Red de Mujeres: CSB in Nicaragua

Author(s): Julie Ferguson
Publication date: Wednesday 28 September 2005

What are the particular preconditions in your country that enable or obstruct civil society building strategies of your organisation?

Based on your experiences, how do initiatives and strategies of your organisation contribute to improving the responsiveness and performance of the state?

"ADVOCACY WITH THE STATE, COMMITTING THE STATE, STRATEGIES TO BUILD CIVIL SOCIETY"

In representation of the Nicaraguan Network of Women against Violence.

What are your county’s particular conditions that obstruct or limit the building of strategies by civil society and your organization?
Nicaragua is a poor country, located in the centre of America and colonized by the Europeans starting in 1502. After 300 years of slavery, looting of our resources and extermination of almost all aboriginal people, it achieved independence in 1821, together with the other countries of Central America.

Between 1821 and the first decades of 1900, the country was submerged in internal wars led by different factions of the Creoles, children of the European conquerors, who fought over control of the country. In 1936 a military dictatorship was established with the support of the US government. That Somoza family dictatorship lasted in power until July 19, 1979.

From 1979 to 1990 a revolutionary political process was promoted that tried to deal with the social injustices through a socialist project. In the revolutionary years, men and women participated massively in multiple aspects of national life, but the US Government supported a counterrevolutionary movement that involved the country in war for almost a decade.

Although women participated massively with the Sandinista revolution in the eighties and made our presence publicly and politically visible, we did not succeed in formulating public policies to deal with our specific demands, nor were issues such as machismo and violence against women discussed publicly.

Starting in 1990, Nicaragua began a pacification process and the construction of a civil rather than military state. An economic process determined by neoliberal policies was initiated that has involved reducing the state down to a normative apparatus, and designating private enterprise as the exclusive motor of the economy and the free market as the prevailing economic system. The political system is marked by formal democracy and unrestricted freedom of speech.

This history has meant that Nicaraguan society in general, organized or not, has been involved in frequent domestic wars and only now is trying to build a society in peace.

Moreover, globalisation and neoliberalism have produced a change in the country's social fabric, weakening its social movements, robbing of them of the role of demanding the rights of their base with the state and political society. The state, subordinated to the commands and conditions of the international financial institutions, has turned its back on civil society, to which it owes its position in power and in whose benefit it must govern, to the detriment of the democratic process and real participation by the citizenry in defending and exercising its rights.

In economic and social terms, the context does not favor the organization of civil society. Although the macroeconomic growth indicators show a positive trend, an economic crisis has intensified among the population, as numerous economic studies and development reports indicate.

The political transition begun in 1990 laid the groundwork for democracy, but it also encouraged the looting of state goods, and particularly the dismantling of the health and education services, which officials justified with the pretext of "needing" to privatise the services provided by the government to benefit the vast majorities, and to reinstall a market economy that only favors big business and foreign investors.

The unfolding of this political system and the impact of the neoliberal policies has led to the prevailing fragmentation, lack of consensus and weakness of the social and political actors.

Despite everything, however, civil society is clearly a counterweight to the system's authoritarian tendencies; although dispersed and weak right now, it is still a counterbalance with greater potential than the media itself.

Specifying the particular conditions that limit the construction of strategies by civil society, we can mention:

1. The widespread poverty.
2. The low education levels of the vast majority of the population.
3. The incipient model of democracy that has only recently been implanted in the country and is still in construction.
4. The lack of a rule of law, which does, however, have a judicial structure that gives the population a framework to fight for its rights. We are building laws. The Nicaraguan parliament recently approved a law of civic participation.
5. High corruption levels and the lack of sensitivity by recent rulers to the nation's pressing problems and those of women in particular.
6. After years of military and political conflict, Nicaraguan society is very fragmented. The political system strengthens the power of political parties over the rest of society's organizations.
7. Nicaraguan civil society is still weak and fragmented, without a common agenda.

Based on your experience, how do your organization’s initiatives and strategies help improve the state’s responsibilities and commitments?
The Network of Women Against Violence is a broad, diverse and participatory arena of national coordination and advocacy of the Nicaraguan women's movement. Around 150 groups, associations, collectives, women's centers, Christian women's groups, unions, local networks and individual women participate voluntarily in the Network, through which we have a presence in 38 territories, including Nicaragua's Caribbean regions, where the country's indigenous and black population is concentrated.

We are organized in the Network because one of the most important and dramatic situations that Nicaraguan women face is the current physical, sexual and emotional violence within their family nucleus, including abuse of girls and boys by their fathers or another relative.

Our mission is "to transform the relationships of power to eradicate the domestic and sexual violence that attacks the dignity and the physical, psychic, moral, social and sexual integrity of women of all ages" by influencing the state and society in general.

The Network of Women Against Violence is currently recognized socially as an initiator of charges and promoter of consciousness-building campaigns against violence, as well as offering the means to make demands against it.

The Network represents Nicaragua's women to many people. The state recognizes it as women's interlocutor, as demonstrated by its inclusion in the government's consultation entities such as the Social and Economic Planning Council (CONPES) and the National Commission against Violence, among other advocacy arenas. This social and state recognition means at the same time that the Network is called upon to represent, speak about and participate in all sorts of situations that affect women.

As a coordinating entity for different expressions of the Nicaraguan women's movement, we have various positions regarding the state. Some have confrontational and accusatory positions and others opt for coordination. In general, we try to agree on common points and respect the actions of each organization in pursuit of specific objectives or goals.

In this context, we have promoted diverse strategies and actions to influence the state and society:

1. We coordinate actions with the Network's member women and organizations in the territories, supporting their struggles, demands, mobilizations and accusations.
2. We participate in civil society's coordination arenas such as the Civil Coordinator and the Federation of Nongovernmental Organisations, to build consensus regarding particular situations of the national reality.
3. We maintain coordination with the nongovernmental organisations and assistance centers that work especially with and on behalf of women.
4. We promote actions with municipal authorities to get them to include specific actions that benefit women in their policies and budgets, such as the providing property titles to women, including them in housing programs, etc.
5. We coordinate with the women representatives in the national parliament to promote laws on behalf of women or ensure that the laws being promoted include a gender focus.
6. We participate in coordination arenas with the state such as the Council of the Nicaraguan Women's Institute (INIM); the National Economic and Social Planning Council (CONPES); and the National Commission against Violence.
7. We coordinate with the Human Rights Defence Attorney's Office, particularly its Special Office for Women.
8. We promote actions directed to the judicial authorities so that trials are conducted according to law and not to the detriment of women.
9. We maintain a permanent position of denunciations via the media regarding the violation of women's rights and particularly acts of violence toward women.