The Final Declaration that aims joint struggle
and international solidarity among the women from the Middle East, North Africa
and Arab Countries has an historical importance in terms of its function for
being a road map for the upcoming years. We are the 250 women from 26 countries
who are in opposition to repression, colonialist regimes, occupations,
neo-liberal politics and racism came together and shared our experiences with
the occasion of the 1st Middle East Women's Conference between 31 May - 2 June
2013 in Amed. We have discussed recent political developments as well as
women's struggle for equity and freedom.
As the conference delegation we thanks to
Democratic Free Women Movement for bring us together. We salute the Union of
Free Women of Kurdistan which provides opportunity for revolutionary change for
the freedom struggle of Women. We perceive this conference as a result of
Kurdish Women' struggle.
We are going through a historic and important
process. The Middle East and North Africa are living a conversion and restructuring
process. This critical process means an opportunity and risk as well as for
women. We believe that organized and effectual participation to the conversion
and restructuring process lay a historical burden on women for our freedom.
Therefore, we think that this conference should serve to the involving
mechanisms in order to attend to this critic and historic process. We as
participants of the conference, we declare that similar summits will be
traditional and we will follow up the conference decisions and its aims.
Therefore as decisions of the conference;
- We are going to constitute a
communication network that covers all the participators of the conference.
- We are going to constitute a
coordination group by ..... women in order to providing opportunity for
stronger co-operation, communication among the delegates and political
solidarity until the second conference.
- We are going to build up a
monitoring group for women in the refugee camps who escape from the
war in Syria.
The changing in the Middle East and the North
Africa affects Women too. Women are actively involved to the struggle. However,
while new powers becomes the government, women's' rights have been restricted,
violence on women and rape are continuing, excluded from decision making
mechanisms and public field in order to confine the women to houses by the
cooperation with the male-dominant system. Our historical conscious and
experiences shows that; fundamentalism is one of the basic threats against
women's' freedom. Our basic struggle point is converting the evolution to the
revolution by rising the struggle against fundamentalism that refuses and
denies woman. Any ideology, religion and belief cannot be used as a pressure
against women. Women cannot be discriminated due to their life style or
dressing. Therefore, they shouldn't incapacitated from their social, political,
education and working rights.
We as women announce the struggle against rape,
stone to death, female circumcision, woman killings and violence against women
by the male and the state; neo-liberal politics that causes flexible and
unsecured working to women. We remarks that we will realize joint activities in
order to struggle against inhuman implementations, tortures and execution of
women.
We underline our opposition to all forms of
discrimination based on ethnic, ideological, religious belief, sexual identity
and sexual orientation. We should also defend the rights of non-religious
people. We are saying that every people have right to protect their mother
tongue and education and living in mother tongue are also women's' demand.
We are refuses every kind of occupation and
external interventions and believe that national-social struggle and struggle
for women's' right are inseparable.
We refuse the unitary nation-state model and
suggest the democratic pluralist people model. We take in consider peoples'
sisterhood against to the imperialist politics. Rising the struggle against to
the fascism and every kind of dictatorship is our principal attitude.
We express that all the participant women who
represents the conference delegation from different countries will continue to
struggle for political, judicial and democratic fields until freedom of all the
women political prisoners. We call the governments to release all the women
political prisoners.
The January 9 which is the date of
assassination of three Kurdish Women politicians, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan
and Leyşa Şaylemez; We declare that the January 9 will be the joint activity
day among the conference representatives' regions against political
murders.
We, women, reckon that, without ensuring the
equal representation of women, a real peace-building process is impossible. In
this respect, we invite all the women to raise the struggle to ensure the women
representation in the peace talks. We support the peace talks and negotiations
between Kurdish People's Leader Mr. Abdullah Öcalan and the government of
Turkey. We demand freedom of Mr. Abdullah Öcalan and declare that we will make
an effort for a result which covers the Kurdish People's freedom demands from
this negotiations.
We support the ongoing freedom and concession
struggle in Kurdistan that colonized by the 4 states in the early part of 20.
Century.
We the women, perceive Kurdish and Palestinian
Peoples' freedom issue as the basic two questions in the Middle East. We
underline one more time that a deep-scaled peace can not be realize without the
freedom of the two people. We support all the peoples' freedom strugles in
particularly Palestine and Kurdish Peoples. We remind one more time the right
of self-determination.
We declare that, we support Palestinian People,
right to coming back to the Palestinian refugees and their struggle against
Zionism. We say that releasing is required for Kurdish woman arrestee, Zeynep
Celaliyan, Tunusian woman activist who arrested due to her speech on "my
body is mine", Palestinian leader Ahmat Saadat, Marwan Barguti and human
rights defender from Bahrein, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja.
Regarding to the women rights and their freedom,
we as the women that refuse political, ideological and ethnic oriented
discriminative approaches. Express that we will struggle together according to
the woman entity without discrimination on politic view and ideological
approach.
Therefore, we announce a joint and concurrent
campaigns against the violence by the states and male in order to creating an
awareness to the violence on women in public and special area in the Middle
East and North Africa. We pay attention to 25th November as a symbolic date for
women against discrimination and violence.
We will be in opposition to demolition of
cultural history and save the damaged nature which fall into war and the
occupation.
Our conference is a new political ground for
women and promises hope to international struggle against tyrants, dictators
and male-dominant system. The sustainability and to strengthen the ground is up
to us. We as women trust ourselves and say that the peace will come to these
lands by the women.
