Conference

by Maggie Helwig

The WRI Women’s Working Group met in Verona, Italy, in July, for the first time since the intense—and exhausting—experience of the Women Overcoming Violence conference in Bangkok.

After almost five years of hard work, the 4th War Resisters’ International Women’s Conference was held in late November in Thailand. The most ambitious conference yet, and the first one held outside Europe, the conference drew 170 women from 63 nations together. Judging by the participants’ evaluations, it was a success. Another measure of success was the fact that the core organizers were energized enough to want to work on the 5th women’s conference!

Ulla Eberhard of Germany recently sent a questionnaire to previous participants of WRI Women’s Conferences (France, 1976; Scotland, 1980; Ireland, 1987) in order to gain a historical view of the conferences. The results of some of the interviews were published in the German magazine on nonviolence “Graswurzelrevolution”. Here are some excerpts:

The 4th War Resisters’ International (WRI) Women’s Conference is planned for November 25 to December 1, 1992 near Bangkok, Thailand. The conference will be organised by WRI and five Thai women’s groups. Participation is being limited to 150 community-based women activists who have shown a commitment to nonviolent social change, with a strong emphasis on promoting exchanges between women from the Southern hemisphere. The Conference’s 7 languages will be Thai, Spanish, French, English and at least one other Asian language.

Many thanks to all the women who worked on preparations for the WRI Women’s Conference at the Triennial. Much progressive was made: we now have a date—November 25 (International Day Against Sexual Exploitation of Women) to December 1 (WRI Prisoners for Peace Day) 1992. The proposal by Laddawan and Niramon to hold the conference within the framework of PP21 was accepted. PP21 stands for Peoples Power in the 21st Century, and it is a broad-based Asian coalition of groups and movements dealing with trade unions, the environment and womens rights, to name a few of its many issues.