Asia-Pacific Women's Conference on Peace & Security - Visions for a New World

Women are at the center of conflicts and wars, both overt and silent. They bear the brunt of violence in different forms, whether in their personal lives or from armed conflicts within their own communities or among nations of the world.

Yet women have not been mere victims or casualties of war. Women have always struggled and survived over experiences of violence. They continue to work for peace and build secure communities. Women have been mostly invisible, however, in peace negotiations and policy making in many countries.

The Conference aims to bring women of the world together to discuss critical issues on women's peace and security in Asia and the Pacific:

• Women are not mere victims but survivors who can live through and heal beyond all forms of violence – from nuclear bombing and testing, to rapes in war, and even sexual assault within the confines of our own homes.

• Women create our spaces and communities every day despite poverty and exploitation in a globalized world order that converts our labor and our own bodies to mere commodities for sale;

• More and more women are becoming aware of the new fronts of silent wars being waged against us through the artificial technologies that would fragment our bodies and turn us into mere wombs for bearing babies; while the crops that are being genetically modified are poisoning us.

• Women are caretakers that protect ecosystems from being destroyed by the greed of industrialized farming, militarism and corporate exploitation; as we endeavor to restore balance in our farms and communities.

• Women are healers, peacemakers, and negotiators in the midst of conflicts within our tribes, communities and nations.