Our work on this constituency goes as far back as the Asian Rural Women’s Regional Consultation in Manila, Philippines in 2007. As a result of the regional consultation, a “Rural Women’s Declaration on Rights, Empowerment and Liberation” (dubbed the “Manila Declaration”) was created. The Manila Declaration demanded and asserted rural women’s rights to self-determination, secure livelihoods, land and productive resources, just wages, health, food sovereignty and democracy.
The first ever Asian Rural Women’s Conference in 2008 that was held in Tamil Nadu, India forged unity among the 700 rural women leaders, national women’s groups, regional networks representing peasants, agricultural workers, indigenous women, Dalit women, workers and migrants from around 21 countries in Asia and the Pacific. These processes paved the way to the formation of the Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC) in March 2008.