An exhibition in New York honours Women’s Role as Peacemakers
UNAMID Police Advisors
The role of women as peacemakers is being celebrated at an exhibition which opened this week at UN headquarters in New York. It’s part of the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of a UN Security Council resolution calling for the full participation of women in the peacemaking process and post-conflict rebuilding. Jocelyne Sambira attended the exhibition’s opening and filed this report.
SAMBIRA: Women worldwide suffer discrimination and sexual violence in times of war, however they are often the first to seek peaceful solutions and hold the fort while men wage war. It is to honour these women and drive home the message “No women, No peace,” that this exhibition is being held tonight at the United Nations in New York. The multimedia platform showcases the 1,000 peace women nominated for the Nobel Prize in 2005. I’m standing on the red carpet and on it are the names of countries that have adopted a national plan regarding the UN’s resolution 1325 which calls for the inclusion of women into all peace processes. With me is Katherine Reader, project manager for Peace Women across the Globe and the person who put together this exhibition. Katherine, this poster of Liberian women at a rally holding a sign that says “Stop killing our children,” is quite moving, what’s the story behind it?
READER: For the exhibit we have been thinking which countries really have implemented 1325? So we can really learn from the Liberian women’s movement. Because they having been fighting and with their power they have been able to stop the war and they were the ones somehow to push and to bring the first female president in Africa. So we can really learn from Liberian and that is why it is an example in the exhibition. That is why it is on here saying “Women walk the walk and don’t just talk the talk.
SAMBIRA: If we move a bit towards the wall, I see pictures of several women. Who are these women who are up here?
READER: That’s the thousand women who have been nominated by our organization for the Peace Nobel prize in 2005. They didn’t get the prize back then. Those different colours are from different fields of work
SAMBIRA: And each colour represents a field that they’re working in?
READER: Yes
SAMBIRA: Do you know one of these women? Can you tell us a bit about her and what was so extraordinary about her work?
READER: There is Cora Weiss whom you have heard now on the panel. She is one of the thousand peace women.
SAMBIRA: Do you think I could speak to Cora Weiss?
READER: Oh yes.
SAMBIRA: As we walk across the room, I can see a huge mural full of bright orange and green colours with images of children, women and men. And it seems to tell a story. Katherine tells me its Brazilian art and it depicts both war and peace. And now I’m with Cora Weiss, a well-known activist since the sixties. She’s devoted her life to the peace movement and the advancement of women. As president of the Hauge Appeal for Peace, she’s leading a campaign for the abolition of war. Her story is exceptional but she is very humble.
WEISS: I’m just another woman. I used to be called a housewife from the Bronx during the Vietnam War when I was working to try to get more mail to American prisoners of war in Hanoi. And newspapers didn’t know who I was and they called me a “housewife from the Bronx.” So I’ve always thought of bringing people together and doing things without violence.
SAMBIRA: Why are you convinced that there can be no peace without women?
WEISS: Mostly men start wars, historically. We say that there can be no peace without women because negotiations, peace treaties, peace agreements, decisions to put money into weapons are made by men. So as long as women are excluded from the table, excluded from decision-making, we’re missing half the population of the world. We don’t know what creative ideas they may have because they’ve never expressed them. We do know that in Kenya when a woman had her cattle stolen because the guy across the next field came at her with a gun and took her cattle. She went and wrote a resolution to reduce guns. That is one small example that makes a point.
SAMBIRA: Cora Weiss, President of the Hauge Appeal for Peace and long time activist for women and peace.
An exhibition in New York honours Women's role as Peacemakers
October 25, 2010 by