BRITISH COLUMBIA -

Vancouver Ald. Libby Davies is Harry
Rankin’s guest columnist this week.

More than 13,000 women gathered
last month in Nairobi, Kenya, at Forum
*85 to discuss and review the progress
made by women during the United

was convened by non-governmental
organizations and held in conjunction
with the official United Nations confer-
ence attended by government delega-
tions.

Both events marked the culmination
of the UN Decade for Women, 1976-85,

made in achieving the decade’s goals of
equality, development and peace. It
brought together, for 10 days, women
from different social and political sys-
tems, national liberation movements,
women from industrialized countries
and impoverished countries, women of
every color and language and of every

age.

Many Canadian women participated,
including myself as a representative of
the Canadian Congress of Women of
B.C. Despite all this diversity we still
found much in common.

Over 1,000 workshops were held, as
well as an International Women’s Film
Forum, and numerous informal gather-
ings. The central focus and key unifying
activity during the forum was provided
by a unique méeting place, a blue and
white tent, located on the campus of the
University of Nairobi, known as the
Peace Tent.

Lively discussions took place every
_ day in the Peace Tent, zeroing in on
| important and sometimes contentious

issues. There were dialogues between
women from the U.S. and the USSR,
discussions about the need for peace in
the Middle East and the plight of women
living in occupied territories.

What emerged from the Peace Tent
and the workshops was a deep under-
standing that equality, development and
peace are inseperably linked. Equality
for women will never be realized until we
have defeated the threat and costs of
military and nuclear conflict.

Women everywhere echoed the feeling
that growing military budgets, particu-
larly in the U.S., have become the main
barriers to the objective of the decade for
women. Participants in many workshops
spoke of the necessity to divert the enor-
| mous cost of armaments towards social
and peaceful development, for health,
education and jobs.

The needs of women in the Third
World countries are particularly urgent.
Their struggles for equality and devel-
opment are strangled by huge foreign
debts and the exploitive practices of
multinational companies.

In one workshop I attended a young
| woman from Costa Rica carefully ex-

plained how women in her country are
_ denied basic economic rights by foreign

companies that dominate the economy.
She reported that multinational corpora-
tions deliberately set out to hire inexpe-
rienced but highly productive young
women ages 16-25, as apprentices.
After nine months of working for less
_ than 50 per cent of wages paid to.men,
_ who are also economically exploited, the
women are laid off with little prospect of
future advancement. She told us they end
in financial desperation as prostitutes.

Always intent on gaining maximum
profit, these same foreign multinationals
often hire women to work in their own
homes, where they are exempt from all
labor laws, receiving only a third of the
minimum wage with no benefits and no
pensions. Hiring women at home to do

Nations decade for women. The forum ~

and examined the progress that had been:

Forum 85: no equality
without peace, jobs

piece work is an added bonus for the
companies who can avoid any invest-
ment in a plant infrastructure.

Contrasted with this type of practice
common in developing countries, a trade
union Official from India described in a
different workshop how women see the
establishment of a new international
economic order (NIEO) as a necessary
step in overcoming the discrimination
and inequality they face. The NIEO is
based on 20 principles adopted by the
United Nations that recognize that all
states are equal, have a right to self-de-
termination and development of their
own economic and social systems.

For many of us from western indus-
trialized countries, Forum ’85 was a uni-
que opportunity to hear first hand from
women actively involved in national lib-
eration movements to free themselves
from oppressive systems like apartheid
and foreign intervention and occupation
of their lands. We learned and under-
stood that equality for women in South
Africa is inconceivable until they, along
with their men, have defeated:the apar-
theid system which denies black and
colored (mixed race) people even the
most basic rights.

There was also much discussion in
workshops about women’s equality
gained in countries like Canada and the
United States where women have made
many significant gains. This included
free and open discussion about how
women in the U.S. and Canada, particu-
larly poor women, are just as much vic-
tims and casualties of the military-
industiral complex and also suffer
economic exploitation like women in
Africa and Asia.

Every conceivable issue came up for
debate and examination, despite great
pressure leading up to the forum from
the Reagan administration and its think-
tank, the Heritage Foundation, to keep
these political issues off the agenda.

They wanted women to confine them-
selves to so-called “women’s issues.”
Well, the vast majority of women at
Forum °85 made it very clear that all
issues are women’s issues. Delegates at
the forum were able to influence the offi-
cial government delegations attending
the UN conference and establish that
when we were dealing with the theme of
equality, development and peace it is
essential to discuss the role of economic
systems that serve to defeat equality, and
indentify the obstacles that threaten
world peace.

Obviously the UN Decade for Women
is not adequate to find solutions to the
inequality of women. But clearly the

. decade heightened women’s awareness

and unified women around the globe to
continue the struggle for equality, devel-
opment and peace. Although the decade
whas officially ended, the movement of
women around the world to gain full
equality, development and peace has
become a mighty and growing force.

For the 13,000 women at Forum ’85,
representing millions of women, Nairobi
served as a rallying point anda source of
renewed energy and commitment to
work for the full realization of the
decade’s goals.

2 ¢ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 14, 1985

= outh African coin nads hit_

Vancouver area residents hit radio station CJOR with a picket Mon-
day, protesting the station’s continued advertising of the South Afri-
can gold coin, the Krugerrand. The Southern Africa Action Coalition
has set another demonstration urging the federal government to adopt -
sanctions against the South African regime, at the Georgia Street side

of the Vancouver Art Gallery at noon on Aug. 22.

Youth delegates support
Soviet test moratorium |

Continued from page 1
- During the festival discussions took place
in 15 thematic centres covering such topics
as Peace and Disarmament, Anti-Imperial-
ist Solidarity, Rights of Working Youth,
Rights of Women, and Environmental Pro-
tection.

Discussion was marked by an “atmos-
phere of mutual respect and friendship,”
said Kim Zander, co-ordinator of the Van-
couver Unemployment Action Centre and
a member of the B.C. delegation.

“We concentrated on our similarities, not
our differences. There was a phenomenal
ability to exchange all the ideas you wanted
to with other young people from around the
world at these sessions,” she said.

As each delegate shared some of their
individual experiences at the festival the
friendliness and warmth of the people of
Moscow was the most consistent theme.

Mark Fettes, a member of UBC Students
for Peace and Mutual Disarmament said:
“Being in Moscow, and being able to talk to
the people made a big difference on how we
perceived the Russians. I think most of the
people there are really satisfied with the life
that they have. It’s not presented that way

on the media here.”
When questioned about the attitude of

- the Soviet people on the issue of peace and

disarmament, Teresa McGee of the Cana-
dian Catholic Organization for Develop-
ment and Peace said,
educated about peace, a lot more than we
are, they know all their government’s poli-
cies and also the medical consequences of
nuclear war. They are not as much in con-
flict with their government as we are. Their
government puts forth good policies.”
_ It was during the festival that Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a
morotorium on nuclear testing, and the
Canadian delegation as a whole issued a
statement Aug. 2 expressing their support
for the peace initiative.

The B.C. delegation also made a contri-
bution to the cultural events at the festival
by including the rock band, the Question-

aires, as part of the delegation. Mike Jac- .
obs of the band told the press conference:

““We’ve never had a performance like that —
people were throwing flowers to us on the
stage. The Soviets were genuinely helpful.
The camaraderie and warmth between us
was incredible.”

Polar Sea voyage threat
to claims on resources

The trespassing of the United States coast
gurad vessel Polar Sea in the Northwest
Passage is not only a violation of Canadian
sovereignty — it also has far-reaching
implications concerning ownership and
development of offshore natural resources
that belong to this country.

So warns Maurice Rush, head of the B.C.
branch of the Communist Party of Canada.
Rush notes the area around the passage and
the Arctic islands north of it are rich in oil,
gas and mineral deposits.

“It should be recalled that the U.S. is now
challenging Canada’s claim to offshore
resources in the Beaufort Sea,. Dixon
Entrance and Juan de Fuca Strait,” Rush
said.

“Without waiting for the World Court to
make a decision on the U.S. claim against
territory claimed by Canada, the U.S. has
proceeded to advertise the sale of oil leases
in the Dixon Entrance and Beaufort Sea as
if it was theirs, free to do with as they
please.”

And, he warned, “By challenging Cana- -

dian sovereignty and asserting its own posi-
tion that the Northwest Passage is an
international waterway to which the U.S.
has free access, the U.S. is staking outa right
to militarize the region and integrate it into
the Pentagon’s North American military
strategy without taking into account Cana-
dian interests and concerns.”

The lack of protest by the federal and

Kashtan interview
page 5

provincial governments over the violation is”

“disgraceful,” Rush charged.

“Tt demonstrates the extent to which the
Mulroney government is selling out Cana-
dian interests to the U.S. ~

“The stakes are high for Canada. Our
independence, _ security,
interests are threatened by the U.S. action
which is an outright expression of U.S.
imperialist policy,” he warned.

“They are very —

and economic —

Laila ae Aleta