Women, War & Peace, a five-part PBS series produced by Global Fund for Women board member, Abigail Disney, uncovers the powerful role of women building peace during war and conflict.
This summer, the Global Fund for Women will release a new publication of women’s perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). “Telling Our Stories” is a compendium of reflections from several Advisors, Board Members, and staff on lessons learned from the MENA women’s movements. The collection of essays covers a broad array of issues facing women in the region: legal reform, domestic violence, taboos, sexuality,economic empowerment, political participation, women’s lives under occupation, rural women’s conditions, the politics of funding and fundraising, young women’s involvement in the movement, sexual violence, feminism and militarism. “Telling Our Stories” highlights the significance of the MENA women’s movement, its challenges and successes, and the future given the current revolutionary fervor sweeping the region.
Early this year, twelve U.S.-based Global Fund for Women supporters traveled with us to Colombia to stand in solidarity with the Colombian women’s rights movements. We traveled to the northern states of Bolivar, Atlantico and La Guajira to meet extraordinary women’s rights groups working under extremely difficult conditions to build a different Colombia.
Young grantees in Colombia. Photo by Christine Switzer.
Over the past 45 years, the war in Colombia has evolved from a conflict over ideology to one driven by economic interests and territorial control. In our meetings with grantee partners, we learned how the Colombian military is colluding with paramilitary death squads to seize territory and natural resources largely from indigenous communities on behalf of multinational economic interests. We learned about their struggles for justice, and particularly how Plan Colombia, which has provided $6 billion in U.S. aid to the Colombian military, has been impacting their lives.
Women’s rights groups report that in Colombia, a woman dies every two days from “political” causes and that every fourteen days, a woman is the victim of forced disappearance. They told us that rebel and paramilitary groups have been torturing civilians, raping women and girls, as well as mutilating and executing them. Women have even been forced to observe war crimes committed against their families.
Colombia boasts a strong, vibrant and diverse women’s movement. Yet, amid an increasingly conservative climate, the Colombian women’s movements are facing systematic attempts to control women’s freedom and violate their security. From human rights defenders to sexual and reproductive rights activists to those seeking justice for women survivors of sexual violence, all are under heightened assault.
At the same time, we witnessed the strength, courage and resilience of Colombian women, who, despite their so-called absence from official “peace negotiations,” have been at the center of civil and political unrest. In spite of repeated attacks, disappearances, kidnappings and threats on their lives, women’s groups continue to organize, develop agendas for peace, and lobby for their implementation. We returned inspired by their courage and struggle for justice in the midst of armed conflict.
While the trip did involve educating donors about their philanthropic investments and discussions on how to mobilize more resources for women’s movements, the real goal was to build bridges between the women, who together, are helping to improve the conditions in their communities. In Colombia, we learned that in this exquisitely connected world, it is never a question of “critical mass,” but always about “critical connections.”
War and militarism have a profound impact on women inside and outside of situations of conflict. Sexual violence, intimidation and control—including clothing codes, public sexual humiliation and trafficking—are part of the patriarchal structures and systems that have oppressed women for most of history.
Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, India
GFW Accomplishments
Over 24 years, the Global Fund for Women has
Seed funded domestic violence shelters and crisis hotlines in numerous communities, including the first national women’s crisis hotline in China.
Funded advocacy that was instrumental in securing inaugural legislation criminalizing domestic violence in many countries, including Bulgaria, the DRC, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Mongolia, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Zimbabwe.
Advanced women’s role in peace negotiations by sustaining organizations that promote women’s participation in peacebuilding in the Balkans, Colombia, the DRC, Liberia, Nepal, and elsewhere.
In 2011, three of our partners working on peacebuilding issues shared the Nobel Peace Prize – leaders of grantee organizations Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman and inspiration for grantee organization and GFW friend, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
During active conflicts and in post-conflict societies, violence against women almost always escalates, leading to drops in women’s education and employment and the sidelining of women’s human rights. Militarized societies tend to fuel extremism—religious, ethnic, or nationalist—which invariably results in the repression of women’s freedoms. The diversion of government resources towards military spending harm women and girls, who without opportunities, increasingly engage in transactional sex work and as rebels and soldiers for economic survival. Violence against women occurs in the home and in public spaces even in so-called peaceful countries not engaged in active conflict or war.
Vision
GFW strives to create a world where women have the right to live free from all forms of violence. We recognize the continuum of violence, from domestic and intimate-partner violence, to political violence, and violence in the public space. We also look at the root causes and factors that promote a culture of violence in our societies. As such, building peace does not only mean the absence of violence, but ensuring just solutions to the world’s inequalities, the end of gender-based violence, and women and girls’ entitlement to all their human rights.
Our Grantmaking
GFW supports women-led efforts to build peace and end the continuum of violence. Our grantee partners work to address gender violence that is deeply embedded in legal and political institutions, community and family relations, and societal efforts to control women’s bodies. Our grantee partners offer care and healing to women survivors of all forms of violence and promote women’s active participation in peace negotiations, reconciliation and peace-building initiatives. They provide gender sensitivity training to police, judges, medical personnel, traditional leaders and paralegals to prevent and respond to violence.
Our grantees use the following approaches in Building Peace »
Mitigate physical violence in conflict, wars and in times of unrest
Diminish, prevent, treat and address the impact of wars, conflicts and sociopolitical unrest on women’s bodies and psychological well being, including bringing perpetrators to justice in local, national and international courts.
Address human rights violations
Monitor and document human rights violations and disseminate information to advocate for an end to impunity
Provide human rights awareness-raising, legal aid in redressing violations and training human rights monitors
Engage in conflict resolution
Work on ending conflicts in peaceful ways, particularly addressing structural inequalities, conducting peace education, and promoting a culture of peace.
Participate in peace negotiations and processes
Initiate, sustain and enforce peace agreements between warring factions/countries, including integrating war tribunals and local justice mechanisms.
Reconstruct post conflict society and rebuild the state
Rebuild social and state fabric in post-conflict contexts, including participation in legal reform, government rebuilding and reconciliation dialogues.
Lead disarmament campaigns, including the sale of small weapons
Work at the community level to reduce support for weapons and use of force
Work at the international level to hold governments accountable in regulating small arms flows and implementing disarmament policies
De-militarize national, state and local budgets
Link the advancement of women’s rights to decrease in defense/military budgets, and decreased investments in the military industrial complex.
Enable Implementation of International treaties and conduct campaigns
Advocating for implementation of UN security resolutions related to women’s peace and security, including 1325 and 1820
Support international campaigns addressing landmine, cluster bombs, and other unlawful weapons.
Utilize other international mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court to prosecute war criminals.
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GFW grantees work to End Gender-based Violence addressing the continuum of violence in their societies »
Stop domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, femicide and abuse
Address physical and psychological abuse inflicted within the household, in an intimate-partner relationship, or a parental relationship.
Address coercing another person to engage in or perform a sexual act (including but not limited to sexual intercourse).
Address killing of women under the pretext of “cultural” norms, “passion” crimes, “honor” or “dowry” killings.
Advocate for legal reforms in penal codes to criminalize the diversity of gender based violence.
Address sexual harassment
Address intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors in the workplace, school, or in public settings.
End harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation, alteration, cutting, accusing women of witchcraft, public stoning
Halt the practice, outlawing and persecuting the perpetrators, transforming public and private perspective of these practices.
Halt early marriage, forced marriages, and forced sex as part of traditional norms.
Halt wife inheritance and practices such as wife-sharing, wife replacement by a younger sibling, and widow immolation (sati).
Halt punishment or abandonment of wife for lack of male children.
Raise awareness of political violence
Address verbal, psychological, and physical violence aimed at intimidating women into political submission, including name-calling, threatening, stalking, harassing, etc.
Document torture and other forms of violence in prisons and by police and work towards rehabilitation.
Address intimidation tactics and other forms of violence against women political actors, women’s human rights defenders, activists, and family members of male activists in order to silence activism by women.
Connect neglect and economic violence
Demonstrate how abusive behaviors within familial, intimate or community relationships are perpetuated by economic control, such as withholding money or stopping a partner from having a job.
For 40 years, Colombia has been a violent conflict zone with a displaced population of over 4 million, 60 percent of which are women. A GFW delegation of donors and staff recently traveled to the country to meet with the courageous Colombian women we support. Watch highlights from the trip.
AWID, 8/27/2009 - Shalini Nataraj, Vice President of Programs at the Global Fund for Women (GFW) discusses militarism and what the GFW and women around the world are doing to quell its impact and dismantle it altogether.
Huffington Post, 11/12/2008 - Congo's violence will end when the countries rushing to send humanitarian aid after millions of innocent lives have been massacred stop sending and selling weapons to rebel movements in the Congo.
