NAZIHA BOUSSIDI/ZOUHOUR MECHERGUI

 Tunisia- The 3rd World Women’s Conference of grassroots women that began on September 3 and will end on September 10, has entered its fifth day. Marie Paula, a coordinator of the conference from Africa, spoke to NuJINHA and said that women's issues are discussed from an international perspective at the conference. Stating that they emphasize that the problems faced by women are the same all around the world, Marie Paula said that they agree on the need for solidarity to find common solutions to these problems.

 An international strategy

 “African women still suffer from the patriarchal mentality, social and domestic pressure,” Marie Paula said that women need an international strategy to determine, solve and combat the problems faced by women. She pointed to the high level of illiteracy in Africa as a result of wars, political conflicts, the spread of terrorism and chaos, “Women are deprived of education due to the governments’ exclusionary policies. “Women need an international feminist solidarity.”

 The situation is the same in Sri Lanka

The Asian coordinator, Mino De Silva has participated in the conference to represent the women in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. She stated that the economic crisis as a result of the bankruptcy of the government in Sri Lanka has affected women in particular and pushed them to live in poverty. “The women living in Sri Lanka suffer from a severe food crisis, the lack of safe drinking water, medicine and gas. As feminists, we put pressure on the parliament and government to overcome the food crisis because women are the first victims of crises.”

“We need an international solidarity”

Julie Talukdar has participated in the conference from Asia. “Our aim is to have a strong international feminist solidarity against gender-based discrimination and sexual violence and to form a free society.” She stressed the need to build a strong international feminist movement.

Khadija Hayati, the coordinator of the conference from Europe, said that women in Europe suffer from low wages although they work for long hours. She told us that they discussed the need to put pressure on all governments in European countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, so that female workers obtain their rights. “Female health workers faced great difficulties and worked for hours during the Covid-19 pandemic; however, the governments did not improve their working conditions.”