the agenda in the Beijing+20 Reviews this year, and plans to come up with a demand statement land, food and life. “Our campaign Women Assert our Rights to Land and Resources doesn’t end right after the publishing of the WTJ booklet, rather will only mark the start of our sustained and coordinated campaign towards the realisation of our unceasing struggle for land justice,” ended Busto. ###