The Hindu : Women as peacemakers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 22, 2004

National

National

Women as peacemakers

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 21. An innovative project "1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005" that aims to identify, document and honour women's peace-making efforts by nominating 1,000 women as a collectivity for the prize next year was launched here over the weekend.

To discuss project details including nomination and selection criteria, a meeting was organised prior to the launch at the convention centre of Jamia Hamdard University. About 60 women activists from South Asia and other parts of the world including Kamla Bhasin and Rebecca Vermot, the project's Western Europe coordinator, took part. The project was officially launched during a cultural evening entitled, "Women Artists for Justice, Harmony and Peace" organised by ANHAD, Jagori, SANGAT and VDAY. Several well-known artists and peace activists including Nandita Das and Shubha Mudgal from India; Salima Hashmi and Zehra Nigah from Pakistan; Hangama Anwari from Afganistan; Khushi Kabir and Ayesha Khanam from Bangladesh; Shahana Pradhan from Nepal; Vasuki Jeyasankar from Sri Lanka; Saskia Wieringa from The Netherlands; and Eve Ensler from the U.S. were present.

The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901 and it has been given 84 times since then. Only 11 women have been recognised by the Nobel committee for their work to promote peace. The first woman prize recipient was the Austrian Bertha von Suttner in 1905 for her work with the Permanent International Peace Bureau. The most recent woman to receive the prize was the Iranian Shirin Ebadi in 2003 for her work on democracy and human rights. "2005 will be the centenary of von Suttner's award," says project head, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, Member of Swiss Parliament and Member of the Council of Europe. "On this occasion, we believe it is appropriate to honour the millions of women who do peace work everyday all over the world and whose efforts are usually neglected in the roll call of achievement."

The project has identified 18 regional coordinators from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Middle and Near East, North and South America and Europe who will oversee nominations in their respective regions. Kamla Bhasin of SANGAT (South Asian Network of Gender Activists and Trainers) and Jagori will be the project's South Asia coordinator.

Each region has been assigned a quota of nominees; South Asia has 160, of which India has been assigned a quota of 100 women. Nomination forms are available online at www.1000peacewomen.org and must be submitted by May 31, 2004.

Once nominations are finalised, film-makers, writers, artists, photographers and social scientists will document the women's work to create an `archive' of global peace strategies, the first such archive of its kind. An international group of academics will also analyse this archive for its lessons about conflict resolution, trauma and rehabilitation.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National