Global SCM movements represented by team at UN Commission on the Status of Women

by Joe Nagle (UK)
Gender Interest Coodinator, World Student Christian Federation Europe

I recently had the priviledge of representing WSCF-E at the United Nations Commision on the Status of Women (UNCSW).

The UNCSW in 2010 was an opportunity for countries and Non governmental organisations to review the work done to fulfil an action plan instituted fifteen years ago in Beijing and share best practices with one another. I was part of a consortium of NGOs called Ecumenical Women who had a three point advocacy agenda focussing on ending impunity for perpetrators of violence against women, bringing more women into positions of leadership and supporting the rights of women in the economy.
On the first day of the conference, the youth delegation, including the WSCF team were invited to lead worship. Our text was the song of Miriam from Exodus which she led the Israelites in singing to glorify God. Taking the theme of women in leadership and of overcoming barriers and breaking chains, the youth delegation of the Ecumenical Women led the congregation in joyful singing and dancing, following in the footsteps of Miriam. This was a worship of hope and of celebration. Hope that the chains would be broken, celebration at the barriers already being broken down.

The centerpiece of the worship was a lone figure, wrapped in paper chains which had different barriers written on them which needed to be broken down. The congregation were invited to come up and break these chains to free the woman and then throw the chains into the font, symbolizing the sea. Now what made this really powerful for me, what made this into such a statement of what advocacy is, was something which I noticed at the very end of worship. As people were dispersing, the lone woman still had some chains hanging from her. She took them, and threw them, with all the others into the font. Not many people saw this. But in an instant I understood it as a symbol of immense hope. Our role is not to completely emancipate women from the oppressive system which binds them and acts violently against them. It is to break down enough of the barriers that the women themselves can bring about their own liberation. Advocacy is about breaking down the institutional barriers as far as they need to be broken down so that those who once needed help, can free themselves and cast all the remaining barriers into the sea.

Later that week, I was in a side event organised by an NGO involved in social work. The speakers were describing a shift which has occured in the way social work operates. It used to be about community organising. Social workers would be of the community and motivate people to help one another. Recently it has moved into a case structure where social workers are often external to the community and deal with individuals. This, it was suggested is a symptom of a world driven by consumerism. Individuals are treated as cases and the aim is to bring them to a point at which they can help themselves. What is needed, suggested one panelist, is not that people are taken to a point of self help, but rather that communities work together. That people are brought together, not to a point of self help, but to a point of mutual aid.

So one key lesson I took from the UNCSW is that as social activists, advocates and campaigners our role is to break the chains, not off individuals, but off communities as far as they need to be broken so that those communities can then cast the remaining chains into the sea.