1994
DAWN is very active in the preparations for the ICPD as well as at ICPD itself and thereafter. Rosina Wiltshire, Gita Sen, Sonia Corrêa, and Peggy Antrobus of DAWN contribute to Population and Environment: Rethinking the Debate, which challenges depoliticised narratives by placing population within broader social, economic, and political contexts. This book is co-edited by DAWN’s founder member, Lourdes Arizpe; it reinforces a justice-based, feminist rethinking of sustainability rooted in the lived realities of women in the global South.
DAWN also contributes intensively to Population Policies Reconsidered: Health, Empowerment and Rights through multiple chapters; Gita Sen is a co-editor. DAWN’s publication Population and Reproductive Rights: Feminist Perspectives from the South (edited by Sonia Corrêa) is grounded in three years of consultations across 50 countries, bridging local realities with global policy debates and foregrounding Southern feminist perspectives in Cairo.
At a crucial preparatory meeting in Rio in January 1994, DAWN helps draft the Women’s Declaration on Population Policies and acts as a crucial bridge between women’s rights advocates from the South and North, overcoming deep divides. At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, DAWN played a significant role in shifting the debate from demographic control to sexual and reproductive health and rights and development justice. DAWN members are also active in the feminist HERA (Health, Empowerment, Rights and Accountability) group whose members play a vital role at the ICPD.