|
Table of Contents |
|
Subscribe to our free e-newsletter! |
|
|
Women from Colombia, Kosovo, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda and an international women's movement will be awarded for their outstanding contributions to building peace at a ceremony at the United Nations on 8 March 2001, International Women's Day. The Millennium Peace Prize for Women is the first award of its kind to recognize the integral role played by women in resolving peace and sustaining families and communities during war. The new international award is sponsored by the UK-based conflict resolution and human rights organization, International Alert and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The Millennium Peace Prize for Women are: Dr. Flora Brovina, the Kosovar Albanian humanitarian, peace and human rights campaigner imprisoned in 1999 by Serbian authorities; Veneranda Nzambazamariya, posthumously awarded for her role in promoting peace and reconciliation and helping women rebuild their lives in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide; the human rights activists and lawyers Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani, who have risked their lives in defense of women and minorities in Pakistan; Leitana Nehan Women's Development Agency for its cross community work for peace during and after the nine year war between Bougainville rebels and the Papua New Guinea military; Ruta Pacifica de las Mujeres, a nationwide coalition that campaigns for peace in Colombia and helps to create alternative peace proposals at a community level; and the international women's peace movement, Women in Black that has mobilized women from all regions of the world to hold demonstrations against war and violence. The history of peace negotiations speaks for itself - women are largely absent from high-level negotiations and post-conflict decision-making, and despite women's effectiveness in peace building, their work is often unrecognized. There were no Bosnian women at the Dayton Peace negotiations in 1995. Since it was first awarded 100 years ago, only 10 of the approximately 106 Nobel Peace Prize winners have been women or women's organizations. The Millennium Peace Prize for Women celebrates the courage and achievements of the winners but also acknowledges the work of thousands of women around the world, striving for peace and justice in communities, across political, religious and ethnic divisions. "What vision of peace do you get when only half the population is included in the process?" says Eugenia Piza-Lopez, Head of Policy and Advocacy, International Alert. "That is why larger numbers of women must be invited to shape peace negotiations. While women are affected disproportionately by violent conflict, they are not passive victims, as is so often portrayed." "The intertwining forces of gender inequality and conflict threaten peace and security around the world," explains Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of UNIFEM. "How is it that we can, in good conscience, bring warlords to the negotiating table and not women? The Millennium Peace Prize for Women says to the world that it is time we recognized women as equal partners in peace building, and in all other political and economic realms." In October 2000, a UN Security Council Resolution called for the inclusion of more women in peacemaking negotiations and peacekeeping forces, and within the UN peacemaking system. The Millennium Peace Prize for Women winners were selected by the Prize Selection Committee which included the Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand; former senator and head of the transitional Liberian government, H.E. Ruth S. Perry; the East Timorese Nobel Peace Laureate, Jose Ramos Horta; founder member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, Monica McWilliams; and the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist for The Colour Purple, Alice Walker. For more information contact Tricia O'Rourke at: 01908-275011 or mobile 07989-965359 International Alert, co-sponsor of the Millennium Peace Prize for Women, is a non-governmental organization based in the UK that works with organizations and individuals to identify and address the root causes of violence and contribute to the just and peaceful transformation of violent internal conflict. Established in 1985, International Alert has programs in Africa, the Caucasus region of the Former Soviet Union, Colombia and Sri Lanka. International Alert is spearheading an international campaign involving over 320 organizations worldwide, Women Building Peace: From the Village Council to the Negotiating Table, to support women peace builders and to highlight the importance of their involvement in peace processes. As part of the campaign, over 100,000 signatures have been collected from all over the world calling on the UN to include women in peace negotiations, reconstruction and reconciliation. These signatures will be presented to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan on 8 March. For more information about the campaign, visit the website at www.womenbuildingpeace.org. The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), co-sponsor of the Millennium Peace Prize for Women, is the women's fund at the United Nations that provides financial support and technical assistance to innovative programs that promote women's human rights, their economic and political empowerment, and gender equality in more than 100 countries around the world. Within the UN, UNIFEM advocates for the inclusion of women's interests and concerns to all critical issues on the national, regional and global agenda. For more information, visit the organization's website at www.unifem.undp.org. The Millennium Peace Prize Selection Committee consisted of Hon. Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand (co-chair); H.E. Ruth S Perry, former senator and member of the Liberian government (co-chair); journalist and novelist, Slavenka Drakulic; novelist, Laura Esquivel; Nobel Peace Laureate, Jose Ramos Horta; peace campaigner and member of the Northern Ireland General Assembly, Monica McWilliams; film-maker, Pratibha Parmar; the novelist, Alice Walker; journalist and documentary maker, Olivia Ward; Kevin Clements, Secretary General, International Alert and Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director, UNIFEM.
Millennium Peace Prize for Women 2001 Award Winners
•Flora Brovina (Kosovo) Flora Brovina is the President of the League of Albanian Women of Kosovo, a non-political organization she founded in 1992 to assist ethnic Albanian women. She has always emphasized the importance of understanding and tolerance across the ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, and has worked closely with organizations in Serbia. During the war, she opened a clinic and rehabilitation centre in Pristina, offering medical services to women and children displaced by the conflict. Flora was also one of the organizers of several peaceful demonstrations against the violence and war in Kosovo. Flora Brovina was arrested by the Serbian authorities on 20 April 1999 and charged with committing acts of terrorism against Yugoslavia. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Serbia. Following enormous international pressure and the change of government in Yugoslavia, Flora was released on 1 November 2000. •Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani (Pakistan) For the past two decades, Asma and her sister Hina have been at the forefront of Pakistan's women's and human rights movements. In 1980, they helped found the Women's Action Forum to help women obtain divorces from abusive husbands. In 1981, they founded the first all-women's law firm in Pakistan, and in 1986 were amongst the founders of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission. Asma and Hina have fiercely defended and provided legal representation for those whose human rights have been violated, including victims of domestic, fundamentalist and feudalistic violence, bonded laborers and the victims of so-called 'honor killings' - where women who have left their husbands are killed by their own families for bringing dishonor on them. In 1998, the United Nations appointed Asma Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial Arbitrary and Summary Executions. Hina runs the largest free legal aid centre in Pakistan and is known for her defense of women's and children's rights, and for her efforts to promote religious tolerance. •Veneranda Nzambazamariya (Rwanda) posthumously After the genocide in 1994, Veneranda Nzambazamariya was among the handful of women who with courage and vision spoke out, urging Rwandan women to rise above ethnicity, overcome their differences and come together to rebuild the country and their lives. Veneranda was the president of Pro-femmes Twese Hamwe, a collective of more than 30 women's organizations, and the driving force behind the Campagne Action pour la Paix (Action for Peace Campaign) developed by women's organizations as a way of contributing to the restoration of peace and development in Rwanda. She was also actively involved promoting women's issues throughout the continent. She was a committed member of the Women's Committee for Peace and Development set up by the Organization for African Unity (OAU) in 1998. Veneranda dedicated herself to empowering women politically and economically, and to restructuring Rwanda's imbalanced political, economic and social infrastructures and laws that were biased against women. She died last year in a Kenya Airways crash off the Cote'Ivoire at the age of 43. •Ruta Pacifica de las Mujeres (Colombia) The Ruta Pacifica de las Mujeres movement acts as an important national referee in the on-going conflict in Colombia. Interacting with national and international political, economic and social policy-makers, Ruta Pacifica ensures that women's alternative plans for peace and co-existence reach influential circles. The organization conducts training with a diverse range of women working to bring co-existence strategies to life in their towns and communities. In 1996, Ruta Pacifica staged a long march enabling peasant and professional women to ask armed soldiers to respect indigenous organizations. •Leitana Nehan Women's Development Agency (Papua New Guinea) The Leitana Nehan Women's Development Agency has been a keystone in the process of peace negotiations and reconstruction in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea since the mid-1990s. When skirmishes first began between the military and rebel forces in 1989, the Bougainville economy fell apart and an interim government was established. In 1995, Leitana Nehan began to re-build the trust that had eroded between neighbours and within communities. During the war, Leitana Nehan trained women to participate in the peace process and prepared them to function as single heads of households. Its support for small income generating projects enabled many women to provide their families with such basic needs as health, food, education, shelter and clothing. •Women in Black Women in Black is a worldwide network of women against war, violence and injustice. Started in Israel in 1988 by women protesting against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Women in Black is not an organization but a means of mobilization and a formula for action. Demonstrations are always women only, and usually take the form of women wearing black, standing in a public place in silent, non-violent vigils at regular intervals. Women in Black in Belgrade will accept the Millennium Peace Prize for Women on behalf of the worldwide movement. Since the first public protests in October 1991, Women in Black in Belgrade has organized over 400 demonstrations against military aggression and violence &endash; and were one of the earliest and consistent public voices against the Milosevic regime.
|