10f. Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace
The women’s peace movements we have looked at thus far involved some form of public activism that brought conflict issues to public attention. Being ‘present’ or ‘bearing witness’ was and is very central to the Mothers of the Disappeared, to Women in Black, and to CODEPINK in particular.
This approach was also important to women in the African nation of Liberia. However, they extended their methods to direct negotiation and diplomacy to end years of conflict in their country. In 2011, one of three women who shared the Nobel Peace Prize was Leymah Gbowee, a social worker and peace activist in Liberia. Gbowee led a mass movement of women that confronted the corruption and violence in their country fomented by the country’s president and dictator, Charles Taylor. A fifteen-year civil war in Liberia and neighbouring nations saw high levels of sexual violence, use of child soldiers, and violence between warring factions.
Kuwonu, 2018
Gbowee and thousands of other women donned white T-shirts and assembled in public spaces with placards, demanding an end to the war. They also followed the women of Lysistrata and threatened a sex strike if the men of their country did not put down their weapons. But going beyond such demonstrations, Gbowee and a delegation of women confronted Taylor and his warlord adversaries, demanding that they negotiate an end to the war. Again, using their sexuality as a weapon, they threatened to disrobe in the government building unless the men sat down and took peace talks seriously.
They kept up the pressure until eventually peace talks happened in 2003. Charles Taylor fled the country, was tried by the International Criminal Court, and in 2012 was sentenced to fifty years in prison. In the aftermath, the women’s movement worked at re-integrating child soldiers into society and restoring peace in their country.
Watch this inspiring video of Leymah Gbowee receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
The speech gives you a glimpse into the women’s peace movement in Liberia, and also a sense of what the Nobel prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway is like.
Transcript
NobelPrize.org. (2020, March 10). Leymah Gbowee - Nobel Lecture. Retrieved from https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2011/gbowee/lecture/.
We have examined just a small selection of women’s peace movements. What do they have in common? What do you think of their approaches and tactics?
Before you leave this module, take a few minutes to look at what happened this week in The Year in Peace and Justice History. Are there any events profiled that link directly or indirectly to any of the themes and information in this module? Reviewing this site may also provide you with ideas for a topic for your Peace Movement Profile Research Essay for the course.
Stop and Ask
What are the aims/goals, methods/tactics, ideology/philosophy, and symbols of these movements?
© Course Author and University of Waterloo
Image References
Frank Kuwonu, "Women: Liberia's guardians of peace," UN Africa Renewal, April-July 2018, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2018-july-2018/women-liberia%E2%80%99s-guardians-peace
Please return to Module 10 to complete this module.