CSW 2010: YWCAs Lead in Strengthening Community Capacities for Peacemaking
Three YWCA leaders from Palestine, Sudan and Sri Lanka briefed CSW participants on the status of conflict situations in their countries underlining the role of YWCAs in strengthening their communities’ capacities for peacemaking on March 5, 2010.
Former Norwegian Parliamentarian, member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and president of FOKUS, a Norwegian agency focused on women and development which partners with more than 74 YWCAs gave opening remarks. She noted that, “Women and children are major victims of war and conflict. Women want to play important roles in peacemaking. Now is the time for implementation, identifying indicators and monitoring on the ground and lifting impunity.”
YWCA of Palestine Keeps Hope Alive Through Decades of Occupation
Mira Rizek, President of the YWCA of Palestine, described how Palestinians have endured 62 years of conflict, dispossession and occupation. In 1948, with the creation of the state of Israel, 726,000 Palestinians became refugees. Since 1967, when Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, Israel has expropriated 79 percent of this land.
Since 1967, the Israeli government has demolished 24,145 Palestinian houses, she said, quoting statistics from the Israeli Committee on House Demolitions. Currently, Palestinians only have full control over two percent of their own land in the West Bank; another 26 percent is under Palestinian civil authority overseen by the Israeli military. The rest of the occupied West Bank is fully controlled by Israel. A system of Israeli military checkpoints that Palestinians have to pass through to get from town to town wreaks havoc on everyday life, causing extensive delays in reaching schools and jobs and visiting family. The “separation wall” that cuts through the West Bank has reinforced the isolation of Palestinian communities.
Palestinian women have suffered a lot, said Rizek: “While Palestinian men are the direct recipients of violence, women have to bear its indirect costs, shouldering the entire responsibility for the family.” Women are also subjected to violence when Israeli soldiers search their homes looking for their male family members.
Finally, Rizek said that since 1967, according to the B’tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, 650,000 Palestinians, or some 35 percent of the population has been imprisoned at some time by Israel. Among these have been 720 women.
The YWCA of Palestine works to “keep hope alive” said Rizek by offering vocational training for women and preschools in refugee camps as well as advocacy and leadership training programmes. She invited participants to take part in Witness Visits to Palestine and join in the Olive Tree campaign to plant trees there as symbols of peace.
YWCA of Sudan Engages Women in Rebuilding Communities
Modi Mbaraza, General Secretary of the YWCA of Sudan gave an update and overview of the situation there. She talked about how 21 years of fighting had claimed two million lives with four million displaced. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 ended the fighting, but Mbaraza noted that conflict may be reignited when a referendum in 2011 enables South Sudanese to decide whether to remain with or separate from the rest of Sudan and asked participants to pray for the peace of her country.
She said there is still extensive humanitarian and development work needed, noting a lack of infrastructure and qualified personnel for schools and health care facilities. Widespread diseases claiming lives included malaria, sleeping sickness and water borne diseases.
“Women have no control over their own lives,” she said, noting a high prevalence of HIV and AIDS which she said was also due to “ignorance and bad cultural practices.” She called for greater empowerment of women.
She said insecurity exists in South Sudan as a result of incursions by the Lord’s Resistance Army coming from Uganda, who are killing, abducting, raping and destroying property.
The YWCA of Sudan began in 1997 as a local grassroots organisation initiated by local women in Yambio. Their programs include training women in reading and writing English and providing microcredit for women to start their own small businesses.
YWCA of Sri Lanka’s Peace Camps Build Bridges
Himali Mudalige, General Secretary of the YWCA of Sri Lanka, said that after three decades the war in Sri Lanka between government troops representing the majority and the Tamil tigers, representing the Tamil minority, was finally over. Nevertheless, a humanitarian crisis continues to exist.
Displaced persons, who were long-suffering, were in need of sanitarian and safe water. Children and women especially needed assistance. The 2004 tsunami that hit Sri Lanka also caused considerable damage and suffering. The YWCAs were working on “rehabilitation, reconstruction, and resettlement.”
The military victory also increased the level of political tension in the country. In response, to facilitate reconciliation, the YWCA has set up peace camps, especially in the northeast of the country to strengthen the capacity of local communities in peace building. In this region, more than 5,000 women have participated in the peace center’s programmes.
The YWCA also helps girls to enhance their self-empowerment offering microcredit and childcare programs.
A lively discussion followed with participants noting that the European Union will be sending observers to the Sudan election, and members of women’s groups in Sudan thanking the Mbaraza for her presentation. One asked whether Muslim women could join the YWCA and Mbaraza assured them they would be welcome. Some participants asked for action plans for advocacy for Palestine and Sudan.
Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, a longstanding YWCA leader in Fiji, now with Femlink Pacific concluded the session, urged participants to develop partnerships with global women’s media and generate stories of women’s success as peacemakers so that women are not only seen as “victims of crisis and war.” She called UN Security Council Resolution 1325 promoting women’s participation in peace negotiations “our benchmark.”
In closing the panel, World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda along with panelists and participants lit candles decorated with the YWCA of Palestine’s slogan, “Keeping Hope Alive” to symbolise women’s resilience and the light women carry into the world as peacemakers.
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