Peace, Conflicts and International Women's Human Rights
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."
- 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. See also "Threat to Greenham Common."
Activities of women nuclear resisters are covered 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 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 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 country sections, including a 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
(also on the Social Science Research Council site).
- 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." Select the theme "gender."
- 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." Site has a Gender Issues section.
- Peace Pledge Union is the oldest pacifist organization in the U.K. Site includes information
updates to a Women and Peace Pack.
- SwissPeace's "Gender & Peacebuilding" resource page has links to various documents.
- 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 drop-down menu for Key Topics and select "women."
- 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.
- 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
- Middle East
- Former Yugoslavia
- Donna Hughes has several papers on the war in Yugoslavia and women,
including
- 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
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 section .
- 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, War and Peace 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
This page was originally compiled for an 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. Links have been checked periodically thereafter and dead links removed, but
the page is otherwise not updated.
