This file was written on the occasion of the participation of the "Yin Yang" (masculine-feminine) working group of an Alliance for a Responsible and United World at the Hague Conference from May 11th to 15th in response to the call of a hundred organizations representing civil society to commemorate the centenary of the first international peace conference, organized by Czar Nicholas II of Russia and the Queen of the Netherlands, and launch a detailed international action plan for the coming decades. This resulted in the Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century in the areas of conflict prevention, the effective application of human rights, disarmament, maintaining peace, and the treatment of the fundamental causes of violence.
Several women involved in peace movements were invited to Amsterdam to work together for three days just before the conference. This preparatory workshop grouped seventeen women from different countries (Burundi, the United States, Italy, Philippines, Algeria, France, Turkey, Sudan, Palestine, Western Sahara, India, Georgia, Azerbaidjan, Afghanistan). Three of them, (Algeria, Philippines and India) were unable to attend the workshop due to difficulties in obtaining visas. Following this workshop, the participants organized a session at the Hague on May 13th during which they presented the network they had set up and the conclusion of their collective work.
To prepare this workshop, an initial collection of files on different experiences of women acting for peace, taken from the DHP (Dialogs for Human Progress) database, was distributed to all the participants. It entailed, by putting forward the experiences of each person, collective consideration on the specific contribution of women to prevent and solve conflicts, thereby widening the scope to questioning the importance of gender difference in the organization of our societies, on the material level and on that of mentalities, and on the essential place of women in any process of social evolution and transformation.
Besides this work on women and peace, the Alliance working groups also contributed to the conference on the subjects of religions, drugs and the conversion of arms industries, with the support of the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH).
In addition to the first experience sheets, this dossier covers the reports on the work done in the Netherlands as well as a certain number of texts written by the participants in the framework of this meeting. These texts can be obtained by contacting Nadia Aissaoui or Olivier Petitjean.
Nadia Leïla AISSAOUI
Centre pour l’innovation sociale, Patronat Flor de maig
Apartat 145
08290 Cerdanyola, SPAIN
Phone: 34-935 866017. Fax: 34-935 866001
E-mail: nadia@alliance21.org
Olivier PETITJEAN
Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer (FPH)
38, rue Saint SABIN 75011 Paris, FRANCE
Phone: 33-(0)1 43 14 75 75. Fax: 33-(0)1 43 14 75 99.
E-mail: olivier@fph.fr
