Speech by UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem at the Black Feminism Forum

Keynote Remarks by UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem at the Black Feminism Forum in Bridgetown,Barbados.

Queen Nzinga
Nana Yaa Asantewaa
Nanny of the Maroons
Sarah Ann Gill
Marie-Jeanne Lamartiniére
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Nellie Weekes
Mariama Ba
Claudia Jones
Audrey Lorde
Chief Bisi Ogunleye
Wangari Maathai
Wynante Patterson
Marielle Franco
Angela Davis
Graça Machel
Peggy Antrobus
Gay McDougall
Byllye Y. Avery
Amina Mama.

Our grandmothers, our foremothers.

We stand on the shoulders of pathbreakers.

Sabah al-khair! Buenos días! Bonjour! Good morning!

Here in Barbados, holding space with Black feminists from Africa and its proud diaspora, hosted by the Black Feminist Fund, we gather.

We come together to plot and plan a way forward in the Pan-Africanist spirit of Ubuntu, dignity, self-determination, justice, and Peace that unites Black feminists everywhere. 

This year, the world celebrates the 30th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). In Cairo in 1994, 179 countries unanimously agreed that reproductive health, women’s empowerment, and gender equality are the bedrock of people-centered sustainable development.

In the three decades since UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, has worked with women and young people in all their diversities, across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and the Caribbean, Arab States and Europe, to deliver on that ICPD vision of a more just, a more prosperous, and a more peaceful world that fully upholds women’s rights and choices.

And everywhere, it is often Black women who consistently lay the groundwork for progressive action that facilitates our collective effort towards a more equitable world. It was Black women who invented the concept of reproductive justice, a movement also born of the Cairo ICPD process 30 years ago, which unites the concepts of reproductive health, social justice and human rights.

By linking reproductive justice with the global human rights agenda, Black women have been at the forefront of unlocking positive social change. Around the globe, our feminist sisters are challenging discriminatory laws, policies and norms that threaten bodily autonomy and limit full access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The flagrant disparities that affect Black women demand swift action.

Black women: three to four times more likely to die during childbirth. Why? Because they have less access to quality sexual and reproductive health care services. And again, we have to ask, why? Afro-descendant communities are disproportionately affected by poverty, by gender-based violence, by conflict and by climate change. And we all have to ask again, why?

At UNFPA, across the 120 countries where we operate, we have taken decisive steps to prioritize the reproductive health and rights of people often left behind.

To advance the agenda of the newly-formed Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, and to combat racism and all forms of discrimination, UNFPA provides technical support to address the Forum’s needs.

We build population data systems that support the disaggregation of statistics by gender, ethnicity, and race. We use such data to identify disparities, to deploy interventions and to measure progress. It is evidence that makes the invisible visible and promotes dialogue on difficult issues relating to structural racism and power imbalances.

In the past three years, UNFPA has worked in partnership with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), UN Women, UNICEF and others on new publications to strengthen the evidence base on inequalities faced by Afro-descendant women and girls.

Here in the Caribbean, we work with governments to ensure that Black women and girls are visible in census data. It’s simple: ask the right questions and measure what you treasure. In Guyana and Suriname, for example, data are being used to reveal the vast socio-economic impact of adolescent pregnancy. 

Women, and in particular adolescent girls, will be the key drivers of development. The vulnerabilities they confront are the vulnerabilities of their communities and countries. 

So, let’s imagine a world where equality and justice form the pillars of society where a 10-year-old girl, on the cusp of her adolescence, navigates her neighborhood without fear. 

Her school is a vibrant hub of learning, including comprehensive sexuality education.  She is well prepared for her first menstrual period, having learned about the biology of her body and having been equipped with life-saving information including how to protect herself against harassment and sexual abuse. She gets around in a wheelchair, her diversity is celebrated, inclusion is not an afterthought. In this world, our common future is bright.

If we believe in human rights and want to see that brighter future — we must defend sexual and reproductive health and rights and stand up for the full equality of women and adolescent girls.

At UNFPA, we understand the strategic value of building partnerships and strengthening Black feminist movements and organizations from the ground up. This is a worthy pursuit for Black feminist philanthropy. 

It is Black feminists who understand and can articulate the experiences of Black women.

Let us bring greater attention to the multiple, intersecting forms of discrimination and oppression that affect Black women, both in Africa and the diaspora, and let us dismantle how these factors fundamentally shape their future prospects. 

In her seminal work ‘The Global Women’s Movement,’ feminist activist and scholar Dr. Peggy Antrobus posed this question: 

How might a global women’s movement strengthen and renew itself to find ways out of this troubling conjuncture of forces that poses particular threats to the security of women and people of colour? 

Indeed, Black feminist activism is not for the faint of heart.

We will need to recalibrate our collective efforts to assure that Black feminist organizations garner the critical support they need. We must help women be able to help other women.

UNFPA engages partners to build cross-sectoral alliances, including in humanitarian settings, to understand how to better support social movements. 

Today, 6 February, we unite in putting survivors at the forefront of ending female genital mutilation (FGM).

Women comprise over 70 per cent of the world’s health workforce — which is still mostly male-led. Together with the International Confederation of Midwives, we have shed light on the irreplaceable role of midwifery. Midwives save lives.

UNFPA is collaborating with them with the aim of establishing the first-ever endowed professorship in sexual and reproductive justice, spearheaded by the City University of New York School of Public Health. It will honor midwife Byllye Avery, founder of the Black Women’s Health Imperative. 

UNFPA is helping to set the stage for meaningful types of exchanges, like what we are doing here, to address the root causes of inequality, to figure out how to foster the political will to move forward, and to encourage the full, vocal and visible participation of groups that are either left behind – or pushed behind. 

In this 30th year of ICPD, we are facing a rollback on decades of progress in sexual and reproductive health and rights. Make no mistake, those leading the opposition are organized and extremely well-funded. All across the world, we are seeing them attempt to curtail the reproductive rights gains that have been made over the past decades. This is a contested space and we need to step up and be counted. 

One example: the dramatic spike in homophobic and transphobic rhetoric and violence. And there are historic parallels: past attempts to eradicate racial segregation and discrimination triggered a similar type of backlash that was directed at members of racial minorities. 

However, history also affirms that pushback is common in relation to big progress, as is well understood by feminist and other movements that helped forge the ICPD agenda. We stand ready to partner with you to create spaces for dialogue and understanding to revive and renew the momentum, to reclaim any gains lost.

Dear sisters,

Black women throughout history have organized, mobilized and built powerful movements.

It was Audre Lorde who told us: “… the master's tool will never dismantle the master's house ... they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

And genuine change is what we insist upon!

Today, we have the power to reshape narratives and to challenge norms, to build a world without war – and one where everyone, everywhere can thrive in justice, equality, and dignity.

Your power can unlock the great social change that will end needless deaths during childbirth, that will quell gender-based violence once and for all in our lifetime and that will ensure the rights and choices and autonomy of people over their own bodies. 

Know that it is your dedication, your commitment, and your voice that will be essential to forging a future where the aspirations of today become a reality for generations to come.

Despite any political headwinds, despite the naysayers, despite the doubters – women in all our diversities are on the forward march.

A luta continua, never give up.

¡Adelante!