Greetings

This issue of the WRI Women's Working Group Newsletter contains a report on sex tourism in Cuba, on a violent attack against a lesbian peace activist in Yugoslavia, and on violence against women in Russia. It also contains news of how women are working to stop violence, especially the violence of the undeclared war against women.

The next issue of the newsletter will include reports on the WRI's council meeting in the Basque country, and on how the lobbying to improve the peace section of the Platform for Action (the final document of the UN's 4th World Conference on Women) went in Beijing. Several book reviews of recent books on the mass rapes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, on ´comfort' women, and on testimonies of women in war areas, will also be included.

You can help us spread the word about how women are fighting violence by translating articles from this newsletter into your own language. Please contact Domi at the WRI office in London if you are interested in translating articles and news, especially into French, German and Spanish. We can make photocopies of your translation and send it to other women on the mailing list.

The annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is also coming up. This global campaign to stop violence against women begins on November 25, the international day against violence against women. This day was declared by the first feminist encuentro for Latin American and the Caribbean in 1981 (Columbia). The day commemorates the Mirabel sisters who were brutally murdered by the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960. The campaign ends on December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The campaign includes World AIDS Day (December 1) and the anniversary of the Montreal (Canada) massacre, when a gun man killed 14 women engineering students for being feminist (December 6). For more information on the campaign contact the Center for Women's Global Leadership, 27 Clifton Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903, USA (tel. +1 908 932 8782; fax +1 908 932 1180; email cwgl@igc.apc.org).

Shelley Anderson