PeaceWomen Across the Globe

Jeanne Gacoreke, based in Burundi’s capital Bujumbura, is originally a teacher by profession. She was one of the first people to publicly denounce rape by rebel groups and Burundian military forces. After decades of struggling to end gender-based and sexualised violence, supporting people affected by poverty and refugees and internally displaced people in Burundi, Jeanne Gacoreke says: “All in all, I have some reason to be satisfied with what we have achieved. Even so, the road is still long.”

«It didn’t happen, most commanders say, when confronted with sexual violence during the civil war», says Susan Risal. She is a peace practitioner based in Kathmandu, Nepal, and the Cheif Executive Officer of Nagarik Aawaz, a peace-building organization which works with conflict-affected youth and women. In her work, she brought together women from both sides of the Nepalese conflict, the Maoist rebels and the Nepalese army. And she insists on the fact, that denying the facts of sexual violence in the patriarchal Nepalese society is an obstacle to really deal with the underlying causes for the civil unrest in her country.

Mandy Carter’s work in the United States connects a range of issues: opposition to war and violence, support for social and economic justice for people of color, and equal rights for women and LGBTQ people. She is active both in grassroots campaigns and national coalitions, with a particular focus on the religious right’s anti-gay activities in black communities. She is a brilliant coalition builder, highly respected by people from diverse backgrounds. Her work has been key to recognising LGBTQ issues as social justice issues in the United States. In her work and activism, Mandy believes in «the power of one».

“We can’t do things without love,” says Sevim Arbana, an activist who has long been at the forefront of the democratic movement in Albania. She is the founder of the NGO Useful to Albanian Women and of the peace movement “Women Bridge for Peace and Understanding” in the Balkans. In her activism, she is committed to fighting for women’s rights, human rights and for peace.

As a child, she escaped during the night in a boat when the rebel soldiers came to her village. Years later, Yasmin Busan-Lao played a central role in the peace negotiations in the conflict-affected region of Mindanao. The discrimination she experienced as a refugee led her to dedicate her life to equality and justice, particularly for women, whether as an educator, researcher or development practitioner. Changing patterns of conflict requires a change in the mindset of men, she says.

She fled her home country Afghanistan after her husband was disappeared, and lived as a refugee in Pakistan. Yet Sima Samar, a medical doctor by training, never lost her faith in peace. Today, she is the Special Envoy on Human Rights and State Minister for International Affairs in the Afghan government. In this episode, Sima Samar explains why lasting peace can only be achieved when women are included in peace processes.

She grew up in one of the most affected areas in the Colombian civil war that took the lives of more than 200,000 people, including two of her uncles. Her experiences of conflict led Alejandra Miller Restrepo to join the «Ruta Pacifica de las Mujeres», a movement that opposes violence against women and champions their inclusion in peacebuilding. Today, Alejandra, a professor at the University of Cauca, is a member of Colombia’s Truth Commission, where she is committed to making women’s voices heard.

Her work as a parliamentarian took her to refugee camps in conflict-affected regions. There Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold met women who had experienced sexualised violence and who were now struggling for a better life and fighting for their rights. The idea to nominate 1000 women for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize was born from these encounters at whose core lies the belief that women’s peace work must be made visible. In this episode, she describes how her own experiences of social injustice and gender discrimination led her to become a champion of PeaceWomen. Thanks to Katja Reichenstein for over voicing.