*The Linkage Caucus is held daily for various regional and issue caucuses to share what they have accomplished for the day as well as to discuss NGO lobbying strategies.
New York, 11 March 2000 - The APWW announced that, for the last week of the CSW, it will no longer hold caucus meetings to allow Asia Pacific participants to attend the the CSW meetings and lobby. Other caucuses which have agreed on a similar action are the Human Rights, Health, and Media caucuses.
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The Coalition in Support of the BPFA announced that changes have been made in the Coalition Document in response to the call from the VAW Caucus regarding the use of the term "forced prostitution" in the document (see Highlights of 9 March Linkage Caucus). Working on the principles of (1) using the language of the BPFA and (2) focusing on approaches that unify instead of divide the women's movement, the Coalition has deleted the term "prostitution" in the language of the Coalition Document and will use "sexual and economic exploitation of women" in its place.
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One of the things discussed at length during yesterday's Linkage Caucus was how the NGOs would deal with the actions of the Christian fundamentalists present at the CSW. For the past week, accounts of how the group has been harassing some of the women and disrupting some of the caucuses, in particular the Health and the Youth Caucuses.
According to members of the Lesbian Caucus, a group of these fundamentalists harassed one of the members of the caucus about where and when the Lesbian Caucus will be held. The Lesbian Caucus feared that the fundamentalists will also disrupt their meetings as they have done with other caucuses. They appealed for support from other women against this possible threat. The participants agreed to be present in the next Lesbian Caucus meeting as a sign of support and solidarity.
The participants also agreed that there was a need to plan and strategise more creative and unified approaches of dealing with the Christian fundamentalists at the CSW.
