Mentorship and Exchange
Women are uniquely positioned to be effective community leaders. An International Peace Institute study found that when women participate in peace processes, there is a 35 percent greater chance a peace agreement will last 15 years or more. And yet, too many women are left out of such processes. To facilitate women’s engagement in these realms, Women of Conscience offers training and women-to-women mentoring programs that give women the skills they need to advocate to governments and engage communities in post-conflict rebuilding.
Nepal
Standing Up Together
Like many countries, Nepal has made a concerted effort in recent years to ensure women’s representation in public elections by instituting gender quotas for government positions. Despite this, many elected women in Nepal, as elsewhere, still struggle to have their voices heard and can be reluctant to assume leadership positions. At NEFAD’s request, starting in Fall of 2020, ICSC will connect – via monthly video chats – elected women officials in Nepal with members of the Women of Conscience Leadership Council, creating bonds and strengthening their self-confidence, communication skills and effectiveness as leaders.
“We cannot forget the past ... we are trying to educate the future generation to build peace, so they know what happened.”
Sri Lanka and Nepal
Memorialization Initiatives
ICSC worked with the Institute of Social Development – Tea Plantations Workers Museum (ISD - Sri Lanka) and the National Network of Families of the Disappeared and Missing (NEFAD – Nepal) to implement two webinars on grassroots memorialization initiatives. The webinars brought together 15 women conflict survivors from Sri Lanka and Nepal.
These sessions aimed to enhance regional exchange and knowledge sharing; amplify the impact of memorialization initiatives in the region, and build bridges between conflict surviving communities in the region. The first webinar took place on 21 September 2018 in Sri Lanka and was led by ISD. As part of the webinar, two survivors told their stories and shared their experiences participating in body mapping programs conducted by ISD. The second webinar took place on 25 September 2018 in Nepal and was led by NEFAD. In this webinar, three survivors told their stories and shared their experiences of participating in arts-focused truth-telling workshops that used embroidery as a vehicle to allow survivors to recount their experiences of past conflict as the first step toward acknowledgment and reconciliation. During the webinars, panelist presentations catalyzed discussion among participants about the challenges faced by female Sri Lankan and Nepalese survivors in particular. Participants listened, shared their experiences of family members being disappeared, and engaged with each other on both formal and informal mechanisms for dealing with past conflict individually and as communities. ISD and NEFAD noted the positive impact of the webinars on their respective communities and they are currently working with ICSC on developing sustainable communication channels among survivor groups across the region. As one survivor reflected at the end of one of the webinars, "We cannot forget the past.... we are trying to educate the future generation to build peace, so they know what happened.”
The Gambia
Transitional Justice Processes
An assessment related to the ongoing transitional justice process in the Gambia, conducted by ICSC and the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) found that gender-based violations are not being adequately addressed and that women, and women’s groups are being left out of peacebuilding and transitional justice discussions. Furthermore, the transitional justice process is limited to the Banjul area and there has been limited engagement of the rural communities. The fast-paced transitional justice process in the Gambia has largely excluded the public, and in particular women from taking part in the design of the government’s policies or reduced their participation to a formality, at best.
ICSC in partnership with Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL) held a listening circle in January 2020 that allowed women to discuss the specific challenges they faced during the dictatorship in The Gambia. The activity was organized in response to the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission’s announcement that it will be holding hearings on human rights violations that were committed against people living with HIV by ex-President Yaya Jammeh through his forced HIV “treatment program.” With this announcement, WILL facilitated a dialogue between women who were victims of Jammeh’s forced HIV treatment and the TRRC to discuss how best to provide women with a safe and confidential space to participate in the TRRC by identifying participant’s concerns and expectations. The Listening Circle provided women the opportunity to share ongoing sources of discrimination, exclusion and violence experienced in The Gambia without facing the truth commission or having their experiences broadcast on Gambian television. These listening circles had a resounding impact, and because of their impact TRRC agreed to delay the hearings on the issue of Jammeh’s forced HIV treatment to make preparations to ensure that victims are well protected from being identified when testifying. Additionally, in February 2020 WILL conducted a four-day training and dialogue with 40 women who are traditional communicators across the country. Participants were provided with information on the transitional justice process with a focus on truth-telling and the need for community involvement in challenging societal norms that encourage SGBV. While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced this project to pause, 10 female traditional communicators who were trained in February raised awareness of COVID-19 through the development of educational messages, short videos and voice messages in local languages to share with women through social media and WhatsApp, especially focusing on victim communities in rural Gambia. WILL used these messages to raise awareness on SGBV and the fact that many women and girls will be exposed to SGBV during the COVID-19 lockdown.