from the DataCenter's Economic Justice Program, Winter 2002

Women of Color Unite the Struggles Against Racism and Sexism at UN Conference

Dozens of U.S. delegations traveled to South Africa for the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (popularly known as UNWCAR) to bring to international attention the ongoing history of U.S. racism and to share experiences and strategies with non-governmental organizations struggling against racism in other countries.

Recognizing that UNWCAR provided an important opportunity to develop strategies that speak to the intersections of race, gender, economic justice and globalization, the Women of Color Resource Center (WCRC) organized a multi-racial delegation of 25 community-based organizers and scholar-activists to attend the Conference and produced a report on the status of women of color in the U.S.

The report, Time to Rise: U.S. Women of Color - Issues and Strategies, documents current issues facing U.S. women of color and the creative energy they bring to their organizing. It addresses low-wage work, immigrant women workers, welfare policy, reproductive rights, domestic and sexual violence, environmental justice and criminalization and incarceration. The DataCenter's Economic Justice Program contributed statistical overviews of low-wage work and the impact of affirmative action policies for the report.

At the NGO Conference in Durban, the Women of Color Resource Center presented a workshop to over 100 participants, using Time to Rise as a basis for sharing information about the status of women of color in the U.S. and their strategies for organizing. WCRC's delegation also visited community-based organizations in Johannesburg, including women's and men's groups working on violence, AIDS organizations, township groups, and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). By the end of WCRC's trip, 500 copies of the report had been distributed, largely to non-governmental and community-based organizations.

Back in the U.S., WCRC has organized an event honoring U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, at which delegates will report back on the lessons from UNWCAR.

According to Linda Burnham, director of the Women of Color Resource Center, even though not reflected in the government document, NGO pressure at UNWCAR succeeded in deepening people's thinking about how issues of race, class and gender fit into a human rights framework, and their ability to look at racism with a gendered lens.

For further information or to obtain a copy of the report contact the Women of Color Resource Center.