Afghanistan
Masuda Sultan is program director of Women for Afghan Women,
providing assistance and a platform for Afghan women’s
rights activists. In September 2003, she organized an historic
conference in Kandahar, the city of her birth, where Afghan
women met to discuss their country’s future constitution
and draft the Afghan Women’s Bill of Rights. The document,
drafted and unanimously agreed upon by 45 grassroots Afghan
women leaders from across the country, was endorsed in principle
by President Karzai and the Afghan Constitutional Commission.
The New York Times described the Afghan Women’s Bill
of Rights as an “extraordinary document” that should
inform the constitution-drafting process. Having lost 19 members
of her extended family during the US bombing campaign, Ms.
Sultan has also collaborated with September Eleventh Families
for Peaceful Tomorrows to lobby Congress for targeted aid to
innocent victims of the war against terror in Afghanistan.
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Colombia
After riding deep into the jungle to interview the leaders of
Colombia’s armed factions, journalist Maria
Cristina Caballero took courageous
action to end the violence in her country. With support from
the International Red Cross, the
National Commission on Conciliation, and the newsmagazine Cambio,
she published “Peace on the Table,” a 60-page document
presenting the views of each party in this long-standing conflict—the
government, civil society groups, and rebel factions. Ms. Caballero,
a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School Center
for Public Leadership, continues to educate others on the war,
regularly publishing articles on different aspects of the conflict.
She has received numerous awards for her courage and determination,
including the Simon Bolivar National Prize for Journalism,
the Inter-American Press Association’s Human Rights Journalism
Award, and the Committee to Protect Journalists’ World
Press Freedom Award.
With a history of work in the NGO community, Rosa
Emilia Salamanca is senior adviser to and former executive director of Colombia’s
Association of Interdisciplinary Work, which strengthens civil
society and builds consensus through communication, education,
and community work. Ms. Salamanca develops innovative peace-education
curricula and trains community members, teachers, and officials
in conflict resolution, democratization, social development,
and human rights—key elements of civil society’s
attempts to end the country’s 40-year-old conflict. Through
her affiliation with groups like the National Women’s Network,
she participated in negotiations and attended the National Peace
Assembly. Her organization was part of the historic October 2001
Costa Rica II meeting, where Colombian government officials,
guerilla leaders from the National Liberation Army (ELN), representatives
of civil society, and international observers discussed alternative
solutions for a resolution of the Colombian conflict.
Committed to a sustainable peace in Colombia, Martha
Segura is executive director of the Colombian Confederation of Non-Governmental
Organizations, a network of some 1,100 NGOs throughout the country.
Created in 1989 as a United Nations project, the Confederation
is one of several organizations working to end the decades-old
war by coordinating the peace-building efforts of the government,
the private sector, international agencies, and NGOs. Ms. Segura
has represented the NGO community in negotiations and was instrumental
in the adoption of the Programmatic Agreement for Peace, signed
by members of the Confederation, international agencies, and
the government. She has facilitated innovative strategy sessions
that bring together representatives from Colombia’s military
and civil society, groups that have traditionally worked in isolation
from one another.
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Democratic Republic of the Congo
Although more than three million people have died since the devastating
conflict in their country began, Congolese women have designed
innovative ways to become involved in peace-building efforts.
Barred from acting as negotiators in official negotiations,
women throughout the country organized demonstrations, marches,
and conferences to spread their message of nonviolence. Monique
Kande is
a founding member and president of the International Foundation
for African Women for Development, a platform that
unites a number of associations in order to promote women.
She is a founding member and executive secretary of the Congolese
Women’s Caucus. Created to push for women’s involvement
in the Inter-Congolese Dialogues, the Caucus brings together
women from different sectors and the full political spectrum.
Ms. Kande is a member of the World Association of Non-Governmental
Organizations and the World Federation of Women for Peace.
Claudine
Tayaye Bibi is chair of Programs for the Call to Action
for Women, a network of NGOs in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, a country devastated by an ongoing civil war and the intervention
of regional powers. She represented civil society in the 2002
Sun City Inter-Congolese Dialogues, a series of talks at which
women were not permitted to act as official negotiators. Throughout
her long career as an educator and activist, Ms. Tayaye Bibi
has been an adviser to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs,
heading a program on the integration of women in development,
and vice president of the Federation of Networks of African Women
for Peace. She recently co-organized a 10,000-strong march calling
on the Congolese government to implement the Pretoria peace agreement
and to include women in any implementation efforts.
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El Salvador
The recent history of El Salvador has been marred by decades
of violence, human rights violations, and government repression.
A program officer at the Citizen Participation and Governance
Project of the Washington-based firm Creative Associates, Salom� Martin�z helps to stabilize this post-conflict country. The Citizen
Participation and Governance Project enhances Salvadorans’ involvement
in their country’s public policy process by strengthening
citizens’ role and increasing transparency. Creative
Associates has worked in El Salvador for the past 13 years,
helping to reintegrate former combatants and repair the country’s
physical and political infrastructure.
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Fiji
For a true end to the cycle of coups that has plagued Fiji and
to move forward with reconciliation, the inclusion of the nation’s
women is critical. Following the coup and subsequent political
crises of May 2000, Sharon
Bhagwan-Rolls and others founded
fem’LINKpacific, a women’s media NGO established
to increase the visibility of gender issues and women’s
stories within the context of the crisis by developing, producing,
and distributing community media initiatives. As secretary
of Fiji’s Women, Peace, and Security Coordinating Committee
and the National Council of Women in Fiji, Ms. Bhagwan-Rolls
strengthens women’s participation in decision-making
structures that have too long excluded women. She was the Youth
and Media representative on Fiji’s government delegation
to the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. Ms. Bhagwan-Rolls
was appointed by the UN Division for the Advancement of Women
to the expert group meeting on women and media in November
2002.
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Guatemala
Guatemala’s brutal civil war was particularly devastating
to the country’s Mayan population, with massacres in more
than 600 villages. Medarda
Castro is founder of Naleb, an organization
of indigenous Guatemalans promoting educational and constitutional
reform, economic development, and cultural unity among the Mayan
people. She is a consultant to the Organization of American States
and cofounder of the first Mayan women’s political organization
in Guatemala. Bridging divides between the Mayan and Ladino/mestizo
communities, Ms. Castro was part of a group that called on the
Guatemalan congress to strengthen the implementation of the peace
accords and abandon policies that promote the marginalization
of the Mayan people.
Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996, was
marked by human rights violations and the displacement of an
estimated one million out of a population of only 13 million.
Luz M�ndez is president of the Advisory Council to the
National Union of Guatemalan Women. She was formerly general
coordinator of the Union, which promotes women’s rights,
gender-equitable political participation, and the implementation
of the Guatemalan peace accords. Between 1991 and 1996, Ms. Méndez
participated in the negotiations as the only female member of
the delegation of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity
(Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca), contributing to
the incorporation of woman-specific commitments for gender equity
into the accords. Until recently, she was a member of the Comisión
de Acompañamiento, which monitors and promotes the implementation
of the accords at the highest level. Ms. Méndez is a member
of the advisory council of the Global Fund for Women, and she
has been a member of the advisory group of the Independent Experts’ Assessment
on Women, War, and Peace, a study supported by UNIFEM. Currently
pursuing a master’s degree in public administration as
a Mason Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy
School of Government, her university education also includes
gender studies and business administration.
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Iran
Women have always played a central role in Iranians’ struggle
for a more open society: As women push their agendas in theocratic
and political discourse, they open space for debate on all issues,
allowing for reform. Assyeh
Miraghaie, currently a visiting scholar
at Boston University, is a workshop trainer on women’s
rights and civil society. She has educated and raised the capacity
of women, including government employees, across the country.
A political scientist who specializes in Iranian women’s
political status, she has written numerous books, research reports,
and articles on women’s political life and the political
history of her country.
With the election of the pro-reform President Khatami in 1997,
Iranians, particularly the young, began to call more publicly
for change while remaining committed to nonviolence. A freelance
consultant in gender and development for the past decade, Effie
Namazi has
consulted to United Nations agencies in Egypt and non-governmental
organizations in Iran. Having done extensive
research on youth and women's issues, she has helped to organize
several meetings on women, youth, and peace for developing strategies
and projects that promote tolerance and understanding.
Thus far, nonviolence has been a key aspect of Iranians’ calls
for reform, but some are worried this may not always be the case.
Many believe that when children have violent toys, they become
more likely to engage in violent behavior throughout their lives.
Behjat Vaezi is president of the Peace, Culture, and Development
Council, which works often with UNICEF-Iran. A leader in the
field of peace education, Ms. Vaezi coordinated the conference “Child,
Toys, and Peace,” which brought together government officials,
educators, and toy company representatives to discuss the importance
of nonviolent toys in child development. She has facilitated
a wide range of projects and programs to integrate peace education
into the lives of children, university students, and adults.
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Iraq
As Iraq recovers from the excesses and mismanagement of the Ba’ath
Party, it will take dedicated citizens to create new institutions.
Lina Abood, a former candidate for the country’s Governing
Council, is one of the founders of Awakening Iraqi Women, a post-Saddam
civil society organization promoting the role of women in Iraqi
life. She is a member of the Iraqi Women’s League and was
on the steering committee for “Voices of the Women of Iraq,” the
first Iraqi women’s conference to take place in Baghdad
following the fall of the Hussein regime. A doctor of gynecology
and obstetrics, she has collaborated with a number of NGOs to
help women and children and is now working closely with national
and coalition forces.
During the reign of Saddam Hussein, some 20,000 people were
killed in the Iraqi town of Hilla, which has a population of
slightly more than half a million. Sawsan
Al-Barak witnessed
this and other cruelty as relatives and neighbors were taken
prisoner, interrogated, and left with lingering physical and
psychological scars. In 2003, she cofounded the Hilla Women’s
Rights Center—one of the first such organizations in post-Ba’ath
Iraq. The Center, which already boasts an Internet café,
classes in computers and handicrafts, and timely lectures and
conferences. Through these, the Center generates funds to support
free legal advice, aid battered women, and offer no-charge instruction
in English, political participation, and civil affairs.
There has been a dearth of civil society organizations in Iraq
since the Ba’athists came to power in the late 1960s. Following
the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government, many talented
Iraqis have stepped forward to fill this gap. Hind
Makiya was
chosen by the late Aquila Al Hashimi to draft a post-war strategy
for Iraqi women. After finding much support at the grassroots
level and in local government, she is currently establishing
a women’s center and planning a women’s parallel
structure in government to train Iraqi women that would hold
political office. She is cofounder and director of the Iraqi
Women’s Foundation.
Kurds in northern Iraq faced discrimination, repression, and
ultimately genocide at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Ala
Talabani is a fierce advocate for Kurdish and women’s rights. Former
vice president of the Kurdistan Women’s Union, under Hussein’s
government Ms. Talabani was fired from engineering and teaching
positions for being Kurdish and for not being a member of the
ruling Ba’ath Party. She was later detained for two days
by the Iraqi security service and interrogated about her religious
and political beliefs. Following 1991 Persian Gulf War, Ms. Talabani
and her children fled Iraq, eventually arriving in the United
Kingdom, where she continued to speak on behalf of Kurdish and
other Iraqi women. She has met with Prime Minister Tony Blair
and contributed to a number of British and Arab newspaper and
magazine articles on the state of Iraq and its Kurdish population.
Ms. Talabani has organized and chaired a number of conferences
on women’s political participation in post-war Iraq. She
cofounded the Iraqi Women’s High Council in October 2003.
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Israel
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to spiral out of control,
with understanding between the two groups growing more distant.
Orli Fridman is a doctoral candidate at George Mason University’s
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and is currently
researching conscientious objectors in Serbia and Israel. As
a staff member at the School for Peace in Neve Shalom/Wahat
al Salam, she facilitated dialogue groups between Israelis
and Palestinians, allowing youths and adults from both communities
to meet, share stories, and explore the conflict and their
identities. Ms. Fridman also worked as a facilitator at the
Seeds of peace summer camp in Maine.
As violence between Israelis and Palestinians continues, few
programs bring together people from both sides of the conflict.
As a project coordinator at Hebrew University’s Harry S.
Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Michelle
(Michal) Miller facilitates
and conducts research for the joint Israeli-Palestinian program “Women
and Nonviolent Approaches to Conflict Resolution.” This
cross-community initiative investigates women’s roles in
peace building efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ms.
Miller recently traveled
to Northern Ireland as part of an Israeli and Palestinian delegation
to examine the management of divided cities and explore issues
related to sharing resources, dealing with ongoing violence,
and reintegrating ex-combatants, among others.
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Kenya (Regional Expert: Horn of Africa)
Bordering Sudan, where ongoing civil war has left nearly ten
percent of the population displaced, Kenya has seen swells
of refugees cross its border, seeking safety. Mary
Okumu is
regional coordinator of El Taller Africa, a Tunis-based human
rights organization that brings together women from different
cultures to strengthen civil society through education, training,
and capacity building. She has trained Sudanese women living
in refugee camps in Kenya and the surrounding countries in
mediation, conflict resolution, health education, development,
and survival skills. Under the auspices of the Intergovernmental
Authority on Development, Ms. Okumu has collaborated with governments
in the Horn of Africa to promote the role of women in official
peace processes. She was part of the team that designed the
African Committee for Peace and Development task force, a joint
initiative of the Organization of African Unity and the Economic
Community for Africa.
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Kosovo
One of only three women appointed to the 20-member United Nations
Joint Interim Administrative Structure of war-ravaged Kosovo,
Vjosa Dobruna served as the minister responsible for democracy
building and civil society. She insisted on the full political
participation of women and ethnic minorities and helped draft
an election regulation requiring that one in every three candidates
for the region’s new assembly be a woman. Dr. Dobruna
subsequently co-led a conference that brought together the
women in the Kosovar parliament for the creation of a multi-party
caucus bridging ethnic and party lines—the only such
cross-party body in Kosovo. She spent 2002-2003 as a fellow
at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government, where she researched truth commissions
and explored possible reconciliation models for Kosovo.
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Liberia (Regional
Expert: Mano River Area)
The central location of Liberia, which has been in a state of almost constant
civil war since 1980, puts the country in a position to destabilize or further
destabilize the other nations in the Mano River region of West Africa. In May
2000, women peace builders from Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia came together
to form the Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET) to influence policy
and advocate for women’s participation in peace processes to end conflicts
in their countries. Juanita Jarrett is a founding member of MARWOPNET and Liberia’s
former national focal point for the organization. A lawyer, Ms. Jarrett has represented
MARWOPNET at a number of summits in West Africa, lobbying for assistance in bringing
peace to her region.
Liberia
Caught in a cycle of violence for some 25 years, Liberia saw
the reentry of UN peacekeeping troops in fall 2003. Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf, the country’s former minister of finance, was
one of only four government ministers to survive the 1980 coup
d’état. With a long career in the financial sector,
she has represented Liberia at the African Development Bank,
the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. She spent
five years as assistant administrator and director of the United
Nations Development Programme’s Regional Bureau for Africa,
later running for president of Liberia in 1997. In 1999, the
Organization of African Unity named her and six others to a
body that investigated the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Until recently,
Ms. Johnson Sirleaf was chair of the board of directors of
the Open Society Institute in West Africa, establishing a society
marked by functioning democracy, full civic participation,
good governance, and the rule of law. With Elizabeth Rehn,
she researched and wrote Women, War
and Peace: The Independent Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on
Women and Women’s Role in Peace-building, published by
the United Nations Development Fund for Women in 2002.
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Macedonia
Though spared the open war that tore apart Bosnia and Kosovo,
Macedonia’s population dealt with a difficult transition
to independence and simmering ethnic tensions for much of the
last two decades. Slavica
Indzevska-Stojanovic, currently a
fellow in the Mason Program in Public Policy and Management
at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government,
is deputy executive director for joint programs at the Open
Society Institute (OSI). OSI-Macedonia is an NGO devoted to
building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions
of an open society. Ms. Indzevska-Stojanovic manages the foundation’s
work with external partners and has overseen programs on women’s
and Roma issues, legal statutes, and civil society development.
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Palestinian
Educating the next generation of Palestinian peace builders,
academic and human rights activist Sumaya
Farhat-Naser trains
women and youth in the occupied territories in conflict resolution,
nonviolence, civic leadership, human rights, tolerance, and
empowerment. She is co-founder and former director of the Jerusalem
Center for Women, which partners with the Israeli organization
Bat Shalom to create the bicommunal Jerusalem Link; she is
no longer affiliated with this organization. Dr. Farhat-Naser
is a recipient of the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights,
the Mount Zion Award for Reconciliation Between Cultures and
Religions, the Augsburg Peace Prize, and other awards. She
has been on the boards of the Arab Thought Forum and the Arab
Studies Society and is on the board of the Global Fund for
Women. Dr. Farhat-Naser recently published her fourth book,
Daughter of the Olive Trees: A Palestinian
Woman’s Struggle
for Peace.
Ongoing violence has a devastating effect on the economy of
a region. Such is the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Leila Farsakh, a Palestinian economist, is a research fellow
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for
International Studies and a post-doctorate fellow at the Center
for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. A founding
member of the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, she has
worked at both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development in Paris and the Palestine Economic Policy Research
Institute in Ramallah. Dr. Farsakh’s research focuses on
the economic issues related to the Palestinian economy, international
migration, and regional integration. Her forthcoming book, Labor
Migration and the Palestinian State: The Political Economy of
Palestinian Labor Flows to Israel, 1967-2002 (Routledge), addresses
the evolution of land and labor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Key to reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is understanding the failure of previous negotiation processes.
As a doctoral candidate at Tufts University’s Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy, Amal
Jadou has focused on international
negotiation, conflict resolution, and security. She is currently
drafting her dissertation: an analysis of the Oslo process under
President Clinton. Born and raised in a refugee camp near Bethlehem,
Ms. Jadou is a former member of the board of trustees of Wi’am,
a Palestinian conflict resolution center. Currently a fellow
at Harvard Law School’s program on negotiation, she addressed
President Johannes Rau of Germany on behalf of Palestinian university
students and, as a representative of the Palestinian Prisoner
Society, met with UN High Commission for Human Rights Mary Robinson
when she investigated the condition of Palestinians in Israeli
prisons.
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Philippines
Over more than three decades, the separatist conflict on the
Philippines’ island of Mindanao has cost well over 100,000
lives. Josephine Perez is the program director of the Peace
Education and Capacity-Building Program at the Gaston Z. Ortigas
Peace Institute, which strengthens Filipino civil society’s
long-term capacity for conflict resolution and peace building
through training, case documentation and research. Ms. Perez
co-developed a model of peaceful approaches to social conflicts
in the Philippines in 1995 through in-depth interviews and
focus group discussions with peace practitioners in local communities
and at the national level. This model became the framework
of the Institute’s training program on conflict resolution
and transformation. Ms. Perez also directed a project on the
formation of quick-response action teams in the southern Philippines,
in which five community groups were organized and trained in
peace building and conflict transformation. Ms. Perez is co-trainer
of the Institute’s program on stress and crisis management
among peace advocates, who often face immense pressure.
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Rwanda (Regional Expert: Great Lakes)
Nathalie Gahunga is one of five 2003-2004 fellows at the Boston
Consortium for Gender, Peace, Security, and Human Rights, which
pools the resources of five leading academic centers and programs
in Boston that focus on gender and security, human rights,
and conflict prevention and resolution. She is currently drafting
a working paper on gender and peace building in Africa’s
Great Lakes region, which is afflicted by multi-dimensional
conflicts both within and across national borders. Ms. Gahunga
focuses on common problems and suggests that links between
women in the area are a possible solution. She has been a program
officer at the Canadian Centre for International Studies and
Cooperation, where she conducted programs on peace building
in Rwanda, Burundi, and the North and South Kivu regions of
the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2000, Ms. Gahunga
was a member of the steering committee for the American Embassy
program “Women as Partners for Peace.” She is a
founding member of the regional network Initiative
de Genève
pour la Paix dans la Région des Grands Lacs.
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Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war ended in 2002, leaving
tens of thousands dead and a large portion of the population
displaced. Zainab Hawa
Bangura is chair of the advisory board
of the Network for Collaborative Peace Building in Sierra Leone.
After founding the political party Movement for Progress, she
ran for president on the party’s ticket in 2002. She has
been a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme,
advising the body on inclusion and participation within its programs
and formulating advocacy positions for its work with the government
and development partners. Also a member of the Sierra Leone Women’s
Forum, Ms. Hawa Bangura has been on the board of the International
Crisis Group. In 2003, she was awarded the Sierra Leone Women
of Excellence Life of Achievement Award.
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South Africa (Regional Expert: Sub-Saharan
Africa)
Kemi Ogunsanya is a senior conflict resolution training officer
with the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes
(ACCORD), a conflict management NGO. Originally created to address
challenges in South Africa’s difficult transition from
apartheid to democracy, ACCORD’s focus has broadened to
include all of Africa, offering innovative and effective solutions
to regional challenges. In 2002, Ms. Ogunsanya provided conflict
resolution and negotiation training to Congolese women participating
in the Sun City peace talks, which brought together Congolese
representatives from the government, political parties, rebel
groups, and civil society. She trained male and female parliamentarians
from member states of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development
in advanced negotiation and mediation skills and gender mainstreaming;
as a result, Sudanese ministers named a woman to their negotiating
team for the first time. Ms. Ogunsanya is from Nigeria.
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South Korea
Tension remains high between the two countries on the Korean
peninsula. No longer at war, they are neither at peace. As
a trainer at the Women Making Peace Conflict Resolution Center,
Gyung-Lan Jung focuses on international solidarity work with
non-governmental organizations, conducting sessions in conflict
resolution and preparing activists, teachers, and students
to cooperate with NGOs and influence international policy on
conflicts and peace building. Ms. Jung has coordinated a number
of international conferences and training programs, often sponsored
by the South Korean government.
Honesty in the South Korean governance structure is essential
in a time when tensions on the peninsula threaten the security
of the entire region. Bong-Scuk
Sohn is founder, former director,
and president of the board of directors of the Center for Korean
Women and Politics, as well as founder and co-president of Korean
Women for Legislature, a nationwide women’s civic watchdog.
In 1999, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Dr. Sohn to the
UN’s Independent Electoral Commission for the East Timor
Popular Consultation. In 2001, she chaired the UN Independent
Electoral Commission for the Constituent Election in East Timor;
the resulting Constituent Assembly was responsible for drafting
the young nation’s constitution. She was an international
observer in Mexico’s general election in 2000. She is committed
to political approaches in stabilizing the Korean peninsula and
has been particularly outspoken about the power of Japan to be
a force for reconciliation or division in the region. She is
also a leading voice within a coalition of 50 NGOs, urging the
Korean Government to send civil society experts rather than troops
to Iraq.
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Sri Lanka
Visaka Dharmadasa is founder of Parents of Servicemen Missing
in Action, chair of the Association of War-Affected Women,
and secretary of the Kandy Association for War-Affected Families.
Working to end the bloody civil war that has gripped Sri Lanka
for the last 20 years, she educates soldiers, youth, and community
leaders about international standards of conduct in war and
promotes the economic and social development of women across
conflict lines. She has designed and facilitated Track II dialogue
processes, bringing together influential civil society leaders
from both sides of the conflict. Ms. Dharmadasa was asked by
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leaders to carry messages
to the government when talks were floundering and Tamil representatives
refused to speak directly with foreign embassy staff members
and Norwegian negotiators. She is currently bringing suit against
the Government of Sri Lanka to force DNA testing on soldiers’ remains,
which would enable families to finally learn about the death
of a loved one.
The civil war in Sri Lanka has devastated that country’s
once-prosperous economy. Neela
Marikkar is managing director
of Grant McCann-Erickson, a member of the international network
McCann Erickson Worldwide, USA. She is also president of Sri
Lanka First. This powerful group of leaders from the country’s
business community struggles to end the 20-year conflict by advocating
for peace and regional stability through a negotiated settlement
between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam. Ms. Marikkar is also a consultant to the UN Development
Programme’s initiative “Invest in Peace,” which
promotes foreign investment for post-conflict reconstruction
in Sri Lanka.
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Sudan
Sudan’s civil war, one of the world’s longest ongoing
conflicts, has resulted in nearly ten percent of the country’s
population of 38 million being displaced—sometimes into
the line of fire. An anthropologist and accomplished scholar,
Rogaia
Mustafa Abusharaf focuses on security, human rights protection,
and the cultural strategies adopted by displaced women to cope
with violence and dislocation, particularly that resulting from
the lengthy civil war in Sudan. She currently teaches in Tufts
University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
and she is a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, developing policy
recommendations for improving the experience of war-displaced
women. She was a visiting assistant professor of Africana and
gender studies at Brown University, where she held a postdoctoral
fellowship at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research.
Dr. Abusharaf’s numerous publications include Wanderings:
Sudanese Migrants and Exiles in North America, one of
the first books devoted to the experience of Sudanese immigrants
and exiles
in the United States.
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Tibetan
In 1949, massive numbers of Chinese soldiers crossed the border
into Tibet. Ten years later, Tibetans, led by the Dalai Lama,
rebelled, protesting the occupation of their country. Some
80,000 were killed and many more imprisoned. Upon the failure
of this uprising, the spiritual leader and many of his followers
fled to India. In the intervening years, Tibet has seen the
systematic destruction of its unique culture and the establishment
of marshal law. Losang
Rabgey, born in a refugee settlement
in northern India and raised in Canada, is now advocacy coordinator
at the International Campaign for Tibet, conducting outreach
to Tibetans and the academic community. She is cofounder of
a Tibetan community development group, which has sponsored
a scholarship for university-bound women, a community library
and learning center, and other initiatives. Ms. Rabgey is a
Commonwealth scholar and doctoral candidate at the University
of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies; her
specialty is gender anthropology and the Tibetan diaspora,
and her fieldwork focuses on the oral histories of Tibetan
women living in India and the West.