Online session: “Feminist grassroots perspectives on trade policy”
Wednesday 30 September 2020, 17:00-18:30 CET, 10.00-11.30 CST
French, Spanish and English interpretation will be available
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Organized by WIDE+ Gender and Trade Working Group, part of the Geneva Trade Week, “Rethinking Trade”, with:
- Edmé Domínguez Reyes, Associate Professor at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden. and board member of WIDE+.
- Bettina Lucila Cruz Velázquez, human rights defender part of the Asamblea de los Pueblos Indígenas del Istmo de Tehuantepec en Defensa de la Tierra y el Territorio – APIIDTT, Oaxaca, Mexico.
- Lourdes Huanca Atencio, president of Federación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas, Artesanas, Indígenas, Nativas y Asalariadas del Perú (FENMUCARINAP), Peru.
- Norma Don Juan Pérez, coordinator for Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas -CONAMI- in Mexico that is member of ECMIA that represents indigenous women’s organizations and women members of indigenous peoples’ organizations in the countries of the Americas.
The session is part of the GENEVA TRADE WEEK 28 September- 2 October 2020 organized by the GENEVA TRADE PLATFORM
This session will highlight the voices of feminist scholars and activists, linking the micro experiences at grassroots level with the overarching macro-economic developments that international trade policies are driving.
The impacts of current trade policy settings are keenly felt by poor and marginalized communities in the global South. Examples include forced displacements and environmental degradation resulting from mining, local agricultural production being out-competed, and the prevalence of lowly paid and poorly protected work in light manufacturing sectors for export production, such as in the fast-fashion garment sector. Women and girls in particular are negatively impacted.
The WIDE+ working group on gender and trade is a space in which experts and civil society representatives work together to influence European trade policy through a feminist perspective. It brings together academics from different institutions and representatives from different NGOs and trade unions. This session offers an opportunity to share these perspectives.
The GENEVA TRADE WEEK can serve as replacement to the WTO Public Forum that have been cancelled this year. The week will focus on Rethinking Trade, Sustainability, Rebooting the WTO, Trade and…, & Digital Trade. Sessions during the week will be simultaneously translated into English, French and Spanish.
Key Questions
What are some perspectives from feminists, and in particular indigenous activists, on current trade policy questions?
What changes do you propose from your communities perspective on what the WTO and your national government should enforce so trade has not any negative effects?
Bio Speakers
Edmé Domínguez Reyes is Associate Professor in Peace and Development Studies at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden and she is boardmember of WIDE+. Her first area of research and publications was on Soviet foreign policy towards Latin America. Since the beginning of the 1990s her works and publications have focused on Regionalism in the case of NAFTA and Mexico, and on gender issues related to citizenship, labour organising, transnational activism, gender consequences of free trade agreements, and international political economy. Her research on these issues has concentrated on the cases of Mexico, El Salvador and Bolivia.
Bettina Lucila Cruz Velázquez is a human rights defender and member of the Asamblea de los Pueblos Indígenas del Istmo de Tehuantepec en Defensa de la Tierra y el Territorio – APIIDTT, Oaxaca, Mexico. She belongs to several indigenous organizations of Oaxaca, and at the national level to the National Indigenous Congress, based in the South of Mexico. Bettina Lucila Cruz Velázquez is a reference in the fight against high electricity rates and against development megaprojects. She has denounced the predatory practices of large multinational energy companies such as: the Spanish company Renovalia, Gas Natural Fenosa and Gamesa; the French EDF, the Italian ENEL or the Japanese Mitsubishi. Iberdrola, which has been one of the main beneficiaries of the 1992 energy privatization law.
Lourdes Huanca Atencio is the president of Federación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas, Artesanas, Indígenas, Nativas y Asalariadas del Perú (FENMUCARINAP), Peru. Currently it groups 126,000 thousand women organized in 19 regional organizations such as associations, federations, productive societies, unions, cooperatives, committees, among others that are located in the South, Center, North and Jungle of Peru. At the international level, FENMUCARINAP is part of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC), of La Via Campesina, and the World March of Women (WMM).
Norma Don Juan Pérez is the coordinator for Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas -CONAMI- in Mexico. As coordinator of CONAMI she is a member of ECMIA to represent indigenous women’s organizations and women members of indigenous peoples’ organizations in the countries of the Americas, bringing together 20 organizations from Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guiana, French Guiana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela and the United States.