2. CARAVAN Refugee Women’s Conference 2014 - Frankfurt / Main

By voice, 19 May, 2014

2nd CARAVAN Refugee Women’s Conference
20th – 22nd June 2014
in Frankfurt / Main

Conference program

For a life of solidarity, in freedom and self-determination!

organisational issues

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Translations in further languages follow.

Dear friends and sisters,

last year we broke out of isolation and organised the first CARAVAN Refugee Women’s Conference 2013 in Hamburg. Most conference participants were women from the most remote isolation camps for refugees in Germany, immigrant women and European born sisters. In the course of the three days of your gathering, we exchanged our experiences and learned a lot about our common problems in exile. The conference was a place of solidarity and power. Inspired by the conference, we decided to organise a demonstration of women in the run-up to the International Refugee Tribunal against the Federal Republic of Germany and put forward a separate set of complaints against the FRG. We have been meeting regularly ever since, both at the federal CARAVAN meetings for the rights of refugees and additionally in those places where our friends are forced to live. Several meetings took place in Augsburg, Bielefeld und Wuppertal and more will be organised before the conference.

In the run-up to and during the conference we would like to discuss how we can organise and defend ourselves better. Because no matter where we are, our living spaces are being limited and we are robbed of our livelihoods and rights. If we leave our home countries because of war, misery and poverty, maybe even to build a future for our children we left behind, we do not only experience violence while on our journey, but also here in Germany. We purposely decided to organize this conference in Frankfurt, as our sister Christy Omordion Schwundeck was shot by the police at the employment office here. She was not the first woman murdered in Germany. In 2001, N'deye Mareame Sarr was shot by the police in Aschaffenburg. We will not forget our sisters who were raped in police custody and then deported. But we do not only experience violence against our very own bodies, but also against our children, when they are deported, humiliated in the camps or when they die in our arms because they are denied necessary medical treatment, as happened recently in Lower Saxony.

Our lives are constantly under threat, but we fight every day in order to survive. Every single one of us living in an isolation camp fights against her dooming deportation and against racist exclusion every day. We also carry out a daily struggle for the wellbeing of our children whom we were forced to leave behind or who have to hold out in the isolation camps with us. We want to harness that power keeping us alive for our next conference in Frankfurt, to create long-term structures of solidarity for our defence, both at a local and a national level. Join us numerously and let us continue our fight which we initiated together last year.

The provisional conference program is the following:

# # #Program (preliminary) # # #

  • Friday, 20th June 2014
    Demonstration in remembrance of Christy Omordion Schwundeck
  • Saturday, 21st June 2014
    morning: Introductory speeches on struggle in the country of origin, women’s reasons for seeking refuge, children in the country of origin
    afternoon: Why is autonomous organisation necessary? followed by cultural programme
  • Sunday, 22nd June 2014
    How do we strengthen our women’s struggle?

If you would like to take part in preparing and organising the conference, please do not hesitate to contact us:
woman@thecaravan.info

# # #Organisational issues # # #

The Caravan Refugee Women’s Conference is self organised. That means that friends support us by jointly organising premises, accommodation, food, childcare and interpreting.

We will all sleep in a gym, where there will be showers and toilets.

Just like last year, men from the CARAVAN and other organizations will help us prepare the food.

Like last year, childcare will be provided.

Please use a “Quer-durch’s-Land-Ticket” or “Wochenend(weekend)-Ticket”. We will use donations to cover the travel costs. We cannot pay for any tickets other than those aforementioned.

Please send an e-mail to register: woman@thecaravan.info

Please let us know how many children you will be bringing and which languages you need interpretation for.

Languages
English