This briefing was created by the CSO FfD Mechanism for activists and advocates who are interested in getting involved in or learning more about how global economic governance relates to different sectoral and/or local and national struggles in Asia – including feminist movements, food sovereignty and land rights movements, climate justice activists, youth and student movements, human rights advocates, and more.
Farmer women and Batak women are the victims who suffer the most in tenure conflicts in North Sumatra due to plantation projects. However, the women continued to struggle to defend their ancestral lands.
Full movie available soon.
For the Dayak people, the forest is a symbol of women’s dignity. However, the indigenous people on the island of Borneo have to face land grabbing which has an impact on their lives.
This documentary by Aksi! for gender, social and ecological justice and New Age Cinema is the result of collaboration with the Mamut Menteng Women’s Solidarity. The full movie will be available soon.
The Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, together with its members at the national level across Asia, carried out the Asia Days of Action – “Tax Justice Now for People’s Recovery” from 23 to 24 September 2022 (click here to watch a video summary).
Multisector groups from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan took part in days of action, holding seminars, protest actions, solidarity gatherings and photo actions. The groups stressed the urgency to address policies that severely undermine the capacities of people to prepare for, respond to, survive, recover, and rebuild when crisis or natural disasters strike.
Highlights in India included a workshop bringing together CSOs, domestic workers and migrant workers, a puppet show on unjust tax regimes, poster-making by children, and a ‘Ride for a Fair Tax’ that mobilised domestic workers on bicycle.
In Bangladesh, garment workers protested in front of the National Press Club, demanding an end to VAT.
In Pakistan, the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum organised a rally against injustices in the tax system in Pakistan, and a seminar was held to discuss the need for taxes to work for ordinary people and help deliver public services and much needed relief in light of the floods that struck Pakistan that month.
Click here to read the press release
Click here to watch a video of the Asia Days of Action for Tax Justice 2021
The Asia Days of Action for Tax Justice were held last 23-24 September to amplify peoples’ demands from countries across Asia and the Global South for urgent tax justice towards ending inequalities and building genuine Peoples’ Recovery and resilience in the face of multiple crises.
The multiple crises brought to the fore by the pandemic have widened inequalities that had already been present and worsening before the COVID-19 outbreak. Any serious attempt at ensuring peoples’ recovery and addressing inequalities would require bold and decisive actions that strike at the root causes of inequalities and multiple crises.
This is a second press release published by APMDD during the Asia Days of Action, focused on the role of tax systems in addressing inequalities.
A statement of solidarity with the youth of Asia and beyond in their struggle to end inequalities and fight for just, equitable, fair societies compatible with a healthy planet. The statement calls for an end to abusive tax practices and illicit financial flows and demands that governments adopt progressive tax policies to increase capacities for generating revenue. Furthermore, it demands that governments take urgent and decisive actions for pro-youth and pro-people socio-economic development.
Outside the W20 Summit, on July 20, indigenous Toba women and a number of activists unfurled a giant banner that read “Women of North Sumatra Against Deforestation” on Lake Toba and a number of action posters on the boat. The action was a protest against the discussions at the W20 meeting that did not address the problem of economic injustice experienced by Indonesian women, especially indigenous women. This meeting was actually held only to produce policies that would benefit the country’s economic and political elites, corporations and international financial institutions, and not to discuss the real interests of the people.
Among other media coverage, Narasi, an online media outlet responded with a comprehensive video of the story and interviewed Aksi! and its partner KSPPM.
Side event to the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the webinar was organised by the Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (GFoD) and Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP). The event focused on the discussion on “Building forward better” around four interlinked themes – vaccines, hunger, debt and social protection, and livelihood while discussing it in context of the achievement of the SDGs, especially SDG 5 using the gender lens.
From school books we know that forced cultivation systems were introduced by the Dutch colonial government through Governor General van den Bosch. Today, almost 200 years after that dark period, we seem to be able to witness it again on the land of Kalimantan through the Food Estate which is a National Strategic Project during the era of President Jokowi’s government.
As KPA Secretary General Dewi Sartika said, “if analyzed, the Food Estate system is actually similar to the forced cultivation system, so it can be concluded that Indonesia’s economic policies have returned to the era of colonialism.”
