“Sometimes we need to name the abnormal as abnormal, and take action to defend what is normal!” - Shereen Essof. Jessica Horn reports at the close of the Nobel Women's Initiative conference, 'Women Forging a New Security: ending sexual violence in conflict'
Decades of feminist activism against rape has produced a world that now, formally, officially, and legally, at least talks the talk on sexual violence in conflict. Feminists have not yet been able to transform what Susan Brownmiller called the ‘ideology of rape’, but they’re working on it.
Small and big things, local and global, bridging the communities of the elite and the every day, never losing the sight of the reason why it was important to do so. On the day of the memorial service for Wangari Maathai, Maggie Baxter remembers her friend and colleague
If some of us had hoped to walk away with a global plan of action rather than a series of personal commitments stuck up on a board, well, we just may have forgotten that it's personal commitment that makes brave women stand up every day - Jenny Morgan reports from the closing session of the Nobel
'The word "reconciliation" hurts me', Bakira Hasecic says. 'All I want is for those who have hurt me to be brought to justice.'
Blogging from the Nobel Women's Initiative conference, Laura Carlsen sees the strength in the women gathered there and voices a collective hope about meeting the challenge of ending sexual violence in conflict.
Hope may be a rare word in the discourse of realpolitik that frames much official discussion on conflict and security today. It is certainly not counted amongst the quantifiable resources in security or peacebuilding budgets. And yet it is a word that I have heard consistently over the past two da
The phenomenon of sexual violence in the US military is massively under-reported -- when the US Airforce commissioned Gallup to do a poll, one in five serving women said they had been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, and one in twenty men; but very few had formally reported the attacks to th
Security is impossible without people’s freedom to organize and defend their rights, a cornerstone of the exercise of citizenship. History gives us ample evidence of this, say Lydia Alpizar and Masum Momaya
