En takk til/a thank you to Janice Raymond, CATW
Kvinnefrontens hovedsamarbeidspartner internasjonalt siden 1996 har vært Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW). Janice Raymond, som har vært co-director i CATW, trer nå tilbake fra dette vervet. En stor digital happening ble arrangert for henne 11. januar hvor 40 feminister deltok fra hele verden. Agnete Strøm fra Kvinnefronten holdt denne hilsenen til Janice på dette møtet.
WORDS FROM THE WOMEN’S FRONT HONORING THE WORK OF JANICE RAYMOND, AS SHE IS NOW LEAVING THE BOARD OF CATW, 11. JANUARY 2021.
I first laid my eyes on you Janice in 1995 in Beijing during the UN Women’s Conference. CATW had its big double length seminar on prostitution and trafficking and I had managed to secure myself a seat up front in the huge hall.
Afterwards I shared two sentences with you before the rest of the audience came rushing up to speak with you.
I said to you: if CATW needs funding, please contact Women’s Front. And you did. We had money from the Norwegian Women’s Telethon, and later from Norad.
We, CATW and Women’s Front have since then been close partners. The funding started in 1996, ended in 2018, but we are forever partners.
What a fabulous and fulfilling work this has been. If you Janice was the first person in CATW I met personally, we, Women’s Front, suddenly found ourselves linked up to a huge group of brilliant women from several continents, we all took part in the CATW project you coordinated. We were included in the CATW family.
With you and CATW we entered the entire world. My own and the Women’s Front’s feminist horizon was developed and broadened.
We in Norway made great use of our connection to you: not a year passed without a visit from you Janice or other members of the CATW board and family.
You all had a commitment to hand over your knowledge on prostitution and trafficking to Norwegian feminists.
Together we lobbied and pressed the political parties to adapt a law that banned the purchase of sexual services. Heavy battle it was, but great fun. We got the law in 2009. Thank you, Janice, thank you all in the CATW family.
Janice, you are a veritable toolbox, your book – Not a choice, not a job – , will always be a “turning point” for new readers. Your book consolidates our feminist ideology and policy and helps us to come up with answers to a number of questions
In spite of difficulties, war and crises that worsen the sexual oppression of women, you never give up, we never give up. We have seen this before and we know that we have the strength and we believe in our cause. Thank you, Janice.