BY TERRICA STRUDWICK
TOWNSVILLE — Indonesian trade union leader Dita Sari was one of 29 Third World women activists denied a visa to attend the annual International Women's Conference and the Network of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) conference held July 5-12 in Townsville.
The impact of Australia's racist policies, highlighted by the inability of many international guests to attend, was taken up in discussions about the disproportionate impact that Australia's refugee policy has on women.
Other discussions at the conference included abortion rights and the state of funding for women's services.
Probably because of the location, the 2002 NOWSA conference was the smallest yet held, with 120 women attending.
At the conference action on July 11, around 80 women voiced their opposition to Australia's racist immigration policies, marching to Liberal MP Peter Lindsay's office behind a banner stating "denying visas silences women; end racist immigration policies".
Kerryn Williams, an activist from Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific, said denying these women visas is to "undermine our ability to hear from women activists who oppose war and globalisation. It also makes it hard to build solidarity with women who are living under imperialist domination."
The conference decided to endorse the campus refugee sanctuary campaign, a co-ordinated push to get student referendums up on campuses across the country to vote on designating a campus a refugee sanctuary.
NOWSA will be held at Sydney's Macquarie University in July 2003. Kate Wilson, a member of the Resistance national executive, told Green Left Weekly: "Resistance intends to seriously build NOWSA 2003 nationally as a major event. We need to ensure the conference is far larger next year and provides a boost to the feminist movement here in Australia."
From Green Left Weekly, July 24, 2002.
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