WILPF at CSW57

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women
United Nations HQ, New York, March 2013

“WILPF participation in this year's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was historic and highlighted our global outreach as a women's peace movement”, commented Madeleine Rees, WILPF Secretary General.

Indeed, our participation was strong in numbers and commitment, WILPF members and partners participated from every region of the world. Our delegation included WILPF members and partners from over 25 countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, Costa Rica, Colombia, UK, US, Sweden, Canada, Japan, Australia, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, France, China, Kenya, Spain, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland and Nigeria).

We worked collectively on advocacy on strengthening the Agreed Conclusions with a focus on WILPF priority areas for CSW: linkage with arms, women peace and security and women's participation. We lobbied delegations, issued numerous WILPF and joint statements and sent masses of emails! On the second to last day of negotiations, there was still no reference to arms in the draft Agreed Conclusion despite our consistent push. We did not give up! On behalf of WILPF and 14 co-sponsoring organizations, Annie Matundu-Mbambi (President of WILPF-DRC, as seen in the picture) delivered our joint oral statement in the official room at CSW. Our statement was direct and called to include a reference to arms in the CSW outcome document and to adopt a strong arms trade treaty with legally binding gender provisions. On the final day of negotiations with much still open and un-agreed, it was confirmed that there was a late inclusion of language recognizing that “illicit use of and illicit trade in small arms and light weapons aggravates violence, inter alia, against women and girls”. This reference, among others we supported, was critical especially as WILPF continued our advocacy with States the following week on Arms Trade Treaty.

“Given the theme and WILPF's work, this year, we organized and supported an impressive number of events focused on addressing the root causes of violence against women and underlining the linkages with militarism and gun violence” noted Maria Butler, PeaceWomen Director and coordinator of WILPF CSW engagement.

The WILPF Strategy Orientation Day allowed us to connect, reconnect, and discuss the upcoming session. Throughout the next two weeks, WILPFers addressed the connections to the wider political and socio-economic system, and reiterated the need to focus on human security rather than state security to eliminate violence against women and girls. WILPFers also emphasized the need for the women's movement to be involved in the Arms Trade Treaty negotiations to ensure that the connection between gender and militarization will be addressed in broader contexts.

Members of the WILPF delegation participated in many events. Secretary General, Madeleine Rees, spoke at numerous high-level events, addressing key linkages and contributing with her expertise as a human rights lawyer. At the end of week 1, Madeleine was key-note speaker at a special screening of the film ‘The Whistleblower' followed by a expert panel at the WILPF international's symposium “Avenues to Accountability: Militarism, Trafficking, Exploitation and Justice.” The WILPF U.S. Section also held an event on trafficking – addressing trafficking across the US-Mexican border and the high rates of murders of women in Cuidad Juárez in Mexico.

WILPF's cross-section coordination and partnership was in full bloom at CSW as shown by the excellent joint event with WILPF Sweden, Costa Rica, Colombia, Nigeria and the DRC on “Violence against Women – the lethal consequences of arms” which is part of an ongoing project between these sister sections.

CSW was also a time for internal strategy meetings for WILPFers. Our partners and staff working on the WILPF MENA project came together at CSW to move their advocacy and collective actions forward in the region. Partners from Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and Lebanon issued a joint statement and spoke truth to power at our event at UN Headquarters on March 8th.

At these events and others, WILPFers joined with feminist allies, demanding transformation away from the current militarized and unequal structures of development, and toward peace and freedom rooted in gender equality from the personal to the international levels. As Melissa Torres and Rita Janowski-Bradley of WILPF-US demanded, when it comes to violence against women and girls, we must take action to guarantee “¡Ni una más! Not one more!”

On the evening of the 8 March, International Women's Day, WILPF launched the historic movement leading to our 100th year Anniversary in 2015. At the launch, WILPF women celebrated the last century of advocacy for peace and freedom, and prepared to unleash the power of women to end war in the next century by strengthening women's voices, challenging militarism, and moving forward together.

The PeaceWomen team also monitored events and resources specifically related to the women, peace and security agenda throughout the 2 weeks. We've created a monitoring section on peacewomen.org with documents and reports, as well as civil society materials.

In addition to being regionally diverse, our delegation was inter-generational. For example, participants from WILPF U.S. included 6 participants in WILPF's Local to Global programme, and 15 young women from universities as part of WILPF's annual Practicum in Advocacy.

Although what happens at CSW is just a small part of the work that continues day to day at the local and national level, it reaffirms our strength as WILPFers in creating a world of greater peace and freedom tomorrow by integrating our diverse strengths today. We look forward to continuing to work with all of you in this important work both in New York and around the world!

For more information on WILPF and CSW please visit our PeaceWomen webpage: http://www.peacewomen.org/ and click CSW

PeaceWomen Team: Maria Butler, Barbara Trojanowska, Tuohy Ahern, Margaret Ruiz and Ester Harrius

Contact PeaceWomen: maria@peacewomen.org