Join WILPF and the Move to Amend coalition as we
Occupy the Courts!

You have a great opportunity to mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision by joining your fellow outraged Americans in a national day of rallies and protest across the country as we Occupy the Courts. 

Occupy the Courts is organized by the Move to Amend coalition that is working to build a broad-based diverse grassroots movement to pass an amendment that states:  corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of natural persons, and that money is not speech.  

Occupy the Courts on Friday, January 20 - is a one day action at Federal courthouses—there are 101 locations across the country including the Supreme Court, and now events planned in 100 cities!

Read more...

Conceived at the WILPF International Congress in August, the first issue of the bi-lingual newsletter of WILPF sections in the Americas was recently released. Published electronically and distributed through the various section’s e-mail lists and websites, this exciting, all volunteer effort strives to light the way toward more coordinated north-south activism within WILPF. This issue provides an overview of WILPF’s coordinated actions taken as part of the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign. 

Edited by Robin Lloyd, UNITAS/United will be published quarterly and the deadline for submissions to the next issue is February 15, 2012. Please send articles written in Spanish to Susan at smsmith99@verizon.net and articles written in English to Ximena at ximena@limpalcolombia.org. 

WILPF-U.S.  Report of the Civil Society Consultations on the Development of the

United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (UN SCR 1325) Released! 

Read WILPF’s  final Report of the Civil Society Consultations on the Development of the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR1325) here. 

Also find:

• Recommendations
• 1325 Consultation Preliminary Summary Findings
• WILPF’s White Paper on SCR1325 U.S. National Action Plan (NAP)
• Executive Summary of White Paper
• Link to On-line Survey
• YouTube page answering the question “What does security mean to you?”
• SCR1325 and the Whistleblower Facebook page
• PeaceWomen website

Between 23 September and 22 October 2011, the U.S. Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) held five civil society consultations with the Department of State, Office of Women’s Global Issues, on the formulation of the U.S. National Action Plan (NAP) on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, due to be finalized in December 2011. 

The consultations were held in Detroit, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; San Diego, California; Portland, Oregon; and Boston, Massachusetts, and collectively nearly four hundred women (and some men) participated. Attendees represented a broad range of nongovernmental organizations, academia and students, and individuals of diverse ages, races, ethnicities, and economic and social statuses, including the frequently “unheard voices” of women living in homeless shelters, undocumented migrants and women who have been trafficked for sexual slavery. 

The consultations validated the stated goal of the U.S. 1325 NAP to make “women equal partners in peace,” while also stressing the centrality of both external and domestic applications to achieve this aim.   

WILPF’s final report on the consultations includes 64 concrete recommendations relevant to UN SCR 1325 implementation internationally, domestically, or both. In total, the recommendations provoke a rethinking of how, as a country, the U.S. defines peace and security, especially in terms of women’s experience of conflict and violence. Read more...