The Decade: its links to JPIC - Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation - Churches in Solidarity with Women: A Mid-Decade Assessment

The Ecumenical Decade--Churches in Solidarity with Women was born out of a need for a long-term framework to keep women's issues and concerns high on the ecumenical agenda. When the idea of an Ecumenical Decade was first taken seriously in mid-1986, Priscilla Padolina and I, who were both working in the WCC Sub-unit on Women in Church and Society, were seeking an effective way to counter the backlash against women's struggles which we feared would arise. We believe that the churches, explicit commitments to solidarity with women could make a difference, not exclusively in the churches. The idea of a decade we borrowed from Bishop Uwadi of the Methodist Church in Nigeria, who had said during the WCC central committee meeting in Buenos Aires in 1985, just after the end of the UN Women's Decade, that he believed the churches needed a women's decade no less than the United Nations.

The Ecumenical Decade, which was approved in January 1987, has links to many ecumenical programmes. In this article I will focus especially on its interlinkages with the conciliar process of mutual commitment for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC).

The lost "participatory" society and community

The issue of participation and the challenges to form democratic and participatory decision-making structures in communities, societies and in international bodies did not come to the forefront in the early JPIC process. The invitation to the churches by the 1983 Vancouver assembly to engage in the JPIC process did not explicitly spell out the issue of just participation in decision- and policy-making. Resistance to the powers of death was emphasized, but not necessarily what kind of structures of life could replace oppression by the powers of death. The shift from the earlier WCC emphasis on a "just, participatory and sustainable society" to the Vancouver JPIC call paved the way for a special commitment to women's participation in decision-making.

The second aim of the Ecumenical Decade calls for shared leadership and shared decision-making as an affirmation of women's work and women's contributions to the

world's communities. In 1994 almost 90 per cent of the world's parliamentarians are men. This means that women have all too few possibilities to influence political decisions and policies directly. To be sure, not all decisions important for the well-being of human communities and the whole human family are taken in legislative assemblies. Many decisive policies are made in the approximately five thousand transnational companies and commercial banks. Although no official statistics exist on the presence of women in these economic power centres, it is safe to assume that the presence of women in decision- and policy-making positions does not exceed that in parliaments. Indeed, some estimates suggest that fewer than 3 per cent of the leading positions in TNCs and commercial banks are held by women.(1)

This marginalization of women from making decisions that will influence and often determine their lives and the well-being of their communities is a worldwide phenomenon. Among countries with fewer than 10 per cent women parliamentarians are Kenya, USA, Brazil, India, Japan and France; Aotearoa-New Zealand, Poland and Iraq have between 10 and 20 per cent; China, Iceland, Germany and the Netherlands 20-30 per cent; and Guyana, Denmark, Cuba, Norway, Finland and Sweden 30-40 per cent.(2) Christina Bergqvist, a Swedish researcher, concludes: "It is difficult to find any general patterns. The only common feature all over the world is that women are subordinate to men concerning political power. In no parliament has there ever been as many women as men."(3)

Excluded from centres of decision-making, women have been unable to decide upon health care, child care and social services supported by the society. They cannot decide upon the content of education or the distribution of educational opportunities. They are unable to set limits for military spending or to try to stop large projects which damage the environment. Women have not had the opportunity to respond creatively to the movement from often disadvantaged rural areas to the cities, with the increasing problems of unemployment and lack of housing that result.

The fact that women have not had the decision-making power to determine the political culture of their nation does not mean that women are powerless to influence and persuade. Women are organizing and resisting damaging policies, taking initiatives to build small-scale communities based on principles of justice, peace and care for creation. However, as long as women and the life-affirming policies of women are not the primary objective of the political decision-making centres, national or international, the opportunities for success are limited. I would argue that the struggle for justice, peace and the integrity of creation should never be allowed to divorce itself from the struggle for participation in the politically decisive forums for decision-making, including parliaments.