Women’s rights movement garners support from media organisations

Shahrzadnews:The younger generation of women’s rights activists around the world are finding new supporters for their cause from among media organisations, law companies and international corporations. Alongside their financial concerns, they are putting the plight of women on their agendas.

The Trust Women conference in London in early September – organised by the International Herald Tribune and the Reuters Thompson Trust – was an example of this trend. Various major law firms as well as the Gucci fashion house were among the sponsors, apparently out of a genuine desire to help women establish their rights.

Over four hundred people from 28 countries attended the two day meeting. Most of the journalists present were reporting on women’s affairs for the main media and publishing corporations. Ages ranged from young Arab lawyers to older politicians and chief executives of international conglomerates. However, well-known European and American feminists from the 1970s and 1980s who in that period would have played a pivotal role in organising a women’s rights conference were largely absent, suggesting they might deliberately have chosen to stay away. A handful of Iranian women’s rights activists attended, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who made the opening speech, and Susan Tahmasbi, who sat on one of the panels. Three others left the hall after only a few hours.

The debates were highly constructive and professional, and a great deal of useful information was exchanged. The International Herald Tribune distributed an 8-page supplement on the conference in its December 5th edition. Such coverage by an international mass-circulation newspaper must certainly have helped to promote women’s rights.

Shahrzad News was the only Iranian women’s media organisation to attend the conference. Afterwards we published several reports in Farsi.

Topics included:

The relationship between culture and the law, a debate led by Shirin Ebadi

The clash between culture and the law with regard to women’s rights

The Arab Spring; an opportunity or a disaster for women?

Women’s rights as reflected in the constitutions of various countries

Modern slavery

Women’s rights with regard to bribery and corruption

Sex workers, and ways to end the sexual exploitation of women