Women's Rights Forum
by Mmapaseka "Steve" Letsike and Kebarileng Sebetoane

The Women’s Right Forum (WRF), founded by the Gender AIDS Forum, held its first consultative meeting end November 2006, Durban, South Africa with a purpose of coordinating and strengthening women’s rights activism related to HIV and AIDS. It aims to build a core of feminist and women’s right activists who are able to articulate and act upon an agenda that furthers the position of women’s needs and demands within the women’s movements in South Africa.

The WRF is meant to provide a platform that will enable women to draw together the learning, thinking, and analysis of feminists and women’s rights activists from the community, the grassroots and academia. Additionally, the forum is meant to ensure that the women’s rights agenda in the context of HIV and AIDS and gender based violence is developed and redefined to suit the realities and needs of the broadest spectrum of women in the country.

The WRF is divided into 4 caucuses: Women living with HIV, Feminists, Lesbian, and Young women, but as women from different social, economic, cultural, political and sexual backgrounds, we shared lessons learned from the organisations that we represent. Our last meeting dealt with the issue of Microbicides and taking them to the communities. Gender Aids Forum had informed us about the microbicides trials, and taught us to address civil society’s concerns, insecurities and questions, and to create an opportunity for real dialogue between diverse women. Of course, there are still some gaps left in terms of the lesbian safer sex and HIV/AIDS an issue under discussion within the lesbian caucus with plans to bring the discussion to the larger group as a whole. But these gaps will only narrow if we as lesbians speak up and make our voices heard.

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Note: This article was written as a collaboration by members of the Women’s Right Forum, Mmapaseka “Steve” Letsike and Kebarileng Sebetoane. It is written in their own personal capacity as women and activists engaged with the issues that challenge our country.
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© 2007

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