Militarism, Violence & Conflict

Women’s survival strategies in Chechnya: from self-care to caring for each other

What would a combination of self and community care look like? For activists in Chechnya, it means creating individual and organizational security plans, for example, that ensure if one woman is threatened, there are others standing by to help to keep her safe, writes Keely Tongate. Luiza encounters regular violence and intimidation in her work […]

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The structural problem of misogyny

New feminism should stand together with the new proletariats against female exploitation and violence. It is time to recognise the struggle to control women’s bodies in all forms as deeply politically misogynist even if there is no easy way to mobilise and collectivise this effort writes feminist Zillah Eisenstein*.   The world seems upside down […]

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Women’s Movements and Economic Power: Connecting the local and the global

Lisa VeneKlasen and Alia Khan. The authors present first a contextual analysis of the forces and actors shaping the reality of women’s lives today. They outline the importance of changing hearts and minds with time-tested strategies and new forms of organizing that can fuel development of and support for alternative economic arrangements that respect the rights, dignity, and […]

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Women Long to Work in Peace

Posted in Labour & Work, Militarism, Violence & Conflict on April 9th, 2013 by

By K. S. Harikrishnan. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Mar 28 2013 (IPS) – Shaken by the brutal gang rape and murder of a young woman in the national capital New Delhi last December, the female workforce in India is calling for more concrete measures for the protection of female employees from both physical and non-physical attacks. Although the […]

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Militarism, Violence and Conflict – How Women Bear the Brunt of War

Posted in Militarism, Violence & Conflict on November 21st, 2012 by

FRIDAY FILE: Militarism, conflict and violence are on the rise and have a range of gender-specific impacts. Increased spending on defense, arms and security often means that spending on social services is being cut. In the context of militarism and conflict violence against women also increases and attacks on women’s human rights defenders are growing […]

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Applying Rhonda Copelon’s “Vision” to Women, Peace, and Security

Posted in Militarism, Violence & Conflict on November 2nd, 2012 by

Anna Keye.Rhonda Copelon at the Mary C. Dunlap Lecture on Sex, Gender & Social Justice, Boalt Hall Law School, UC Berkeley, 2005. I recently had the opportunity to attend the conference, Looking Forward: Rhonda Copelons’s Legacy in Action and the Future of International Women’s Human Rights Law, co-sponsored by MADRE, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the CUNY Law Review Scholarship […]

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Economics of Domestic Violence

Posted in Militarism, Violence & Conflict on November 2nd, 2012 by

Sunday evening in Istanbul. On my bed in my small hotel in sultanamed and listening to the calls for prayer from the different mosques around. Hard to believe but the AWID conference is over. With a few hugs and kisses we said goodbye to our friends that came from around the world to attend the […]

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“War is an international business”

Posted in Militarism, Violence & Conflict on November 2nd, 2012 by

You cannot achieve the construction and maintenance of sustainable peace when women are  denied from their rights and are excluded from decision making. Maria Butler, Director PeaceWomen Project “War is an international business.” These words of our WILPF sister, Annie Matundu-Mbambi (President of WILPF- DRC), resonated throughout the 2012 AWID International Forum on Women’s Rights […]

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Nobel Women’s Initiative Attends AWID

Posted in Militarism, Violence & Conflict on November 1st, 2012 by

The Nobel Women’s Initiative gathered Istanbul, Turkey with over 2,000 women’s rights activists from around the world for the 12th Association for Women’s Rights in Development – AWID Forum. From April 18-22, the AWID Forum brought delegates form various grassroots, national, regional, and international organizations together to strategize, network, and learn skills in the effort to advance women’s rights. This year’s Forum […]

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Burmese Women’s Groups to World: Hold the Applause

Posted in Militarism, Violence & Conflict on November 1st, 2012 by

Burma has most recently been in the news for the “return” of beloved pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the signaling by world leaders that the decades-long sanctions on the country will soon be lifted. Yet the Burmese women’s groups speaking today on the panel, “Women Resisting Militarized Development in Burma,” said: not so fast. Speakers […]

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Where we must stand: African women in an age of war

Amina Mama. Whether one considers the direct effects of military rule and conflict on women, or the global economic implications of the US war-on-terror, militarism threatens to strip away all the 20th century gains in women’s rights, dispossessing us once more. African women must take a stand, says Amina Mama (Read this article in Italian) […]

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Crisis in Mali: fundamentalism, women’s rights and cultural resistance

Jessica Horn. In conversation with Jessica Horn, a leading Malian women’s rights activist identifies the roots of the crisis in Mali, and the opportunistic use of the crisis by Malian and international Islamic fundamentalists to gain a popular foothold in the north of the country Jessica Horn: Were there any early warnings that this crisis […]

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Mexico: the war on drugs is becoming a war on women

Posted in Militarism, Violence & Conflict, Sexuality on October 31st, 2012 by

Laura Carlsen. Women human rights defenders in Mexico are increasingly targeted, often by government forces, since drug war violence and militarisation provide a cover for attacking leaders of grassroots movements, says Laura Carlsen Some women had to be escorted into the city by court-appointed guards. Others flew in from virtual war zones where they check […]

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Senegal: the land belongs to those who work it

Fatou Guèye. After a quarter century of armed conflict, and a socio-economic fabric reduced to shreds, women in Casamance, Senegal, are winning the right to access land and rebuild peace, says Fatou Guèye Ziguinchor is a region in Casamance in the south of Senegal that is separated from the rest of the country by Gambia. […]

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Post conflict reconstruction: ask the women farmers

TABARA NDIAYE. Twenty years of conflict has destroyed the social fabric of Casamance.The only way to re-instate security and eradicate famine in an area once known as the bread-basket of Senegal is to ask the women farmers, says Tabara Ndiaye “How many times have we seen the experts ask our grandfathers questions about the rice […]

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