International Women's Conferences, Concerns, and Resources

Women's Peace Organizations

• Canadian Voice of Women for Peace's site includes a workshop kit "Creating a Culture of Peace"
• CodePink: Women for Peace is a "is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq."
• Gender and Peace-building is from Christlicher Friedensdienst, a Swiss organization supported for this work by the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-Operation (page is in German, but individual issues of the newsletter are also available in English and French.)
• Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp:
  Group originated in 1981 with marches and demonstrations against siting Cruise missiles at Greenham Common, U.K., an air force base. The effort was successful, and the group continues to protest nuclear weapons. An exhibit about the the Peace Camp from 1981-2000 mounted by the Imperial War Museum includes audio files in which participants describe their experiences. Articles about the actions of the group may be found at The Nuclear Resister #112 and "Threat to Greenham Common." Other activities of women nuclear resisters are covered elsewhere in issues of The Nuclear Resister.
• Nobel Women's Initiative was established in 2006 by sister Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchœ Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire to bring together their extraordinary experiences in a united effort for peace with justice and equality.
  
• Women Building Peace "is an international campaign that aims to promote women's role in peacebuilding through partnership and participation of organisations on the ground; impacting policy on a global level; public awareness raising and the award of a Peace Prize for Women"
• Women for International Peace and Arbitration is based in Glendale, CA, but has chapters in other countries. WIPA is an educational organization that "emphasizes matching material strength with spiritual development in the attainment of peace." Site includes information on project with women in China.
• Women for Peace are "women dedicated to the cause of international disarmament."
• Women in Black holds vigils against violence, war, or militarism. There are many separate organizations that use this name in different countries.
• Women United for Peace is entirely a "Peace Pledge," inviting others to copy the site's banner and to add links to the site (none added yet as of 9/8/99) no contact information provided.
• Women Waging Peace Network is part of the Initiative for Inclusive Security of Hunt Alternatives Fund. Included is a directory of women peace experts. The Network is made up of women peacemakers from conflict areas around the world. The Initiative for Inclusive Security is "committed to filling the gaps in research and policy literature, and to highlighting practical models and strategies for the inclusion of women in peace-building efforts worldwide."
• Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has an International Secretariat, country sections, including the U.S. Section, and the PeaceWomen Project. WILPF is the oldest and largest women's peace and justice organization in the world. Besides peace, globalization/economic justice, human rights, women's rights, and eliminating racism are all WILPF concerns. The PeaceWomen Project highlights UN-focused information and news of peace campaigns and under "resources" links to a bibliography as well as numerous reoprts and articles in fulltext. A timeline of WILPF is available through the U.S. Section site, along with a state-by-state directory of chapters. 1325 Peacewomen E-News, is a WILPF e-newsletter (1325 is the number of the UN Resolution on Women, Peace, and Security.)
• Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace (WLP) E-News. WLP helps women, especially from the South, gain skills to become leaders in advocating for women's human rights, sustainable development, and peace.
• Women's World Summit has a Circles of Compassion initiative, which is a strategy for preparing for a 5th World Conference on Women in 2005.

Peace Organizations With Women's Sections or Projects

• African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) publishes a magazine called Conflict Trends. The March, 2003 issue is on "Women, Peace, and Security."
• Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
  is a "global Internet community for environment, human rights, development, and peace." APC is a federation of "members" who are non-profit Internet service and communication providers. Many women's organizations and peace groups use APC services for email, mounting websites, etc. The U.S. member of APC is the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), which is made up of several networks, including PeaceNet: and WomensNet.
• Global Action to Prevent War, jointly with WILPF has published Beyond Conflict Prevention: How Women Prevent Violence and Build Sustainable Peace.
• International Alert is an independent, international non-governmental organization that "works to help build lasting peace in countries and communities affected or threatened by violent conflict." IA has a Mainstreaming Gender in Peace Support Operations. Publications include "Gender Justice and Accountability in Peace Support Operations: Closing the Gaps," "Women Building Peace: Sharing Know-How. Assessing Impact: Planning for Miracles," "SCR 1325 and the Peacebuilding Commission: Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security Ð Six Years On Report 2006," and more.
• The International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development has a Women's Rights Program and several publications online. Click on "catalogue," then select "Women's Rights" from the categories. Included will be several issues of "Women's Human Rights in Conflict Situations Newsletter."
• International Crisis Group works through "field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict." Searching its website for "women" brings up various reports, such as Beyond Victimhood: Women's Peacebuilding in Sudan, Congo and Uganda.
• International Fellowship of Reconciliation, based in the Netherlands, has a Women's Peacemakers Program. It began in 1997 and works to support and strengthen women's peacemaking initiatives.
• The International Peace Bureau (IPB) was founded in 1892 and is "the world's oldest and most comprehensive international peace federation." It has a women's programme.
• Peace Pledge Union is the oldest pacifist organization in the U.K. Site includes information updates to a Women and Peace Pack.
• The United Nations Develoment Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has a portal on Women, Peace, and Security. Included are gender profiles of countries in conflict. topical issue briefs UNIFEM published Women, War and Peace (2002). FACES: Women as Partners in Peace and Security is a publication of the U.N. Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI). See also the position paper by the NGO Working Group on Women Peace and Security to the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping

Women in Conflict Areas

• General Resources
  • Gender and Armed Conflict (2003) by Amani El Jack, is one of the Cutting Edge Packs published by BRIDGE, which "supports gender advocacy and mainstreaming efforts by bridging the gaps between theory, policy and practice with accessible and diverse gender information in print and online." See also the supporting documents to this report, by Emma Bell with Lata Narayanaswamy.
  • The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action has a Women and Armed Conflict section.
  • The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has a War-Torn Societies Project (WSP), which has published Women and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Issues and Sources ( WSP Occasional Paper No. 3, June 1998).
  • Women Facing War is a study conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, issued in October, 2001. The ICRC has many other documents and links concerned with women and war. Use the search form and select "women and war" from the drop-down menu under Subject.
  • Women For Women supports women who are survivors of war and genocide. It formed in 1993 in response to atrocities against women in Bosnia; then added Rwanda, and more recently, Kosova.
  • The World Revolution, a global activist social movement, has a Women and War site that links to articles, documents, and other sites.
• Afghanistan
  • "Afghan Women in the Peace Process," by Zieba Shorish-Shamley, Director of the Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan (WAPHA) is on the WAPHA site. For links to additional information on Afghan women, see RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), Afghanistan Online, and numerous news sites.
• Africa
  • The Organization for African Unity's African Women's Committee on Peace and Development is described on the Femmes Africa Solidarite site. OAU co-sponsored a conference in Zanzibar, May 17-20, 1999, that resulted in the Zanzibar Declaration on Women and a Culture of Peace
  • "Women and War" ACAS Bulletin Issue 55/56. From a conference held in Dakar, Senegal, Dec. 11-13, 1998.
  • Isis-WICCE, based in Uganda, has been documenting women's experiences of armed conflict; however their reports are not online.
  • Additional African links from WILPF's Peacewomen site.
• Middle East
  • The Bridge: Jewish and Arab Women for Peace in the Middle East
    Founded by Ada Aharoni, The Bridge includes Jewish and Arab Israeli women and their supporters. Ada Aharoni's homepage also links to Horizon, an electronic magazine that promotes conflict resolution through culture and literature, from IPRA: International Peace Research Association. Issue number 4 (Spring 1999) is on "Women, Children and Peace"
  • Building Bridges for Peace brings together Jewish and Arab Israeli young women along with Denver-area high schoolers in an all-girls' camp where they are trained in leadership and conflict resolution.
  • Coalition of Women for Peace
  • Nisan Young Women Leaders
    develops the leadership potential of Jewish and Arab Israeli young women and "fosters communication and cooperative partnerships among them." Three Nisan alumnae participated in Building Bridges for Peace camp.
  • The Jerusalem Link connects two women's organizations: The Jerusalem Center for Women (Palestinian) and Bat Shalom (Israeli).
  • Winning the Peace: Women's Role in Post-Conflict Iraq: proceedings of a meeting held April 21-22, 2003, sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, Washington, DC.
  • Women, Peace and Security News: Iraq from PeaceWomen
• Former Yugoslavia
  • Donna Hughes has several papers on the war in Yugoslavia and women, including
    • "Feminist Organizing in Belgrade, Serbia: 1990-94," from Canadian WomenÕs Studies/Les Cahiers de la Femme, v. 16, no. 1, pp. 95-97, 1995
    • "Feminist Resistance to War and Violence in Serbia," from Frontline Feminisms (Garland Press, 1999)
    • "Women in Black Against the War in Yugoslavia," from Feminista! v.3, no. 1 (May 1999)
    • See also articles linked from her homepage
  • "Women and War: A Serbian Perspective," by Jasmina Tesanovic, in WIN: Women's International Net #23 (July 1999).
• Northern Ireland
  • Northern Ireland Women's Coalition (NIWC)
    The NIWC began in 1996 "to put forward an agenda of reconciliation through dialogue, accommodation and inclusion." Two women (Monica McWilliam and Jane Morrice) were elected to represent the NIWC in the Peace Talks. (Site gone, April, 2006).
  • "Power, Politics, Positionings -- Women in Northern Ireland" is a 1996 report by Democratic Dialogue, "Northern Ireland's first think tank."

Other Resources on Women and Peace

• Feminism and Peace Studies Bibliography, by Jody Ranck (December, 1996)
• Heroines of Peace: The Nine Nobel Women, article by Irwin Abrams
• Peace Magazine site includes tables of contents and selected articles. Articles available in fulltext concerning women include "Saving Kosovars," by Corey Levine (about a friend who was "cleansed,") and "Women in Danger in Afghanistan," by Lara Paul.
• Peace and Bread in Time of War, by Jane Addams (Macmillan, 1922) is available in fulltext, digitized by Harvard University. She describes women's peace movements in the United States during World War I.
• Peace Talks is the theme of volume 2006-2 of WIA: Women i n Action from Isis International -Manila.
• Peace.Protest.Net includes links to anti-war and anti-racist events, petitions, coalitions, and news.
• United Nations Reform: Improving Peace Operations by Advancing the Role of Women is a report from the Stanley Foundation on ways to improve the recruitment and selection of women for United Nations peace operations.

Women's Human Rights

• Women's Human Rights Resources section of the DIANA Project. This is a massive annotated bibliography of articles, documents, and websites maintained by the University of Toronto Law School Library
• Many international human rights organizations have searchable websites or databases of reports and articles. The search terms "women," "females," "gender," or "girls7quot; should be searched in
  • AAAS Human Rights Action Network Alerts case reports
  • Equipo Nizkor
    collects information and documents about human rights in Latin America. Searchable database in English ("women," etc.) or Spanish ("mujeres," etc.) See also Derechos, the "first Internet-based human rights organization," whose 6,000 page site has a searchable index.
  • Human Rights Brief
    published by the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Washington College of Law, American University.
  • Human Rights Watch has a Women's Rights Division.
  • Amnesty International and Amnesty International USA
  • The United Nations has many divisions tracking women's rights and other issues. See UNIFEM's Portal on Women, Peace & Securty and for further links: United Nations Sites With Women and Gender Information, another page from the University of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian's Office.
  • Additional sites for international organizations with women's human rights interests are linked from International Women's Resources,
    which is another page from the University of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian's Office.

About

Internet Workshop at the 24th Annual Conference of the UW System Women's Studies Consortium and the 15th Annual Conference of the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict October 22, 1999, Univ. of Wisconsin-Platteville presented by Phyllis Holman Weisbard, UW System Women's Studies Librarian(Updated periodically thereafter)