October 2006 |
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Initiative Together we will undertake an 8-hour live marathon webcast produced in our studio in Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica (Spanish and English), and another part in New York at the Tribune Center, with interviews and commentary of women in different countries in conflict, as well as other women and feminist peace activists around the world. The webcast marathon will take place from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. that day. Interviews will be conducted via telephone, but comments from listeners will come through e-mail and will be read on the air.
Jody was on the DU campus as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of PeaceJam, an organization for youth around the world to work with Nobel Peace Prize Winners and design local peace initiatives. The event was held September 15-17, 2006. For more information go to: www.peacejam.org .
PeaceWomen.org is a project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). The PeaceWomen Project monitors and works toward rapid and full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. To these ends: PeaceWomen hosts Peacewomen.org, a website that provides accurate and timely information on women, peace and security issues and women's peace-building initiatives in areas of armed conflict. They work to facilitate communication among and mobilization of advocates and supporters in civil society, the UN system and governments working on women, peace and security issues; and PeaceWomen advocates for the integration of gender analysis in the governance, peace and security work of civil society actors, the UN system, and governmental bodies.
Cora Weiss, President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, has been well known as a peace activist since the early 60s, when she was a national leader of Women Strike for Peace, which played a major role in bringing about the end of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. She was a leader in the anti-Vietnam war movement, organized demonstrations, including the largest one on November 15, 1969 in Washington, DC. As Co-Chair and Director of the Committee of Liaison with Families of Prisoners Detained in Vietnam, she organized the exchange of mail between families and POWs in Vietnam which revealed names of those alive. She also arranged for and accompanied some returning POW pilots. Ms. Weiss was a volunteer teacher in the NY City public school system. Ms. Weiss is among the 1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize. As President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, she is leading a campaign dedicated to the abolition of war. It seeks to re-focus our minds on the vision of a world in which violent conflict is publicly acknowledged as illegitimate, illegal, and fundamentally unjust. To implement that vision, the Hague Appeal for Peace has launched a Global Campaign for Peace Education.
She is a member of the international board of PeaceWomen, Nicola lives and works in New Zealand. PeaceWomen is an international network of women working in different fields of human security in the North and in the South, who are joining forces to bring the knowledge and leadership of peacewomen to official decision making arenas and to the attention of the public.
Janet Benshoof is a human rights lawyer with extensive experience in the United States and abroad. She has successfully defended people's rights to free expression, freedom of religion, freedom from discrimination, and for the reproductive/ privacy rights of women. Ms. Benshoof has litigated constitutional cases in over forty states and the United States Supreme Court. Currently, as Director of the Global Justice Center, she works with women leaders in transitional democracies to enforce the international legal guarantees for women's political and legal rights. The National Law Journal has repeatedly selected Ms. Benshoof as one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in Americaâ€ﾝ, and she has received numerous awards in the fields of constitutional law, reproductive and women's rights. Ms. Benshoof has taught international human rights law and gender at Bard College and Harvard Law School, as well as in Burma and Thailand. She is the senior legal advisor to WAFDI (Women's Alliance for a Democratic Iraq), and she has conducted legal trainings on international rights for women in Baghdad. She also advises the major Burmese exile groups and has taught international rights in Rangoon, and for exiled lawyers in Thailand. She is the chair of the Gender Justice Advisory Board, and a trustee of Women's Link Worldwide, an international legal organization focusing on women's international human rights litigation.
Ms. Aung is the Womens League of Burma Presidium Board member for the Womens Rights and Welfare Association of Burma (WRWAB). She is a founding member of both the Womens League of Burma (WLB) and WRWAB. In her capacity as a Presidium Board Member, Thin Thing Aung is the coordinator of WLBs Political Empowerment Program. As one of the Womens League of Burmas representatives to the Burma Freedom and Democracy movements Federal Constitution Drafting and Coordination Committee, Thin Thin Aung is Secretary for Constitutional Education. Additionally, she is one of the founders of the Mizzima News Service. Thin Thin Aung is a member of the 88 Generation having fled Burma following the violent crackdown on student democracy activists by the military regime. Ying Lao is Shan women and their mother organization is the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN) and Dwelling is a Kachin woman and her organization is the Kachin Women's Association-Thailand (KWAT). Tay Tay is the coordinator for the WLB's Violence Again Women program and Dwelling is also part of the VAW. As for Ying Lao she is currently representing WLB at the Burmese Constitution Drafting Committee and also part of the WLB's Political Empowerment program.
Key
Messages 1.
Support implementation of RES 1325. 2.
Disseminate women´s efforts as peacebuilders at all levels. 3.
Offer channels for concrete actions in solidarity with the peace
movements and the social movements in the world that are struggling for
peace, and for respect for human rights and a just solution to the
conflicts worldwide. Objectives 1.
To support calls for implementation of Red 1325 by numerous women’s
organizations and activists and women in governments, specialized
agencies, Nobel Laureates, etc. worldwide. 2.
To amplify the voices of the women from different parts of the world,
about their situation, their actions of resistance and their proposals
for a peaceful solution. 3.
To make known the initiatives for a just peace to bring an end to the
conflicts by different actors involved in the conflicts and how RES 1325
can contribute to those efforts. 4.
To reveal and analyze the origins and motives of the conflict that are
hidden by powerful armed actors and governments involved with or having
interests in the conflict. 6. To connect through feminist analysis the impact of the archetype of the warrior and its impact on the prolongation of war and violence as the means of trying to solve conflicts. THE
SITUATION Global
media reports are filled with scenes of the fighting and bombing, with
numerous “experts” presenting their perspectives on the situation,
almost all of whom are men. Likewise,
coverage of the hundreds of proactive actions including many organized
by women’s groups throughout the world have drawn little to no
coverage by most media. In
contrast, by combining “voices, technologies and action,” FIRE
amplifies the voices of women by providing women with a space to talk
about any and all issues, which in this case is the UN Res 1325. FIRE’s
marathon broadcast can help the world understand what is happening
globally from women’s perspectives, and also learn about women’s
strategies of resistance, thus breaking the stereotype of women as all
being only passive victims and refugees. Likewise, as the world watches the horrors of war and conflict, FIRE’s campaign offers listeners specific actions women are undertaking, so that they too can take to express their solidarity with women and women’s resistance in the conflict .
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