Kaos GL as the new CSBR member!

The Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) was founded in 2001. It was only a few weeks after September 11, 2001, when 19 NGO representatives and experts from Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yemen came together for the landmark meeting Women, Sexuality and Social Change in the Middle East and Mediterranean held in Istanbul in September 2001. The meeting aimed  at breaking the taboos around sexuality and the very significant role it plays in the disempowerment of women in the Middle East and North Africa.

 

Kaos GL has participated in the 4th annual conference that took place in Kuala Lumpur in 2011. The repesentative of Kaos GL, Nevin Öztop, has shared the experiences of the Regional Network Against Homophobia, an initiative coordinated since May 2011. Kaos GL has been welcomed as the new official member of CSBR as of October 11, 2012. The membership includes LGBT organizations, women’s groups and academics from the region. Currently the coalition has members from Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, Malaysia, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Algeria and Yemen.

 

Until 2011, Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) – New Ways, co-founder of the Coalition, acted as the international coordination office of CSBR. A decade after its inception, the coalition appointed CSBR member and Beirut-based feminist collective Nasawiya as the new international coordinating office. The coalition just held its 5th annual meeting on September 18-23, 2012, in Alexandria, Egypt.

 

The “Regional Network Against Homophobia”, coordinated by Kaos GL, has members from Croatia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Greece, Bosnia Herzegovina, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Palestine, Iran,  Lebanon, Israel, Armenia, Georgia and Turkey.