The WSCF GA Women’s Pre-Assembly has opened with a challenge for young women delegates to rise up and become the voice of the voiceless. More than sixty young women delegates, staff and stewards gathered in the Grand Salle of GA venue Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in Montreal today to prepare to raise the voices of women students from the world’s Student Christian Movements both within the Assembly and beyond.

The Women’s Pre-Assembly programme began with a Bible study on the rape of Tamar taken from 2 Samuel 13: 1-22. The Bible study led by WCC Women’s Programme Executive, Ms. Fulata Mbano-Moyo, introduced the theme of speaking out on violence against women and in particular the need to bring out these voices in the context of churches and community life.

‘Women need to break the silence, because most abuse is maintained by the conspiracy of silence’, said Ms. Mbano Moyo.

Ms Moyo introduced the programme called the Tamar Campaign, which was started in 2001 at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa. The leaders offering these texts for Bible study found that none of the churches they went to had ever heard the story of Tamar and it never been used in their church lectionaries.

When the Bible study leaders introduced congregations to these stories, they began to ask, ‘Why haven’t we heard these stories before?’ Ms. Moyo encouraged the SCM women to ask questions of the characters in the Biblical text,
“The same Bible that has been used to uphold patriarchy and its abuses can be used for women’s empowerment. The story of Tamar is such a story, it is a sad story, but because she spoke out, we can learn from her that we should no longer be silent,” she said.

Bible study participant Ms. Sonia Almassad from Syria shared how in her context and in other countries she has lived in, she believes women are still afraid to speak out, for fear of bringing blame and shame upon themselves,

“In Syria it is still the law that if a women agrees to marry the man who raped her, then after two years of marriage, he is free to leave her and will completely escape punishment for his crime. But, if the woman won’t marry the man who raped her he will be sent to prison for at least 15 years. Because of the shame of the girl or woman being raped, many families will try to cover it up and would prefer her to marry the rapist,” she said.

Sonia shared that many Syrian women’s groups and civil society groups are working to try and change these laws and more importantly to her mind, the ideas that lie behind them. According to Sonia, the attitudes that lead to blaming women for assaults against them are still present, even in countries where the laws are much fairer to women,

“When I lived in England I was shocked to see the story of a sexual assault against a woman in the newspaper almost every day. I was surprised and disappointed to find that when the newspaper did a survey on what people thought about the assaults, some people said the young woman was asking to be raped - because of where she was, what she was doing or what she was wearing. To me, it shows the attitude that blames the woman for being attacked is still there, even in a democratic society.
I believe to really make a change in these things, it takes everyone to make the change, all of us, both women and men. It is not enough to change the rules, we need a new mind, a new blood, a new generation, a revolution”

After extensive discussion and sharing in small groups on the Biblical study the Women’s Pre-Assembly went into a session aimed at supporting women delegates’ participation in the Assembly. The session was opened by Thai senior friend and vice-chair candidate Ms. Janejinda Pawadee, who told a story of abuse by border guards who had detained, interrogated and strip-searched her, on her arrival in Hong Kong the first time she attended a WSCF Asia-Pacific Regional Women’s Committee (RWC) meeting.

When Janejinda finally reached the safety of the Regional Women’s Committee, she had had the courage to tell them her story. She explained how the resulting letter of outrage from the RWC to the Hong Kong authorities exposed the violation of migrants’ rights at the Hong Kong border and generated a demonstration of solidarity and support towards Janejinda that would not have happened if she had remained silent. So her message to the Women’s Pre-Assembly was simple - speak out and make the truth known!.

Following on from Janejinda’s opening story, senior friend Ms. Julanne Clarke-Morris (Aotearoa New Zealand) presented insights on the imbalance between women’s and men’s percentages of speaking time, from the work of Australian feminist Dale Spender. Dale Spender’s research amongst university students showed how men take up the vast majority of speaking time in both academic settings and mixed conversations. According to Spender’s research, it is common for men to use 80-90% of speaking time in lecture question times, group discussions and informal conversations. Ms Clarke-Morris offered challenging statistics and stories on how men not only speak more, but they also feel more comfortable speaking and more secure in the idea that they should be listened to, whereas women tend to be more aware of the whole communication context, including others’ levels of participation.

Ms. Hannah Sarklow (Austria) expressed a concern that the research could be taken to show that women should speak less, because they are better at listening. She emphasised the need for men to speak less and listen more, as well as for women to build up their confidence in speaking,

“It concerned me that the research could encourage people to think women should say less because they are better at listening. I enjoy speaking and putting my ideas out there, I wouldn’t want Spender to be turned around to say that it is not the women’s role to speak,” she said.

Prof. Wong Wai Ching reminded the Pre-Assembly that talking in public and raising your voice is a very culturally defined issue, especially difficult for women from Asian cultures where raising your voice is not always a virtue. She encouraged a collaborative approach to supporting all the women to be heard, where the stronger or more confident women could work to bring forward and support the delegates who don’t have the confidence in the Federation’s languages or in public speaking.

Senior friend Ms. Catherine Johannson (Canada) introduced delegates to the formal procedures for speaking in the Assembly plenary and shared some techniques for encouraging the best results from the meeting’s decisions.

The day concluded with an inspiring round of regional reports, presented from women of each of the Federation’s six global regions, which detailed regional work in women doing theology, women’s spirituality and spirirtual health, women’s leadership and skills development, training in women’s rights advocacy, women’s reproductive health and sexuality issues, HIV-AIDS awareness and destigmatisation training.

The day concluded with a brief review of the new WSCF guidelines for respectful interpersonal behaviour at global meetings. The guidelines were introduced by WSCF global Project Manager Christine Housel from the global policy on dealing with sexual harassment.