Asian Women’s Human Rights CouncilVimochana was one of the founding member of AWHRC, a regional network of women’s and human rights organisations initiated in 1986 with a 12 member council comprising of women from the different countries of the Asia and Pacific. Vimochana hosts the India Secretariat that is also at present the Regional Secretariat for the AWHRC that seeks to challenge and transform the dominant human rights discourse from the perspectives and life realities of the women and marginalised communities from the Global South. Its various programmes include the Courts of Women; campaigns, advocacy and lobbying; workshops and roundtables; fact finding missions; networking and the creation and dissemination of publications and audiovisuals.
The beginnings of AWHRC, the regional network of women’s and human rights organisations that seeks to challenge and transform the dominant human rights discourse from the perspectives and life realities of the women and marginalised communities from the Global South can be located in the work of Vimochana in Bangalore. From the collective insights and experiences gained from this work to look at the issue of violence against women in the larger context of women's human rights Corinne Kumar, founder of Vimochana and CIEDS Collective initiated the Karnataka Commission on Women's Human Rights. From this grew the idea of initiating a larger Asian forum. to recognise the increasing violence against women in Asia, to challenge the exclusion of these crimes from the dominant human rights discourse and to mobilise public opinion and action in support of women’s movements on the issue of human rights violations of women.Thus was born the AWHRC whose aims and objectives as it has evolved are:
· To develop as well as to promote a critical and a feminist perspective on human rights; and to specially focus on the gender dimension in the dominant rights discourse.
· To understand and to see with new eyes the realities of the different forms of violence against women in Asia, denying the women their most fundamental right to be human.
· To deepen our analysis of the roots of the violence against women; to create different platforms and possibilities for dialogue with women, human rights groups, and social movements.
· To foster solidarity and concrete action among women’s group, leaders and advocates in the region and to effectively promote women’s human rights as integral to the struggle for the collective rights of people.
· To work towards changing the existing socio-economic, political and patriarchal systems in the countries of Asia and the Pacific as they continue to breed severe forms of exploitation, inequality and violence towards the marginalised, the women.
· To gather in conversations across cultures, the knowledges and wisdoms of women in the Asia-Pacific region and of women of all cultures, entering into a dialogue of transformation that challenges the dominant world view creating a new discourse; to develop new visions
towards a just and peaceful world for women and men.Corinne Kumar is presently the Regional Co-ordinator with the Regional Secretariat at present being located at the AWHRC-India Secretariat which is being hosted since 1994 by Vimochana and the CIEDS Collective. With a 12 member council comprising of women from the different countries of the Asia and Pacific, the work has evolved at various levels - through organising Courts of Women, 21 of which have been held so far in partnership with El Taller our sister organisation located in Tunis, in different countries of Asia, the Arab world, Africa and Central America; through campaigns, advocacy and lobbying; through organising workshops and roundtables; fact finding missions; through networking and participating in international meetings through the creating and dissemination of publications and audiovisuals.
Vimochana and SIEDS have been integrally linked to the work of AWHRC through the involvement of many women and men who are based here, some of who are also working part time or full time in the India Secretariat. For instance the fifth Court of Women Speaking Tree, Women Speak that focussed on the Crimes against Women related to the Violence of Development held in January 1995 in Bangalore, was organised by AWHRC in collaboration with Vimochana and supported by CIEDS. The publications and audio visuals that are one of the products of the Courts, are usually designed and produced by the artists located in the Collective. Members of Vimochana have participated and contributed to many of the Courts held in other parts of the region and world and also in some of the lobbying and advocacy programmes organised by AWHRC. The work of Vimochana with women in prostitution draws from and is linked to the work done in AWHRC with the issue of trafficking and prostitution.
Therefore while AWHRC is organisationally and financially independent of the structure of SIEDS, the inherent organic links between individuals, perspective and work structure is enhancing for both the organisations.
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