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"un"Inclusive Feminism:
The voiceless girls in the Haitian feminist movement

Naike Ledan
Semi Kaefra Alisha Fermond, Trans Rights Activist ACIFVH
Natalie Desrosiers
Fédorah Pierre-Louis

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As feminists struggling for gender, peace, economic, social and environmental justice, we know there is no single recipe for success but an array of possibilities that can and are making change happen. The menu of options is as diverse as our movements and the communities in which we live and struggle.

Before we dare to present some of the feminist imaginations for another world, here are the principles around which we base our propositions:

1. Self-determined development from the local to the global

We believe there is no one model for all and that everyone has a right to claim and contribute to building another world that is possible, as the World Social Forum motto puts it.

This includes the right to participate in democratic governance and to influence one’s future – politically, economically, socially and culturally.

Economic self-determination gives peoples the ability to take control over their natural resources and use those resources for their own ends or collective use. Furthermore, women’s economic agency is fundamental to mitigating the often cyclical nature of poverty, denial of education, safety, and security.

2. Rights, substantive equality and justice are at the core of the economy

The principle of substantive equality is laid out in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international human rights instruments. This principle is fundamental for development and achieving a just economy as it affirms that all human beings are born free and equal.

Non-discrimination is an integral part of the principle of equality that ensures that no one is denied their rights because of factors such as race, gender, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property or birth.

The inherent dignity of all persons without distinction must be upheld and respected. While States are responsible for ensuring the use of maximum available resources for the fulfilment of human rights, reclaiming rights and dignity is fundamentally a key space for civil society struggle and  popular mobilization.

3. Just distribution for all, without monopolization (the anti-greed principle)

This principle, exercised through organized efforts to transform unjust institutions, guides the restoration of balance between "participation" (input) and "distribution" (output) when either principle is violated.

It puts limits on monopolistic accumulations of capital and other abuses of property. This concept is founded on an economy model that is based on fairness, and justice.

4. Feminist and cross-movement solidarity is key

In order to make change happen, we need strong and diverse feminist networks. We need movements building solidarity from the personal to the political, from the local to the global and back.

Building collective power through movements helps convert the struggle for human rights, equality and justice into a political force for change that cannot be ignored.

“Only movements can create sustained change at the levels that policy and legislation alone cannot achieve.”

See more on this at Batliwala, S: 2012 “Changing Their World. Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements” 2nd Edition. AWID

See also

The project

5 Major Threats

Our partners

Love Letters from our Board and the Co-EDs

WHRD Tribute - 2017

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by Amal Amer, California, US

I pray with my family for the first time in six years while wrapped in a keffiyah I scavenged from a dumpster.

Since coming into myself, I have refused to pray in jamaat with my family. Joining in the ranks of hierarchy, “women” behind “men” irks me. It grates my skin and teeth to the degree where I can’t focus, and the standing, bowing, and kneeling feels like a battle against my true being. Each second listening, a betrayal of my nature. Instead, I pray by myself in my own way. 

Yet this Ramadan, I feel different. Back in my childhood home after many years, I am choosing to fast. I choose suhoor with my family, and praying together feels like a natural extension of eating together. After eating, my mother, father, brother and I line up for fajr. 

I pray behind Baba, but my prayer is my own. I close my eyes, staying with my breath and my body. 

My eyes closed, I open my inner sight to a wide open window on a vista of mountains, bright sun spreading over a light mist of clouds. This was the view I had while praying in jamaat at a queer Muslim wedding I attended in the mountains of the South of France last September. 

I lined up with the wedding guests, queer and trans folks of North and West African, Arab, and European descent. Folks of all faiths joined while some chose to stand in respect at the sides or behind. The groups did not fall along fault lines of “Muslim” or “non-Muslim,”  “religious” or “non religious.” The two lovers marrying each led us in prayer, and so did the Muslim woman officiating the nikkah. Each of the three led us in two rounds of prayers, two raqat.

I showed up as I was, my body uncovered. I had not washed. I only passed my camera to a friend who chose to stand at the side. 

In the first sujood, I broke down crying. I wore a jean dress that loves my body, one found at a thrift store my ex-girlfriend pointed me to.

The sobs come through my whole body during the prayer, and I put my head to the earth with my community like a homecoming. A return to the embrace of love both intensely personal and communal, and I am held.

It feels like swimming in the sea with multiple people:  joyful togetherness. But when you go beneath the water, it’s just you and the current. 

Like a dozen people buried in the same graveyard. Separate, but sharing the same soil. Becoming one with the growing earth. 

That was how it felt to pray in communion at a queer Muslim wedding.

I welcomed the light of acceptance while showing up as myself that day, with a group of people who had also chosen to claim all the parts of themselves in love. That light made a home in me, and it illuminates my heart in the dark living room at fajr this Ramadan morning. Though I pray with my birth family who do not accept all of me, I see myself praying in jamaat at that glorious wedding with all of my queer Muslim ancestors, my queer angels, my lineage, my soul family, my queer Muslim family, all standing in prayer. Bowing as one. 

My family’s home does not always feel like my own, though I am here now. I take the bukhoor from room to room, barefoot. Smolder from the censer, an incense that says, “Here I am.” Baraka, blessings from the source of all, Allah and the Goddess to each room in the house, bidding good and dispersing the unbidden. 

As I write this the sky turns the same royal blue I am familiar with from exiting the club and pulling all-nighters. It is the gradient of morning I step into as I go to sleep. 

Word meanings:

• Ramadan: the Muslim holy month, traditionally observed with 29 days of fasting without food or water during daylight hours

• Keffiyah: a patterned scarf common in the SWANA region. The black and white version referred to here is associated with the Palestinian liberation movement 

• Pray in jamaat: Islamic ritual prayer in a group. Participants follow one person, traditionally male, who calls the prayer aloud.

• Suhoor: the meal before the fast starts at dawn

• Fajr: the dawn prayer

• Baba: father

• Raqat: one round of prayer consisting of standing, bowing, kneeling, and pressing the head to the ground

• Sujood:the prayer position when one presses one’s head to the earth

• Nikkah: the religious marriage ceremony 

• Bukhoor: an Arabic incense, woodchips soaked in resin

• Baraka: blessing

“Angels go out at night too”

by Chloé Luu (@Electrichildren), France

Pictures of angels in my life, just some women and non-binary people of color hanging out, taking care of themselves and expressing love to each other. It's these simplest moments that are the most empowering.

< Freeing the Church, Decolonizing the Bible for West Papuan Women

Kunyit Asam: The Roots of Love and Resilience >

This is Mariama Sonko, an inspiring small-scale rural farmer, eco-feminist and a woman human rights defender.

She lives in Niaguiss, a town in the southwest of Senegal. Growing up in a family and community of rural farmers, she witnessed the essential role of women in food production and seed preservation from a very early age, while also being immersed in the rhythms and working of the land. Mariama has been defending local agricultural knowledge and peasant practices since the 1990s. As a mother of five children, the food she grows herself is the main source of sustenance for her family.

She is currently the president of “Nous Sommes la Solution'' and is involved in promoting agroecological practices and family farming, encouraging food sovereignty, biodiversity and farmer seed preservation, and demanding equitable access to resources and land for women across West Africa.

Source: AWID’s Feminist Realities Festival Crear | Résister | Transform - Day 2/ 2ème jour/ 2º día