Women’s Peace Initiative Meets in San Francisco

The Women’s Building in San Francisco, where the Women’s Peace Initiative met in March. Photo by Cherrill Spencer.

By Odile Hugonot Haber

On March 22, 2019, five women’s peace organizations including WILPF US met in San Francisco to discuss how we might collaborate, learn from each other, and support one another.

WILPF US participated in the Women’s Peace Initiative, a conference of five women’s peace organizations in San Francisco. Eighteen women from three organizations — and joined later by two more — met in the Women’s Building (see photo) on March 22, 2019. The Peace Development Fund, the fiscal sponsor for the three groups, convened the conference, explaining that it has become harder for one organization alone to qualify for grants; foundations are now looking for multi-group campaigns and coalition work.

The WILPF US conference delegation included Darien De Lu, Nancy Price, Shilpa Pandey, Setou Ouattara, and me, Odile Hugonot Haber. Our delegation met first with Women Cross DMZ and Women for Genuine Security.

Women Cross DMZ is women gathered for peace and reunification through demilitarization of Korea. They also promote women’s leadership and action. With WILPF International, they are launching a major 2020 campaign for the inclusion of women in the Korean peace process and a Korea peace treaty. Christine Ahn, the founder, told us that it was through a vivid dream that she was inspired to start Women Cross DMZ.

The group gained public attention on May 24, 2015, when they organized a group including two Nobel prize-winning women peace activists, WILPF International members, and other international activists to cross the north-south Korean border, reuniting families across the divide.    

Women for Genuine Security is a US-based organization that promotes security based on justice and respect for others across national boundaries. Through educational programs and resources, they seek a world free of militarism, violence, and all forms of sexual exploitations. Founder Gwyn Kirk and three other members attended the Women’s Peace Initiative.

We discussed our organizations and their strengths and weaknesses. For instance, WILPF’s strength is our many sections and branches, while the strength of Women Cross DMZ is their very savvy media campaign, at a time when global attention is focused on Korea. Women for Genuine Security promotes critical analysis and activist partnerships, such as with the International Women’s Network Against Militarism, an Asian network that focuses on the harmful effects of US bases, military budgets, and military operations.

All these organizations could be stronger by maintaining relationships and supporting each other, both in solidarity and as part of the common context of struggle. We looked at the importance of doing media work, being multilingual in a global world, and involving young women in the leadership of our organizations.

In the afternoon we met with two other groups: The Heart and Hand Fund, and Whose Knowledge? The Heart and Hand Fund supports feminist women activists in the Balkans: “We tend to fund groups that are inclusive and working with women from all the varied ethnic groups in their region.”

Whose Knowledge? aims to correct the skewed representations on the internet, by making content less male, straight, white, and global North in origin, It is a global multilingual campaign to create knowledge more representative of the global South.

In their guide, they explain the importance of “allyship”:

We come to allyship with preconceived notions, expectations, habits, and biases. It is not until we engage in the messy work of allying with marginalized people that some of our biases are revealed, and we may feel embarrassed. More importantly, though, we may learn that our biases have an impact: they hurt or harm those we are trying to support.

The conference concluded with examining Sweden’s feminist foreign policy, which seeks to promote gender equality in all of their departments in order to influence foreign policy by making a revolution from inside out. We were reminded by Setou that countries like Nigeria or Ghana do not have a “foreign policy,” so the concept itself implies an imperialist policy. Still, it was impressive that the whole Swedish State Department, a governmental institution, was working to change policies on harassment, abuse, and other forms of human rights violations.

WILPF International has published a report, “Towards a Feminist Security Council,” which provides concrete recommendations.

We hope to build on this first initial meeting with projects in different areas, such as a tour to some of our branches with a Korean grassroots member of Women Cross DMZ, while they could help us with media. Cooperation could help them grow and help make WILPF more visible.

As Kathy Sharkey of the Peace Development Fund concluded: “We will collaborate and continue the conversations,…sharing tools and skills, offering publicity to each other’s work, connecting our activism to new audiences.”  

The gathering was very fruitful, and we look forward to the next carefully planned steps toward further cooperation for peace.