In October 2011 we celebrate the role of women in peace and profile issues about women’s oppression and empowerment in the face of conflict and violence around the world.
Resources on this page relate to NZ curriculum about
- War and society
- Responses to challenges
- Social actions
- Ways people influence society
- Social actions
- Effects of an aspect of society
The Nobel Peace Prize 2011
This year the focus is on non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.
Read more about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karmanon on the Nobel Prize website
View summary on NZ Herald Online Video
“Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president. Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women.
Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.
In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the “Arab spring”, Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.” From Press Release
Interviews
Leymah Gbowee and Angelique Kidjo speak with Christiane Amanpour – October 2009 Watch on YouTube
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf talks with Pat Mitchell at the TED Women Conference 2010. Watch the short on the TED Blog. Watch full 22-minute interview on the Paley Center for Media‘s website.
Leymah Gbowee in her own words on PBS
Comments
“Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: a woman who rebuilt my broken country” by Matilda Parker, The Guardian, 7 October 2011
NEW Documentary Series
Women, War & Peace
A 5-part special series on the US television PBS. Premiers in the USA October 2011
If you are outside the USA – these can be viewed online (after they are aired on TV) or purchased as DVDs.
An extraordinary series of documentaries filmed in conflict zones around the world (Bosnia, Afghanistan, Colombia, Liberia) that shows women at the center of issues related to peace and conflict. “Shows how women have become primary targets in today’s armed conflicts and are suffering unprecedented casualties; yet, they are simultaneously emerging as necessary partners in brokering lasting peace and as leaders in forging new international laws governing conflict.” More about the series …
As a teaching resource
Access companion lesson plans for teachers
Link to full episodes, previews and shorts
The series Women, War & Peace (except Pray the Devil Back to Hell) can be purchased from Amazon from 22 November 2011. While the DVD is categorised for Zone 1 (USA/Canada) it can be played on a multizone DVD player in New Zealand and other countries.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell can be purchased from the Christian Resource Centre, NZ. While the DVD is categorised for Zone 1 (USA/Canada) it can be played on a multizone DVD player in New Zealand and other countries.
The documentaries
“I Came to Testify is the moving story of how a group of 16 women who had been imprisoned and raped by Serb-led forces in the Bosnian town of Foca broke history’s great silence – and stepped forward to take the witness stand in an international court of law. Their remarkable courage resulted in a triumphant verdict that led to new international laws about sexual violence in war. [Watch online on the PBS website.]
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the astonishing story of the Liberian women who took on the warlords and regime of dictator Charles Taylor in the midst of a brutal civil war, and won a once unimaginable peace for their shattered country in 2003. [Watch online soon.]
When the U.S. troop surge was announced in late 2009, women in Afghanistan knew that the ground was being laid for peace talks with the Taliban. Peace Unveiled follows three women in Afghanistan who are risking their lives to make sure that women’s rights don’t get traded away in the deal. [Watch online soon.]
The War We Are Living travels to Cauca, a mountainous region in Colombia’s Pacific southwest, where two extraordinary Afro-Colombian women are braving a violent struggle over their gold-rich lands. They are standing up for a generation of Colombians who have been terrorized and forcibly displaced as a deliberate strategy of war. [Watch online soon.]
War Redefined, the capstone of Women, War & Peace, challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain through incisive interviews with leading thinkers, Secretaries of State and seasoned survivors of war and peace-making. Interviewees include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee; Bosnian war crimes investigator Fadila Memisevic; and globalization expert Moisés Naím. [Watch online soon.]”
Books
“Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
“These Pulitzer Prize-winning authors see the treatment of women in developing countries as the great story of this century, a moral issue, sure, but also as an economic one. What if by oppressing half their population, countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East have been shooting themselves in their collective foot? ” See The Washington Post and other reviews
Reports
The UN Security Council’s annual open debate on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) – 28 October 2011
Read about the debate and access webcasts on the website Women for Peace + Peace for Women: “Women’s Participation and Role in Conflict Prevention and Mediation”
World Bank Report
Op-Ed: Empowering Women Powers Nations by Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank Group, discusses the Report “World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development” (September, 2011).
Current Events
“In a case of life imitating art, Iranian actress Marzieh Vafamehr has been sentenced to a year in jail and 90 lashes for her role in an Australian-produced film about the limits imposed on artists in Iran.” Sydney Morning Herald, 11 October 2011
TED Talk
TEDGlobal 2011 – Women, wartime and the dream of peace
What are the stories beyond the frontlines of war? Who are the women who keep everyday life going during conflicts?
Zainab Salbi tells powerful “backline” stories and calls for women to have a place at the negotiating table once fighting is over.
