Amplifying Women’s Voices in 2015 & Call for Participation in 2016 AWID Forum
By: Cynthia Sularz
In 2015, PeaceWomen continued to amplify the voices of grassroots women peace activists from the local to the global level and speak truth to power for transformative change. In March 2015, we facilitated a delegation of activists from from Australia, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Palestine, Syria, the United Kingdom, and the United States to the Commission on the Status of Women where we advocated for a transformative and sustainable Post 2015 development agenda that addresses the root causes of violence and war.
In April, we joined 1,000 women and men peace activists at WILPF’s centennial peace summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, to mobilise around Women’s Power to Stop War. In September and October 2015, we facilitated four international delegations across five weeks to build momentum across the month of the fifteenth anniversary of UNSCR 1325 for effective implementation and action on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. Across 2015, we mobilised and built solidarity for peace, disarmament, and gender justice. In 2016, we will continue this work.
100 years after over 1300 of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's founding women first came together in The Hague in protest of World War I, we still live in a world where women’s voices and experiences are excluded, bringing continued violence and war. We know now what we knew then, that only when we analyse conflict from a gender perspective, integrating disarmament, human rights, the environment, social justice, and the women, peace and security agenda holistically will we be able to eradicate the root causes of conflict. As WILPF Secretary General Madeleine Rees stated, it is time to “rethink, strategize, organise and make a difference.”
Join us!
=> Become a WILPF member
=> Sign up for our sister WILPF newsletters on human rights and disarmament
=> Apply by 6 January 2016 to participate in the WILPF delegation at the AWID Forum => If you are self-funding participation in CSW 2016 let us know and we can connect you with other participating WILPFers
Tools You Can Use in 2016:
The Pieces of Peace: Realizing Peace Through Gendered Conflict Prevention
Through the Lens of Civil Society: Summary Report on the Public Submissions to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security
Report on the 15th Anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325
WILPF100: Women’s Power to Stop War Conference Summary
POLICY BRIEFS/REPORTS:
Human Rights Watch: Central African Republic: Amid Conflict, Rape
Recommendations on Women’s Human Rights and Gender Equality
ISIL: Nationals of ICC states parties committing genocide and other crimes against the Yazidis
EXTERNAL INITIATIVES:
Monthly Action Points on Women, Peace and Security, December 2015
On International Migrants Day (18 December), the UN remembers thousands who lost their lives this year trying to reach safe harbor
Advancing the Women, Peace and Security agenda: 2015 and beyond
Escola de Cultura de Pau: Gender and Peace, October 2015