Rural and Indigenous Women's Statement on Climate Change: A Submission to the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
We, rural and indigenous women from Asia, the Pacific and other parts of the world, face enormous threats and damage to our lives and rights as a consequence of climate change including the unbridled manner by which measures are being proposed and undertaken to adapt to and mitigate this phenomenon and its impacts. As women farmers, fisherfolk, herders, farm workers, indigenous food producers and natural resource managers, we rely heavily on primary resources, which are being negatively affected and destroyed by climate change. [...more]

Roots for Equity Celebrates Rural Women's Day in Pakistan
Press Release by Roots for Equity, 15 October 2009
Roots for Equity, in collaboration with rural women's organizations from Hyderabad, Badin and Tando Mohammed Khan, celebrated Rural Women's Day on October 15, 2009 at the Hyderabad Press Club in Hyderabad, Sindh Province, Pakistan. The event featured speakers Sony Bheel, Veena, Tabasum Bhatti, Hasina Ali, Sainth, Azra Sayeed and Alo Bheel and culminated in a statement of demands to the government. [...more]

CPA Pioneer Receives International Recognition for Protection of Indigenous Rights, Ancestral Land, and Culture
Press Release by Cordillera Peoples Alliance
BAGUIO CITY (October 5)-Cordillera Peoples Alliance founding member and pioneer Mother Petra Macliing, was chosen as one of the awardees of Women's World Summit Foundation's (WSSF) Laureate Prize for Rural Women for the year 2009. Mother Petra's invaluable and historic contribution for the protection of indigenous rights to self determination and ancestral land was distinctly recognized alongside the efforts and contributions of the other 9 awardees worldwide. [...more]

Press Release - Proceedings to the Asian Rural Women's Conference: Rights, Empowerment and Liberation 2008
We are pleased to announce the publication of the Proceedings of the Asian Rural Women's Conference: Rights, Empowerment and Liberation held in Tamil Nadu, India on 6-8 March 2008. [...more]

Asian Rural Women on Women's Day 2009: "Because Women Are Still Not Equal"
We mark the International Women's Day as a day to declare our strongest condemnation and resistance against imperialist globalization that sows poverty and hunger in Asia, affecting rural women. [...more]

Rural Women March and Rally on International Women's Day!
International delegates join the Women's Caravan and Public Rally calling for Rights, Empowerment and Liberation
8 March 2008/Tamilnadu-The first ever Asian Rural Women's Conference came to a successful conclusion with bang as participants traveled in vans, buses and lorries on the Women's Caravan through the main highway to Chennai. Vibrantly decorated vehicles carried international and local delegates who chanted slogans and calls for women's rights, liberation and empowerment to curious passersby, who were given pamphlets about the issues raised at the conference. [...more]

Empowering Ourselves Against Fundamentalism!
ARWC Feature- 7 March 2008
On the second morning of the ongoing 1st Asian Rural Women's Conference at Palavoy, Arakkonam, the collective voices of the women gathered from 20 countries in Asia came out strongly against the rising fundamentalism throughout the region, and agreed that such fundamentalism was directly or indirectly engineered or encouraged by the state. [...more]

Rural Women's Voices Take Centre Stage at First Ever Asian Rural Women's Conference
Women from over 20 countries in Asia gather in Arrakonam, Tamil Nadu, India to Assert Calls for Rights, Empowerment and Liberation
6 March 2008/Palavoy, Arrokonam, India-The first ever Asian Rural Women's Conference got off to a colourful joyous start, as marchers roused residents at the local market at Arrokonam to join in, accompanied by young women drummers clad in bright blue saris. [...more]

Stories of Despair and Hope - A Focus on Dalit women
ARWC Feature - 6 March 2008
Over 750 women from 20 countries. Over 750 stories and life histories being shared. It isn't just another Women's Day ritual. It is the 1st Asian Rural Women's Conference on "Rights, Empowerment and Liberation", currently taking place in the remote village of Palavoy in Arakkonam (Thiruvellore district) of Tamil Nadu. It is a gathering which will culminate in a massive public rally of an anticipated 10,000 people in Chennai on 8 March 2008. The conference is being organised by the Tamil Nadu Women's Forum, Tamil Nadu Dalit Women's forum, and Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED) in collaboration with Pesticides Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific (based in Malaysia) which is providing secretariat support. [...more]

Asian Rural Women on Women's Day 2008: "Because Women Are Still Not Equal"
PRESS RELEASE - 5 March 2008
More than a thousand rural women are coming together in Palavoy, Arakkonam (District Thiruvellore, Tamil Nadu) on 6-8 March 2007 for the Asian Rural Women's Conference (ARWC). They will gather to share and strengthen the rural and indigenous women's movement, and to build and assert women's leadership and their human rights. This is the first time ever that rural women are specifically collecting in such large numbers in India on the occasion of the International Women's Day. [...more]

Migrant Workers - Their Voices, Struggles and Reclaiming their Rights!
Testimonies from Rural Women
Submitted by CARAM Asia for the 1st Asian Rural Women's Conference (ARWC) March 2008 Arakkonam, Tamil Nadu, India [...more]

On the Move: Asia's Rural Women
The empowerment of Asia's rural women against the injustices of neoliberalism and ancient prejudice must begin with the assertion of their political power, Dr Irene Fernandez, Director of the Malaysian women's rights group Tenaganita tells R.B. Bhattacharjee in the run up to the Asian Rural Women's Conference to be held from March 6 - 8, 2008 in Chennai, India. [...more]

Ka Lita: A Symbol of Peasant Women in the Philippines
By the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC)
"I have chosen the road less traveled and hopefully the younger generation can learn from my story. I could have chosen to live an ordinary and simple life of a farmer. Instead I chose a different route - serving the Filipino masses, especially peasants, and leading them to struggle for genuine agrarian reform and freedom", stated Estrelita "Ka Lita" Mariano, a prominent peasant woman leader in the Philippines.
Estrelita " Ka Lita" Mariano, 48, came from a poor peasant family in Nueva Ecija. Like a normal peasant family, she grew up taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, washing and ironing clothes, cleaning the house, washing the dishes, going to market, weeding and planting in the farm. Name it and she had done it, she lives up to her sector's way of life. [...more]

UN gender equality mission fails 80% of women
Press Release - 26 February 2008
Thousands of Asian rural women gather to demand justice, rights, empowerment and liberation this International Women's Day 2008!
DECADES of efforts by international institutions, including the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), to put women on an equitable footing in society have achieved very little in correcting the unjust, oppressive and often violent socio-economic realities that burden the lives of 80% of women living in rural areas. [...more]