For their 2002 study, “Women, War and Peace,” commissioned by the UN Women’s Fund, UNIFEM, former Finnish Defense Minister Elisabeth Rehn and current Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf interviewed war survivors and female activists in 14 war-torn countries. Their investigation took them on a journey to countless women’s peace groups that are little known internationally. Who knows about the activities of Avega, the Association of Rwandan Widows, which first met under a tree and which now operates a self-help network throughout Rwanda? Who knows about the Mano River Union Women’s Network for Peace, which has built a sort of regional women’s security council, in which women in government and in NGOs work together, from the former war zones of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone?
“The systematic exclusion of women from official peace processes has harmful effects on the sustainability of peace agreements,” write the authors of the study, citing the agreements on Bosnia and Kosovo as negative examples. “If women are present, the character of the dialogue changes,” they say, because women insist on civilian priorities in restoring peace. In the case of Northern Ireland, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell attested to the fact that women’s massive political presence in the peace negotiations was “a significant factor in achieving the agreement.”
Sources:
- Women, War and Peace: The Independent Experts' Assessment [» pdf]
- Scheub Ute (2004): Friedenstreiberinnen
- Gunda-Werner-Institut (publisher) (2008): Hoffnungsträger 1325