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Bosnia, A Mirror to Look At: Bringing Local Experience to Global Change

29 July 2016

As the world’s oldest international feminist organisation, with an aim to ensure real and lasting peace and freedom by non-violent means, WILPF seeks to effectively support women’s grassroots organisations in multiple ways. WILPF’s unique local-global-local approach, which forges strong linkages between international, national and local efforts, makes our engagement not only innovative but also thoroughly tailored for each local context.

This article is part of a series of articles showcasing different aspects of how the local-global-local approach works in reality.

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In February 2014 WILPF partnered up with likeminded organisations, such as the Swedish Foundation Kvinna till Kvinna and MADRE, and with support from OAK Foundation, to organise a feminist solidarity dialogue between Syrian and Bosnian women activists.

The aim was to empower women from these two countries to work together for peace by identifying and analysing the root causes of conflict and to develop their own strategies for addressing those causes in the context of both: the war-affected Syria and the post-war Bosnia. The experiences of Bosnian women during the war in the 90’s and their post-war struggle for sustainable peace served as a starting point for the discussion that evolved around women’s participation in peace negotiations, gender based violence and justice.

The conference between Bosnian and Syrian women activists proved to be an example of good practice upon which the solidarity and women’s participation in peace building can further be built on. Since then WILPF has continued to use this method as a means to connect the diverse grassroots experiences to each other and to elevate the analysis done on the grassroots level to the international diplomatic arena.

Lessons learned

_SV08701WILPF’s Crisis Response Programme has been supporting women organisations and activists in Ukraine in their analysis of the conflict, creation of strategies for ways forward and facilitating their contact with the international diplomatic arena. One of the tracks in that support was to use the lessons learned from the Bosnia-Syria conference, as a method of amplifying independent voices of women peace activists on conflict and peacemaking, and provide a platform for dialogue and exchange with other grassroots experiences.

In June 2016 WILPF, together with Kvinna till Kvinna, planned and organised for another solidarity meeting – this time activists from Ukraine were brought to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a three-day solidarity dialogue. In Ukraine, women activists, NGOs, and volunteer movements, in particular those close to the frontline, have spent the majority of their efforts in providing humanitarian aid, serving as implementing partners for aid agencies and coping with the multiple complex consequences of conflict, displacement and economic crisis. Many of the organisations are over stretched and have little capacity to increase their work. The engagement of civil society in the peace process has been virtually non-existent.

At the same time Bosnia and Herzegovina is in a situation where the effects of the past conflict have not yet been resolved and the austerity measures are deepening the conflict in the society. Such a development has led to a situation where peace more than ever needs the collective energy and efforts of women and peace organisation united around joint understanding what peace is supposed to be. 20 year post armed conflict there is still much to do, both in terms of dealing with the past (in the sense of addressing the harms from the war in 90’s) and preventing potentially a whole new conflict.

“I want to be responsible for that peace”

The solidarity dialogue that lasted for three days, revealed the interplay between deepened social, political and economic injustice, the austerity measures introduced in both countries and the inequality between women and men, leading the countries deeper into conflicts. This confirms once again the need for non-violent means of social transformation that enables the inauguration of systems under which social and political equality and economic justice for all can be attained to ensure real and lasting peace.

As one of the participants said “I want a peace in which I can realise all my rights. I want to participate in building the peace in my country, and in the region, and I want to be responsible for that peace, in all segments of the society. I do not want to be outside, because if I am outside then I do not have any responsibilities either”.

 

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Melissa Torres

VICE-PRESIDENT

Prior to being elected Vice-President, Melissa Torres was the WILPF US International Board Member from 2015 to 2018. Melissa joined WILPF in 2011 when she was selected as a Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women as part of the WILPF US’ Practicum in Advocacy Programme at the United Nations, which she later led. She holds a PhD in Social Work and is a professor and Global Health Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine and research lead at BCM Anti-Human Trafficking Program. Of Mexican descent and a native of the US/Mexico border, Melissa is mostly concerned with the protection of displaced Latinxs in the Americas. Her work includes training, research, and service provision with the American Red Cross, the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Centre, and refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Some of her goals as Vice-President are to highlight intersectionality and increase diversity by fostering inclusive spaces for mentorship and leadership. She also contributes to WILPF’s emerging work on the topic of displacement and migration.

Jamila Afghani

VICE-PRESIDENT

Jamila Afghani is the President of WILPF Afghanistan which she started in 2015. She is also an active member and founder of several organisations including the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organisation (NECDO). Elected in 2018 as South Asia Regional Representative to WILPF’s International Board, WILPF benefits from Jamila’s work experience in education, migration, gender, including gender-based violence and democratic governance in post-conflict and transitional countries.

Sylvie Jacqueline Ndongmo

PRESIDENT

Sylvie Jacqueline NDONGMO is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.

WILPF Afghanistan

In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region. 

IPB Congress Barcelona

WILPF Germany (+Young WILPF network), WILPF Spain and MENA Regional Representative

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Demilitarisation

WILPF uses feminist analysis to argue that militarisation is a counter-productive and ill-conceived response to establishing security in the world. The more society becomes militarised, the more violence and injustice are likely to grow locally and worldwide.

Sixteen states are believed to have supplied weapons to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 with the US supplying 74 % of weapons, followed by Russia. Much of this equipment was left behind by the US military and is being used to inflate Taliban’s arsenal. WILPF is calling for better oversight on arms movement, for compensating affected Afghan people and for an end to all militarised systems.

Militarised masculinity

Mobilising men and boys around feminist peace has been one way of deconstructing and redefining masculinities. WILPF shares a feminist analysis on the links between militarism, masculinities, peace and security. We explore opportunities for strengthening activists’ action to build equal partnerships among women and men for gender equality.

WILPF has been working on challenging the prevailing notion of masculinity based on men’s physical and social superiority to, and dominance of, women in Afghanistan. It recognizes that these notions are not representative of all Afghan men, contrary to the publicly prevailing notion.

Feminist peace​

In WILPF’s view, any process towards establishing peace that has not been partly designed by women remains deficient. Beyond bringing perspectives that encapsulate the views of half of the society and unlike the men only designed processes, women’s true and meaningful participation allows the situation to improve.

In Afghanistan, WILPF has been demanding that women occupy the front seats at the negotiating tables. The experience of the past 20 has shown that women’s presence produces more sustainable solutions when they are empowered and enabled to play a role.

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