Creating a sectoral partnership

This one appeared in The Hoot.

Women parliamentarians, journalists and civil society members from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh begin to work together on women and HIV-AIDS. TERESA REHMAN describes this coming together of three sectors.

Posted Sunday, Jan 24 23:42:35, 2010

Little did three women meeting for a friendly luncheon at Heritage India at Dupont Circle in Washington DC irealize that they would actually propel a novel sisterhood of women all over the world.

The three friends, Leslie Wolfe, Jane Ransom and Yolonda Richardson were powerful women, heads of three international women?s organizations based in Washington DC ? Centre for Women Policy Studies (CWPS), International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) and Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) respectively.

What came out of the lunch was a resolve to chart a new course of partnership among women's rights organizations. Particularly among three sectors -- parliamentarians, journalists and civil society who rarely work together in a 'safe space'.

Wolfe explains, "We wanted to create an environment of sisterhood and trust which, to be honest, would resemble our own trusting and sisterly relationship. It was especially important to us that our three NGOs were not competitors in any way, as we had different constituencies, different convening strategies, and different sets of expertise."

Therefore, the trio resolved to do something different. They decided to complement rather than compete with each other in order to have a multiplier effect on the way the toughest women's human rights issues could be address through women's policy leadership -- as policy makers, policy advocates, and policy reporters.

Their idea bore fruit and with grants from Ford Foundation, their first programme titled "Advancing Women?s Leadership in Global HIV-AIDS policymaking" to foster new global partnerships to promote woman-centered HIV/AIDS policy in their countries. Two women each from the three sectors -- parliamentarians, journalists and women living with HIV-AIDS and NGO leaders representatives from three different countries India, Kenya and Mexico came together to attend a series of high-level meetings at the US Congress, Washington DC and the UN Headquarters, New York in June 2008.

The participants resolved to go back to work in their own milieu but also continue this partnership and try to expand it to other sectors as well. The main concern was the similarity in their problems inspite of being from diverse countries, the escalating feminization of the epidemic and the alarming rise in HIV positive cases in married women in monogamous relationships. These revelations broke new ground ? on how the very definition of HIV-AIDS is skewed and how it perpetuated stigma and discrimination. And how the stigma is killing more people than the virus itself. The meeting inspired the initiation of a listserv called Red Ribbon Media where women from these three sectors share news and information relating to HIV-AIDS.

In 2009 again, the resolve moved from "global to regional", the focus this time was on South Asia in order to see some specific regional follow-up plans that two participants each from the three sectors in three different countries -- India, Bangladesh and Pakistan would develop and commit to implementing during 2010. During the South Asia Initiative held in Washington DC in December 2009, the participants resolved to work together on various issues like property rights, sex education for adolescents and access to information on HIV/AIDS. The idea was to bring the women together in new ways that might not reflect their Governments' traditional and current relationships.

The women discussed various issues and how its time to stop focusing on specific "risk groups" of women and instead consider that all women face some level of risk of HIV infection, some level of stigma and discrimination, some level of sexual violence and economic dependency. Once again it dawned on everyone that women and their issues were similar, only the circumstances varied.
Of greatest importance is the fact that women's self-defined needs are not yet at the absolute center of HIV-AIDS policy and programming. At long last, during the past decade, women have gotten onto the agenda at a higher level, but unless we move to the top of the policy agenda, I fear we will still be having these conversations again in 20 years -- and that would be a tragedy for the world," adds Wolfe.

The first step in bringing the three sectors together to achieve a shared mission had been accomplished. Yasmeen Rehman, Member of Parliament from Pakistan feels it's a brilliant idea. "In Pakistan taboo and stigma is a big problem. Some people bracket HIV-AIDS with bad sex behaviour. Moreover, there is no clear-cut policy on stigma and allocation of funds. The silence is killing and we have to come out of this state of denial." She has some ideas like mainstreaming of HIV-AIDs with other health services, educating adolescents and motivating religious leaders to talk about it in the sessions after the prayers called the 'Khutba'. As a representative of the people, she feels that if she goes out and meet HIV positive people, she will succeed in breaking the stigma to a great extent.

Member of Parliament from India, Prabha Thakur who is also on the Parliamentary Forum on HIV-AIDS feels that these three sectors are anyway interlinked though not formally. "I am looking forward to this formal interlinking through ngos, public representatives and media monitors. The ngos give information to the public to create awareness, the MPs can talk on policy making and take it up with the health ministry and media can create awareness through education and knowledge," she says.

Bangladesh already has a vibrant civil society. Mufaweza Khan, Executive Director, Concerned Women for Family Development, an NGO of Bangladesh feels that it is important to take forward the existing policies and programmes rather than creating something new. She feels that care and treatment of HIV positive women is a real issue. "The reporters will write, the civil society will keep them informed and act as a pressure group on the parliamentarians to implement the policies," she says.

The journalists from these three countries have always been working with the civil society but are enthused by the involvement of the Parliamentarians. Journalist from Bangladesh, Zannatul Bakiya working with Channel I, the first satellite channel of the country feels that these linkages will have to created step by step. Yasmin Reema, working with "Daily News", Bangaldesh feels that for 16 long years, she has been working on the issues of HIV-AIDS but in isolation. She looks forward to working in collaboration with these three sectors now.The Pakistani journalists are buoyant about working together too. Sumera Khan, from Express news channel feels all the three sectors will have to do continuous follow-ups and work for the cause. Her colleague, Huma Khawar, a development journalist says, "The meeting broke the ice between us. We will be on better terms once we go back to our countries. We develop a bond in such forums to take it forward. I am very positive about it." Hopefully one luncheon will lead to a chain reaction -- of many more luncheons all over the world and usher in positive changes in women affected and vulnerable to HIV-AIDS.

(The writer is a journalist based in India and has been part of this programme. She can be reached at www.teresarehman.net).