[WCUSP] Fwd: Paying Homage to Women's Roles in Peace and Disarmament

[Odile Hugonot Haber]

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From: Susi Snyder <susi.snyder at wilpf.ch>
Date: May 27, 2008 11:05 AM
Subject: Paying Homage to Women's Roles in Peace and Disarmament
To: WILPF news <wilpf-news at wilpf.ch>






Published on Monday, May 26, 2008 by The Women's International Perspective
Paying Homage to Women's Roles in Peace and Disarmament

by Binalakshmi Nepram Mentschel

Our world is hovering at the edge of an abyss, driven there by man's
unreason. One crisis is cresting on top of another… The sinister
developments in the advance towards the brink of disaster all
interact, worsened by the calamitous threat - namely the arms race and
militarization. These essentially ethical problems of wars, weapons,
and tools of violence have existed since time immemorial, but in the
present era they have been deeply aggravated and will continue to be
aggravated if a halt is not called for. - Nobel Peace Laureate Alva
Myrdal

A major source of devastation, human suffering and poverty, war
affects all aspects of economic, social and political life. And over
time, the nature of warfare itself has changed — it is no longer
soldiers who suffer the largest number of casualties, but civilians.
In World War I, just 14 percent of deaths were civilian; today, that
number has risen to over 75 percent. The nature of the battlefield has
changed as well — no longer fought in remote battlefields between
armies, wars now rage in our homes, schools, our communities and
increasingly on women's bodies.May 24th is celebrated globally as
International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament. This article was
written in honor of the many women who have campaigned tirelessly for
global peace.

Historical Perspective on Women's Peace Movements

For the first time in history, on April 28, 1915, the International
Congress for Women — a group of 1,200 women from warring and neutral
countries that later became the Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom (WILPF) — protested against World War I at The Hague in
the Netherlands. Their historic meeting thus began a century in which
women's organizations and movements mobilized in support of peace and
disarmament.

Later during the Cold War, women lobbied against arms stockpiling and
the possible use of nuclear weapons. After a conference in 1959 on the
"Responsibility of Women in the Atomic Age," the newly formed European
Movement of Women Against Nuclear Disarmament and other women's groups
embarked on massive education and petition campaigns. A few years
later in 1961, WILPF pioneered the US/Soviet women's seminars to help
break Cold War barriers. In 1964, a movement called Women Strike for
Peace was started in America while women from all over the world
converged on a NATO conference in the Netherlands to demonstrate
against its plans to establish a multilateral nuclear force. Five
years later, WILPF sponsored an international conference on ending
chemical and biological warfare.

During the 1980s, the women of Greenham Common in England inspired the
world with their opposition to nuclear weapons and bases by leaving
their homes and dedicating themselves to peace — just as men have done
for centuries to fight wars.

In the 1990s women continued the anti-war movement as mothers in both
Macedonia and Chechnya. Dedicated to the prevention of gun deaths and
injuries, the Million Mom March was founded in 1999 in the United
States to support both the victims and survivors of gun violence.

In the Pacific region, women have organized against nuclear testing;
in Japan, women set up a peace camp at the base of Mount Fuji. Women's
groups in African countries like Angola, Burundi, Kenya, Somalia and
Niger have also advocated for peace and reconstruction in their
countries.

Why are women asking for disarmament?

One of the most compelling factors in the mobilization of women to
form their own peace organizations is their role as mothers. Time and
time again, women have organized themselves to protect their children:
the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina protested the
"disappearance" of their children during the reign of a tyrannical
military dictatorship; the Meira Paibis challenged the proliferation
of armed conflict in the northeastern region of Manipur in India. In
Sri Lanka, a group of more than 2,000 women from across the island,
both directly and indirectly affected by the war, formed the
Association of War Affected Women (AWAW) — their sons and husbands
either missing/missing in action, killed, or disabled due to the
conflict.A key factor to understanding why women have formed
organizations specifically in favor of disarmament is the connection
many women have made between gender equality and peace. The 1915
meeting of women in The Hague concluded that permanent peace could be
built only on the basis of equal rights (including equal rights
between women and men), justice within and between national
independence and freedom. Women have linked various forms of violence
— such as human rights violations, violence against women, and
structural violence in economic disparities — to the violence seen
during wars. Through this perspective it becomes clear that
disarmament relates not only to all forms of violence but also to the
creation of a culture of peace, which can be perpetuated just as
easily from generation to generation.

An individual's decision to disarm is influenced by the perception of
personal and economic security. This makes disarmament an
ever-evolving process that is dependent on myriad factors such as
crime levels, economic opportunities, the state's ability to protect
its citizens and the degree to which gun possession is legitimized in
society.

Unsurprisingly, men have traditionally been associated with the use,
ownership and promotion of small arms, as they are overwhelmingly the
owners and users of guns. They are also the primary victims of gun
violence.

The security implications for women, while perhaps not comparable to
those faced directly by men in battle, are also enormous. When guns
flow freely in communities, and are not removed once a conflict ends,
women run the risk of not only facing lethal domestic violence, but
becoming more vulnerable as they manage their daily workload; women
are typically the most burdened with caring for those who have been
injured or disabled by gunfire.

Women, Peace & Security

Evidence shows that women's views towards weapons are much different
than those of men. Inherent in this difference is an opportunity for
peacemakers to carefully nurture and promote more women's
participation in disarmament processes. According to the United
Nations Development Programme:

"In sensitisation campaigns, disarmament should be separated from
military disarmament and women should be the priority target audience
because they know the negative side of guns, unlike male users who
tend to focus on the upside of gun ownership. So when community
disarmament and rebuilding strategies are planned, women are better
targets."

Adopted in October 2000, the United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security specifically mentions the
need to incorporate gender perspectives in all areas of peace support
operations, including disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation
initiatives. This resolution was a monumental and historical turning
point in acknowledging women's direct contribution to disarmament. The
resolution codified in international law a tradition of women actively
advocating for peace and disarmament at every level of
decision-making.

A year later in 2001, the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs, along
with the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the
Advancement for Women of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs
issued a special collection of briefing notes entitled, "Gender
Perspectives on Disarmament." In addition, Reaching Critical Will, a
project of WILPF's UN office, has monitored disarmament at the UN
since 1999 and continues to play an important role in the collection
and distribution of vital information from UN meetings on disarmament.

Success Stories

In 1998, UNDP and UNIFEM developed a 4-year pilot project aimed at
increasing women's role in the Weapons for Development Programme.
Implemented in the Albanian districts of Gramsch, Elbasan and Diber,
it found that women's support for the project contributed to its
success as their involvement led to increased weapons collection.
Albanian women who had no prior knowledge of gun related issues
started understanding the complexities of disarmament. As a result,
participating women were able to effectively advocate with local
authorities, including police and others.

According to disarmament expert, Dr. Vanessa Farr, "Women felt that
their participation in the family decision-making process had been
improved because their preparation [in the pilot project] gave them a
more authoritative opinion in family and community security
decisions." It became clear that through their involvement, women
started understanding disarmament from a more comprehensive
perspective, one that would allow their communities to make political,
social and economic progress, and not just as a means for reducing
criminality and armed violence.

On International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament, we salute the
extraordinary courage of the women across the world who have dedicated
their lives to peace.

* * *

Note from editor at The WIP: Bina's article was originally published
on May 24, 2007 but is just as relevant today as it was a year ago.
Here at The WIP, we celebrate women's roles as peacemakers and
catalysts for global change.

* * *

Ms. Binalakshmi Nepram Mentschel is presently Oxfam GB's Consultant on
Control Arms and the Arms Trade Treaty. She is also the founding
Secretary General of the New Delhi based Control Arms Foundation of
India (CAFI) and of the Manipuri Women Gun Survivor Network (MWGSN)
based in the Indo-Burma border state of Manipur.

Copyright (c) 2008The Women's International Perspective





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