Gender in Nonviolence Training

Speech by Isabelle Geuskens, Program Manager IFOR-WPP

Thank you for inviting me to speak here this morning!

My remarks here today
are from the perspective of peace movement that holds active
nonviolence as its core value since 1919, the International
Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR).  They are largely based on
the experiences of one of its programs, the Women Peacemakers
Program.

The International
Fellowship of Reconciliation is one of the oldest peace movements in
the world, and has branch, group and affiliate organizations
operating in more than 60 countries. Our international secretariat is
based in Alkmaar in the Netherlands. The WPP has been training women
in active nonviolence since 1997.

I
would like to speak about three
things:

• First, a brief
  introduction to the Women Peacemakers Program,
  


• Then I will
  address gender-sensitive nonviolence training,
  


• And finally a few
  comments and recommendations for peace organizations to think about
  when it comes to supporting women’s organizations and training.
  

Why does the WPP focus on women? Because women are often among
the first to cross the lines between divided communities. Yet this
work is often not recognized, nor on a governmental level, nor
within peace movements. This despite United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1325, which urges all UN member states to:

• 
  Increase the number of women at all decision-making levels in
  conflict prevention, management and resolution;


• 
  Increase support for women’s peacebuilding activities;


• 
  Support equal participation for women in peace negotiations at all
  levels;


• 
  Address the specific protection needs of women in conflict
  situations;


• 
  Prosecute war crimes against women.

The idea of the Women Peacemakers Program is a direct result from the
fact that within IFOR, women were not represented equally
during its quadrennial Councils, where all important policy decisions
are made. In the early nineties one woman from Uganda pointed this
out during the Council in Ecuador: “Women are working hard for
peace in our communities and organizations, but where are they now,
when IFOR is making the decisions?”

Thus the WPP was born (1997), in the belief that women need to be
empowered, so they can claim their role in peacebuilding, and
convince others of the need to do so.

The Women Peacemakers Program

How does such a program look like – what do we do?

We focus on:

1. Nonviolence Education


2. Capacity Building


3. Engendering Peace

Let me start with A) Education:

Since 2002, we have been organizing Training of Trainers (ToT),
during which a group of women activists receive two-weeks training on
topics such as active nonviolence, gender, women’s leadership,
fundraising, and working with the media.

After the two weeks training, the women return home, and practice
their skills by organizing a nonviolence training for their own
community. For this, WPP provides them with some seed funds, and a
mentor, who gives them feedback on their performance as a trainer.

After a year the women return for another two-weeks training in the
Netherlands, to share their experiences, and to address the
challenges they experience as trainers.

The multiplying effect of our Training of Trainers program is
remarkable. Since 2002, we have trained 42 women, who in turn have
trained approximately 1700 people (a third of them men and boys).

We also support women’s nonviolence trainings, either by
providing seed funding, or by linking them with nonviolence trainers
in their region, as well as training materials.

WPP-supported nonviolence trainings
have been taking place all over the world, from Aceh, Kenya,
Thailand, to the DRC and Colombia. 

In our own office, we have established an annual
international orientation program for two young women
activists, who stay with us for six weeks to get acquainted with
international peace work. WPP also supports women activists who lack
the financial means to attend conferences or trainings abroad, so
they can have the international exposure that often is reserved for
their male colleagues in their own organization.

Next to Education, another important aspect of our work is B)
Capacity Building.

We do this by:

Establishing regional desks in Africa and Asia. The desks in
India and Ghana have just started, and will run their own regional
women’s programs. WPP has been very active in these regions the
past 8 years, and with the demand growing, the time has come to
address the needs from African and Asian women peacemakers in the
regions themselves.

On a daily basis, we receive many emails, and refer women to relevant
materials (books), or donors to support their work, as well as
nonviolence trainers. Basically what we do here is networking and
information-sharing, so women have access to the latest
information that can help them in their work.

Secondly, we make sure that we document women’s opinions and
experiences, both their successes, and obstacles in peacemaking.

Finally, next to Education and Capacity Building; WPP’s
mission is to C) engender the peace movement.

WPP believes that gender is at the heart of violence, and should also
be at the heart of nonviolence.

WPP activities in this area focus on:

• A pilot project, in which WPP co-operates with Peace Brigades
  International/ Indonesia, to investigate a gender-perspective in
  civilian-based peacekeeping. The expected outcome is a publication,
  which documents current practices, and recommendations for
  civilian-based peacekeeping.

• We also work hard on engendering IFOR. A Gender Policy for
  IFOR was adopted at its 2006 Council, and we have now started
  working on implementation. For this we co-operate with the IFOR
  Gender Working Group. One strategy is to provide gender training for
  IFOR’s member organizations. These trainings explain to activists
  the need for peace organizations to incorporate a gender perspective
  in their work, in order to be more effective, and truly
  “gender-just”.

Gender-sensitive nonviolence training

At the WPP we believe for a culture of peace to take root, boys can
no longer be taught that violence is a measure of manhood, or that
war is a proving ground for masculinity. The link between femininity,
passivity and women needs to be erased, and girls must be raised to
reject violent definitions of masculinity.

Peace and nonviolence organizations have often an excellent analysis
of conflict and how to address it, but a gender-perspective to
conflict is often lacking.

When the WPP started developing its gender analysis, many in the
movement were supportive, but there was also opposition. People felt
that gender was not an important topic for the nonviolence movement,
that it was even divisive, this focusing on differences between men
and women. And this opposition came from both men and women.

The fact that domestic violence was raised as a topic for the NV
movement to look at also raised eyebrows! This was a private, not a
political matter! And how nonviolent was this feminism actually –
was it not just about demonizing men as perpetrators? Something the
men in the nonviolence movement could just not identify with…

And what about respecting our cultures, traditions, religions,
nature: men and women are just different, and hence have different
roles in society. Is it not arrogant to start telling people to
change their ways?

Just to name a few of the obstacles we face(d) along the way…

How can we speak about peaceful societies when women are facing
violence behind closed doors? We put a lot of effort into explaining
how violence in the home is connected to violence on a political
level: it is rooted in structures that justify domination of one
group over the other, and which carries the message that men should
be in control, always, both in the private and the public sphere in
order to be real men.

These structures leave women disempowered. This is why
training women is such a high priority in our work, and should
be in all peacebuilding agendas. Women in many cultures are
operating from a disadvantaged position: Their rights are not being
respected, they have been taught from early age on that they don’t
have the capacity to make the decisions men make, that the opinion of
a man in the end weighs more than a woman’s.

Hence nonviolence training for women is essential, as it provides
women with social empowerment: It deconstructs the gender
roles that limit them; increases their self-confidence as actors of
change; provides them with role models, and confirms that they do
have a voice that should be heard, as well as provides them
with the skills and analysis to increase social mobilization and
resolve conflicts peacefully.

On a practical level, it is important that nonviolence
training is rooted in women’s everyday reality and language
–addressing the gender injustices in the society they operate in.

The training setting is also important: The length and
location of trainings need to be examined so that they have the
greatest possible impact. Family responsibilities already overburden
many women, and physical danger or lack of money often prevents women
from traveling to trainings.

It is important to consider details such as: Where do I organize my
training; at what time - because all these elements determine whether
and how many women will show up at the training.

In the WPP, we feel it is important that women can have a training
space for themselves, where they can analyze their own situation,
the complexity of the context from which they have to operate. Not
that mixed trainings should not take place, but women need a space to
open up first, to share, to understand, to feel empowered, before
they can start talking on equal levels with men. And we have found
that this applies to all women, wherever they come from: North,
South, East, West: we have had all of them in our trainings and all
experienced disempowerment because of being a woman.

Men as perpetrators… That is not what a gender
perspective is about! It is about realizing that both men and women
have been socialized into roles that in the end disadvantage both of
them. Nonviolence theory here offers the perfect framework of
analysis: not the person is the problem, but the system. Not men are
the problem, but the patriarchal systems we live in! And in order for
change to take place, men need to be involved in this process, and
need to understand how they are also being disadvantaged by the
system.

A gender-perspective in peacebuilding hence needs to point out how
men are disadvantaged by current gender roles: For it is men
who are expected to de-humanize the “other”, to step out in a
combat suit and enter fearlessly into warfare. And if they manage to
get out alive, they often have to suffer their traumas in silence.

I remember being in Northern Ireland, where one young girl told me
that at least she was glad to be a woman in the sense that “when
the paramilitaries knock the door, they don’t come to recruit me.”

Many men face enormous pressures to conform to using violence, as
this supposedly proves their manhood.

Pointing this out during training will help making men allies for
more gender-sensitive peacebuilding – as men not seeing gender as
an issue that concerns them, is one of the biggest obstacles women
peacemakers face.

We have been incorporating this analysis in our trainings for several
years now, and in 2009 we will be pioneering a Training of Trainers
in gender-sensitive nonviolence for male trainers, as part of our
strategy to involve more men in our work.

Recommendations

Now let’s get practical: some concrete recommendations!

1. Money matters!! Support women’s peace initiatives
   financially: Even small amounts of funding for community-based
   women’s groups can already be very effective– from literally 150
   Euros up to 15,000 Euros. E.g., WPP supported a hugely successful
   nonviolence training for indigenous women in Nepal. The grant for
   this training: USD $600… The 20 women who attended the training
   went back to their local communities and replicated the training in
   their communities.
   

2. Support translation of important UN resolutions into local
   and accessible languages, and use it in your trainings. A good
   example of this is UN Resolution 1325 – which legislates increased
   representation of women at all decision-making levels. Also, there
   is a great need for training materials or any kind of materials such
   as newsletters, documentation of women’s efforts, etc. to be
   translated into local languages. This is needed for activists to
   effectively mobilize women, and demystify UN documents.
   

3. For NGO’s trying to get women activists to come our speak
   at their events, start organizing early - some women might have
   never traveled abroad- explain the visa processes to them
   thoroughly, and be prepared to jump in when women face problems at
   the embassy –this might require overtime work because of time
   differences.
   

4. Support women in getting access to donors so they can
   continue their work: Women activists often don’t have access to
   deep-pocketed donors, and might need some guidance here – your
   reference might do the trick!
   

5. Most women the WPP works with are not conference-savvy
   professional NGO types. Most of them got involved in local peace
   initiatives because of war, and they want to do something to stop
   it. They’re doctors, they’re housewives; they’re teachers. In
   Nagaland (in India) an informal, well-organized group of such women
   recently sat down in the middle of the road to stop troops from
   entering their village. When the WPP invited the leader of this
   group to our Asia consultation, she almost didn’t come because she
   seriously couldn’t believe someone would pay for her ticket. She
   thought that she wasn’t worth it and didn’t know there existed
   similar types of informal organizations like hers.
   

6. Invest in gender training. This is an ongoing activity as the
   knowledge often evaporates when people leave the organization or
   move on the other programs/departments. Make it a standard
   practice for your entire staff.

7. Invest in nonviolence training for women – it is a great
   investment in our society! We have started to do impact measurement
   of our Training of Trainers, and the first results are showing that
   women’s involvement in peacebuilding and activism increased
   because of the training. Their increased confidence also shows in
   the fact that they now train others; several trainees have mobilized
   other men and women for peace in dangerous political situations.
   Despite the fact that they are often misunderstood as gender
   pioneers, they do not give up. Many mentioned that the training
   helped them to break their sense of isolation: It helps them to keep
   going on, knowing there are other women doing the same all over the
   world.
   

8. Involve men in your gender work; address the topic of
   Masculinity in your nonviolence trainings, your publications
   – make men see that gender is also about them, and that a gender
   perspective on conflict and peace is to the benefit of both men and
   women.

Thank you again for this opportunity to speak about the work of the
WPP. There are a lot of women who would love the opportunity to share
with you their stories … Women are becoming increasingly well
organized and creative. They are crossing lines and demanding to be
listened to. Thank you for listening here this afternoon.