African women peace activists were very visible during the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and the parallel NGO Forum, which took place in Beijing, China, in September 1995. A highlight of the opening ceremony for the NGO Forum featured the presentation of a peace torch by the African Women for Conflict and Peace Project. "The woman is the first person to promote peace, because she is the first victim when there is no peace," said one African activist. Below is a brief sketch of some of the peace work African women are involved in.
A member of the Mouvement National des Femmes pour la Sauvegarde de la Paix et de l'Unité Nationale in Mali spoke about the problem of returning refugees after the Tuareg ethnic conflict in her country. "It is very important for reconciliation that both sides prepare mentally themselves for the return," she said. "We do workshops to educate the population. We also must help reorient the children who have been victims of this trauma; and look at the role of the media in peace. We offer training for women to prepare themselves for the roles they must play in reconciliation."
Contact: Mouvement National des Femmes pour la Sauvegarde de la Paix et de l'Unité Nationale, BP 1771, Bamako, Mali.
"In Rwanda women are now 65 percent of the population," said a member of La Campagne-Action pour la Paix Pro-femmes. "One big problem we face with widows and our 40,000 orphans is land rights. If their land has been taken over by someone else, the widow and orphan should have a right to get it back." She described how her group was reviving the custom of 'hagu' ('lawn'), a traditional public space where everyone gathered to resolve a conflict. "It is important to create a public space where the facts of the massacre can be known. Children as young as 12 were involved in the killings, as were women. We work to reintegrate them back into society. We want to create a Village of Peace in each of our 11 provinces. In these villages people from both communities will live side by side. The villages will provide a role model for the country. We also lobby the government to create an Institute for Peace to educate and promote peace."
Contact: Association des Volontaire de la Paix, BP 1787, Kigali, Rwanda.
A founder of the Sudanese Women's Voice for Peace (SWVP) described their work during one of several SWVP workshops at the NGO Forum. "We conduct five-day workshops on how to approach the war leaders, and how to address the pain we are experiencing. Muslims sisters from North Sudan also organized a meeting--two of them are in prison because of this. But our Muslim sisters still work with us for peace, only underground."
"I am only half a human being as a woman, so I cannot talk directly to commanders," she continued. "On the border of Kenya and Sudan we invited the chiefs of three provinces to meet with women leaders, to listen to widows talk about their dreams of peace. The chiefs were very impressed, but said they themselves could not speak for peace because the rebels would kill them. Still, in south Sudan we have field coordinators to organize the women. We make strategies to bring ordinary Muslim and Christian women together, because we face the same problems of displacement, poverty and lack of education. In the South, we have met with warring rebel leaders, introducing ourselves as 'your mothers, wives and daughters'. We tell them the war has destroyed us enough. Many leaders are also tired of the war and ask us how to stop it. They help us travel inside the country."
One SWVP workshop took place in July, when nine SWVP representatives travelled to Narus, in south Sudan, to organize a women's peace group there. They encouraged the women to speak out against the killing and rapes. And in Lokichogio, Kenya, recently, SWVP organized the workshop "Grassroots Promotion of Dialogue, Peace and Unity", held with church, community and refugee leaders from south Sudan. It was the first time representatives from hostile ethnic groups came together. The groups have been pitted against each other by rebel "wa