The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, became world famous. Since 1977, they have been demonstrating every week with a silent march to the Plaza. They are demanding an explanation of how, where, and why their children and other relatives disappeared during the military dictatorship of the 1970s. As mothers, they are relatively socially respected and therefore enjoy some protection. The same goes for the Mutual Support Group in Guatemala, the Relatives of Prisoners and the Disappeared in Chile, and the Association of the Women of Srebrenica. In Russia, the Association of Russian Soldiers’ Mothers has undertaken the “demilitarization of social consciousness” and the “defense of civil society” through education. Sometimes, but not always, motherhood protects them from repression.

Israeli and Palestinian female peace activists met one another secretly in Jerusalem as early as the 1980s, when all political contact between Israelis and Palestinians was still banned. They were not arrested, since they were “only women,” and they likewise took advantage of this social minority status. Again and again the women of this “Jerusalem Link” offered joint proposals for conflict resolution to the public. In 2005 they founded the “International Women’s Commission for a Just and Lasting Peace Between Palestine and Israel” (IWC), which calls for the participation of women of both sides in the official peace negotiations.

Sources:

• Ute Scheub (2004): Friedenstreiberinnen
• Simone Süsskind: Die Internationale Frauenkommission, in: Gunda-Werner-Institut (2008): Hoffnungsträger 1325, pp.153-161