lives in Bamako, Mali, and is founder and president of the Association of Women for Peace Initiatives (Association des Femmes pour les Initiatives de Paix – AFIP). She has written about the role of women in conflict resolution and management, especially during the Tuareg conflict, and is a member of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town, South Africa. At present she engages in the fight against small arms. She is a strategic partner of the National Commission against the Proliferation of Small Arms in Mali and in this context does important sensitising work about small arms and the role of civil society as well as on the impact of war toys on children. She is also a member of the Francophone, African Network in the fight against small arms and fr peace, coordinated by Groupe de Recherche et d'Information sur la Paix et la sécurité – GRIP and coordinator of the Malian branch of International Action Network On Small Arms – IANSA.
lives in Nairobi, Kenya. She works for Coalition for Peace in Africa – COPA, an African network of peace builders. She joined COPA in 2006 after working for an insurance company for 12 years. She is currently undertaking a Diploma in Project Management. Rose is project manager of the PWAG project «Training Women to be Leaders in Peace Building».
lives in Khartoum, Sudan and is a trainer in conflict transformation and peace building. She trains and facilitates trainings about women’s rights and social exclusion. Since 2005 Maha also has been the director of the Sobat Centre for Conflict Resolution – SCCR. She is member of the Sudanese Women Solidarity Group and the International Collective of Peace and Demilitarization, World March of Women – WMW since 2004. Maha believes that to sustain peace, women need to exploit the magic of difference with the aim to enable other women to do great work.
lives in Kyrgyzstan. She is currently Deputy Minister for Social Welfare and was member of the Kyrgyz Parliament from 2007 to 2010. She has been involved in several human rights organizations in Kyrgyzstan, especially promoting the rights of disabled and elderly and is Chairperson of the Network Association Parents and Children dealing with disability and health advocacy issues, as well as Chairperson in the advisory board of the Resource Centre for Elderly (among others). She has co-founded non-governmental organizations such as Insan-Leylek, dedicated to facilitating democratic reforms through the involvement of women and young people of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region and Babushka Adoption Fund, providing aid and a social outlet by finding sponsors to adopt lonely elderly living in extreme poverty. Gulnara Derbisheva is one of the 1000 PeaceWomen.
lives in Makati City, Philippines. She was a member of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights – CHR from 1991 to 1994. As Commissioner in Charge of Education and Information, she directed the development of the CHR's training program for the Philippine military, police and public school teachers into a model of participative and experiential learning, for which the Commission received the UNESCO prize for Human Rights Education in 1994. After this, she shared her Philippine experience in human rights education in India, Mongolia, Canada, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Germany. She is a member of a conveners' group of representatives of ASEAN national institutions and NGOs which initiated the process of setting up a regional human rights mechanism in ASEAN. From 1993 to 1997, she served as a consultant to the Philippine government's panel negotiating peace with the communist rebel group, the National Democratic Front. She is currently editor of the online news magazine CyberDyaryo dedicated to the issues of Philippine civil society, the peace process, human rights, agrarian reform, democratic development. She is also a consultant to the Benigno Aquino Foundation, heading its Peace and Human Rights desk.
is a regional co-coordinator with Paulynn Paredes Sicam. She is Executive Director of Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute, a service base and resource center for peace and conflict resolution in the Philippines, supporting especially citizens' participation in peace processes. She has been involved in social movements since the 1970's, including the anti-dictatorship struggle and in 1987 was one of the founding convenors of the Coalition for Peace. She is also one of the leaders of the feminist organization PILIPINA and, from 1990 to 2000, served as coordinator of Women's Action Network for Development – WAND, a national network of women's groups and NGOs with gender and development programs. Another area of her involvement has been the environment, as officer of an NGO consortium on protected areas management. Currently, she is secretary general of Waging Peace Philippines, a national civil society network working for comprehensive peace, and co-convenor of the Mindanao Solidarity Network.
, an economist and sociologist, lives in India, and has worked for 28 years at the South Asian level on a UN project to strengthen Civil Society Organisations and to encourage networking between them on issues related to sustainable livelihoods, gender, human rights, peace etc. She is co-founder of several women's groups, including regional and international networks (e.g. South Asian Network of Gender Activists and Trainers – SANGAT, South Asian Womem's Forum – SAWF, Asian Cultural Forum on Development – ACFOD, Women's Initiative for Peace in South Asia – WIPSA, Asians for Human Rights – SAHR). Now she is coordinating SANGAT, working closely with Jagori, Women's Resource and Training Centre in New Delhi, and as a freelance consultant she is conducting workshops and training on gender, peace and sustainable development for women's groups, international and regional NGOs, senior government officials, parliamentarians and various UN agencies. Kamla has written extensively about participatory and sustainable development, women's empowerment, gender and peace. She has also written songs for children and created essays for the women's movement. Some of her publications include: «Borders and Boundaries: Women in India's Partition» (1998), «Exploring Masculinity» (2003), and «Turning Dangers Into Opportunities: Young People and HIV/AIDS in South Asia» (2003). Kamla is Co-President and member of the international executive board of PeaceWomen Across the Globe.
is a political scientist and has been working in the area of social development and human rights for about 20 years as a researcher, facilitator-trainer and communication specialist on a wide range of issues, with a special focus on gender and development. Her professional work began in 1991 with Society for Participatory Research in Asia. She later worked with a range of government and non-government organisations. In 1999, she founded «KRITI: a Development Research, Praxis and Communication Team» in New Delhi. The team takes on research, training and development communication on different social, environment and human rights issues as also supporting campaigns around rights. Aanchal Kapur is PWAG coordinator for South Asia since 2011.
is a medical doctor living in Afghanistan. She was the first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Women's Affairs in Afghanistan from 2001 until 2003. Today she is the Chair of the first Human Rights Commission in the history of Afghanistan, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission – AIHRC, in Kabul. Sima was director of the Shuhada Organisation and is now chair of the board.
The organization puts its main emphasis on so called Livelihood-projects (these are projects to secure the basis for life and a basic income), on human and women’s rights as well as on literacy campaigns for women. Shuhada runs hospitals and clinics for women and orphanages. Moreover Shuhada offers various literacy campaigns for women, runs training courses for teachers and creates schools in isolated regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan where there is no access to education. The goal of submitting institutions to the government as soon as they are established, has already been carried out in several cases.
works with the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, as advisor for gender-specific issues in the Women Workers Unity and in the local section of the Committee of the Collective Action for Women Workers Foundation (Committee for Asian Women – CAW). Her special expertise is the problems facing women workers in Asia. Since 1988 she has concentrated on women's issues in Thailand and Asia. After working as Assistant Coordinator in the Women in Development Consortium at Thammasart University in Thailand, she lived in Hong Kong and worked at the Asian Migrant Centre, as part of an exchange program, where supported foreign workers during their often difficult period of integration. After returning to Thailand, Kratae worked for
the Center of Friends of Women Foundation, which promotes the rights of women workers and opposes violence against women. As Program Coordinator in the CAW, she was engaged in bettering the position of women in the labour force.
lives in Hong Kong and teaches comparative literature, critical pedagogy, global culture, local governance and negotiating violence at the Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China. She is member of the editorial board of Cultural and Social Studies and a founding member of China Social Services and Development Research Centre – CSD, a voluntary group engaged in development research and community building projects in China. In 1994–2003, Kin Chi was Board Chair, later Council Chair and in 2011-2013 Co-Chair of Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives – ARENA, a network of scholar-activists in Asia. She was Co-Chair of the PP21 Council in 1996–2002. She is Vice-President of World Forum for Alternatives – WFA. She has written on modernization, rural reconstruction, resurgent patriarchy and alternative practices in China. Among the books she has edited are «Globalizing Resistance», «China Reflected», «Resurgent Patriarchies: Challenges for Women's Movements in Asia», «Shaping Our Future: PP21 Convergences» und «The Knight in Mask: Writings of Subcommander Marcos». Kin Chi is also member of the executive board of PeaceWomen Across the Globe. More information about her activity for PeaceWomen Across the Globe is available on our local website.
is founder of several Indonesian women networks such as Communication for Women Rights, Indonesian Reading Literary Movement and Urban Women Writers Club. She has been involved in social movements since the early 1990s, including the democratic movement against the military regime, as well as the Eastern Indonesia Women's Health Network in 2000. She is an active member of the Indonesian Women's Coalition – KPI and facilitator for gender issues in the Empowering Education Peace Facilitator Network. Starting 2012, Caroline has focused on women's writing, publishing and documentation through Women Books & Videos Publishing – PBP. Caroline also writes poems, stories and essays on women's issues. She is PWAG coordinator for the project «Promoting Women's Participation and Peace Education» in Indonesia. You can read more about her work on www.menitiangin.wordpress.com.
, PhD, is a writer, poet, research consultant, community activist, and lecturer. She has extensive experience in various aspects of research, oral history, gender, and other issues of human interest. She has published eight books in addition to various studies and articles. She is a member of the Palestinian National Council and has worked as a Consultant Researcher to the office of Gender Planning and Development in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, in Palestine and to UNICIEF in Cairo.
from Jordan studied women's studies and pharmaceutical sciences and has been working in the past ten years in the area of human rights and gender. She is co-founder and board member of a non-governmental organization defending the rights of women migrant workers. She is Regional Gender Advisor at UN ESCWA Beirut and has worked for different national and international organizations such as the Jordanian National Commission for Women – JNCW and UNIFEM, in addition to working for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Jordan.
grew up in Tübingen, Germany. She studied politics and inter alia German studies and media studies. 1978/79 she was co-founder of the newspaper taz, where she worked as an editor of ecological issues, later in the editorial staff for international and local news and finally as an editor for feminist affairs. Since 1997 Ute Scheub is writing as a freelance journalist and publicist for different newspapers and magazines. She published six books and numerous articles, short stories and essays. She also takes part in the work of the transcultural and inter-religious centre Lernhaus für Frauen in Berlin. During the Gulf War 1991 she was co-founder of the Frauenaktion Scheherazade realizing various projects for women and children in the Afghan province of Nimroz. During the Iraq War in 2003 she was also co-founder of the deutscher Frauensicherheitsrat (German Women’s Security Council). and of Global Center of Women's Politics – GLOW . In 1992 Ute Scheub was honoured with the Ingeborg Drewitz Prize of the Humanist Union Berlin for her literary oeuvre, and in 1998 she was awarded the Revolutionspreis of the German Media Worker’s Union for the taz special edition on the revolutionary year of 1848.
, historian, is the head of the Bosnia Herzegovina section of the Society for Threatened Peoples, a member of the UN Commission Against the Discrimination of Women, co-founder of the Center for the Documentation of War and Genocide Crimes in Zenica and a member of its scientific council. Her efforts to document war crimes during the conflict resulted in identifying and locating war criminals and are known as «Fadila's List». With the help of the European Committee for Human Rights and Democracy and the prompting of the Hague Tribunal, she was able to conduct investigations on war criminals in parts of the country. In 1996 she received the Prize for Peace and
Human Rights of the Swiss Foundation known by the same name. Fadila's main focus is now supporting the widows of Srebrenica and survivors of rape and torture in concentration camps, as well as the problems of integration and discrimination of the Roma people. A result of her engagement in mediation and reconciliation is the establishment of the women's organization FOKUS which supports smaller women's NGOs working for reconciliation and the return of internally displaced people. She is also co-founder of Justice for Bosnia-Herzegovina, which collects funds to present claims against the ex-Yugoslavian Republic.
an economist from Chechnya, is President of Echo of War – an inter-regional humanitarian NGO promoting peace and bringing together Russian and Chechen women. She is also President of the Union of Women of the Northern Caucasus. During the Chechen war and up to the present day, she has assembled a substantial archive of photos and films documenting human rights violations perpetrated by members of the Russian armed forces. She is working in Nasran, Ingushetia, and in Moscow.
lives in the USA. She was Director of the Women's Leadership Institute and Professor of Women's Studies at Mills College, Oakland, California. She is an expert on issues affecting women of color in the US and women in the global South. Her current research revolves around examining and understanding the interconnections among militarism, war, and the globalization of the economy. Margo is actively engaged against military violence against women. She is a founding member of The East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women's Network against Militarism, and received a Fulbright senior scholarship to study in South Korea. She is passionate about the power of women to transform the world, and recognizes the necessity for a transnational feminist praxis. Margo is also member of the international executive board of PeaceWomen Across the Globe.
is a Brazilian political activist who since 1945 has worked on women's and people's rights, democracy, socialism and peace. She has directly experienced a major part of Brazil's dramatic history and founded solidarity movements with Cuba, Nicaragua and East Timor. After the assassination of her husband – the legendary freedom fighter Carlos Marighella – by the military dictatorship, Clara was deprived of her civil and political rights and exiled for nine years in Cuba. She returned to Brazil after the 1979 amnesty, and began work on historical memory of tortured and killed social Brazilian fighters. When the Worker's Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT) was founded in 1980, Clara
and other members organized its Comission on Gender
Issues and promoted conferences, debates and seminars on women's rights and political participation throughout the country. Today, she is a member of the Office for the Coordination of Women's Issues, PT's Department of International Relations and the National Commission of Dead and Missing Persons for Political Reasons. During the recent presidential campaign, Clara coordinated the Women for Lula Organizing Committee. Since 2003 she has been member of the federal government's National Council for Women's Affairs, the coordinator of «1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize» Project 2003, and the President of PeaceWomen Association from Brazil. In 2005 she was awarded the Berta Lutz award by the Brazilian Senate and in 2009 the Rio Branco award by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
is the executive director of the Brazilian PeaceWomen Association (Associação Mulheres pela Paz). She is journalist and currently finishing her PhD in Communication Sciences at the University of São Paulo. From 2009 to 2011, she was the Brazilian coordinator of «Association for Progressive Communications / Women’s Networking Support Program» (APC/WNSP) for a project called «Violence Against Women and the Strategic Use of Information and Communication Technologies». She has published several books, including «Women and Technologies – virtuality as a space for transformation of gender relations» (2007; with Dafne Plou) and «Popular Education – a plural practice» (Educação Popular: prática plural – NOVA e Rede Mulher (Antonio Carlos de Oliveira, Regina Rocha and Vera Vieira). She is also the coordinator of the PWAG project «Developing a popular education methodology to work with women and men against domestic violence» in Brazil.
Latin America (Spanish-speaking)
lives in La Plata, Buenos Aires (Argentina). She is a lawyer and has a master’s degree in international relations from FLASCO – Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in Argentina. She is a specialist in International Criminal Law. Maria Julia Moreyra has been a guest professor at several Universities in Argentina. Her area of expertise is the International Criminal Court, which addresses genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. She is also a specialist in the UNSC Resolution 1325 about sexual violence against women in armed conflicts and post-conflict areas. In 2007 she published her first book: «Conflictos armados y violencia sexual contra las mujeres» (Editores del Puerto, Buenos Aires). Maria Julia Moreyra, together with
, coordinates the PWAG project «Consolidating Women's Rights in Latin Amercia and the Caribbeans». Monica Vazquez and Maria Julia Moeyra continue the important work of Nora Franco. Nora Franco was the PWAG coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean from 2003 till January 2010 when she died after long illness.
lives in the Fiji Islands and works as the coordinator of PeaceWomen Across the Globe. Sandy is the People and Policy Project Officer for Partners in Community Development, Fiji, an affiliate of the Foundation of the People of the South Pacific International – FSPI. She worked for three years for the Peace Program at the Ecumenical Center for Research, Education, and Advocacy – ECREA. She volunteered at the Fiji Women's Rights Movement for two years beforehand and assisted in developing the Women's Employment Rights Training Manual published in 2002. Sandy has established the Pacific regional secretariat for PeaceWomen Across the Globe, which is hosted by the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre. Sandy Fong is joined by Nicci Simmonds, Koila Costello Olsson and Rosie Catherine in the Pacific regional team.
