by Therese Hartwell, Peace and Conflict Committee
While war and other violent conflict increasingly rob women of their human rights and their safety and security, all is not bleak. More and more women being affected by conflict are taking matters into their own hands and demanding change, often using uniquely female methods to promote cooperation and reconciliation.
One recent example occurred in South Sudan, where a group of women decided to make their voices heard. Weary of violence and helplessness, women from the Dinka and Nuer communities (two rival ethnicities) formed a women's peacekeeping team. Their first action was to plan a typically female activity - the Dinka and Nuer women met for tea! While visiting with each other, the women found that, despite being on different "sides," they share a common experience of loss and suffering. This simple act of coming together, and the understanding it created, has become the foundation for a rapid growth in women's participation in peace and security in the area. On January 21st, 2014, the women's peacekeeping team drafted a letter to the governor of the region, Joseph Maytuil Wjang, requesting an end to the conflict and protection for civilians, and marched together 12 kilometers to present the letter to the governor. The group plans to keep the pressure on for an end to the violence.
In an even more creative effort, women involved in several conflicts have used the unusual tactic of initiating a sex strike! Perhaps the best known such strike involved the efforts of Leymah Gbowee, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for leading Liberian women in peaceful protests, including a sex strike, that led to the end of a 14-year civil war in Liberia that had killed over 250,000 people. In 2011, Filipino women from Mindanao Island withheld sex from their partners in order to end fighting between two villages. The protest resulted in a road critical to the women's travel and commerce being reopened and made safe for travel. Sex strikes have also been used in a number of other countries including Kenya, Togo, Columbia, the United States and Japan to address non-war-related issues affecting women.
In 2010, women from neighboring countries Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, on opposing sides of a gruesome war, came together on a bridge adjoining the two countries in a plea for peace and to show that they could build bridges of hope for the future. Their action sparked a massive global movement through Women for Women International's Join Me on the Bridge campaign to stand in solidarity with women around the world touched by war.
Through various creative methods, women around the world are making it known that they will no longer allow their voices to be silenced.
The Human Rights Team invited FAWCO clubs to support the efforts of women like those described above who are speaking out about their human rights, by planning a Join Me on the Bridge event for International Women's Day, March 8. If your club held an event, please send a description and pictures (if you have them) to the HRTF at .