NEWS SOURCE: Womens International League for Peace and Freedom

PHILADELPHIA, PA /Send2Press Newswire/ — Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is launching two new cutting-edge programs to mark the celebration of International Women’s Day, 2005. This begins its tenth decade of organizing to end war. WILPF has addressed the root causes of war and called for negotiated settlements to end them since its founding at The Hague in 1915.


Noting that future wars to control the world’s resources will be over water rather than oil, Laura Santina, chairperson of WILPF’s new “Save the Water” campaign said “It’s appropriate to announce WILPF’s Save the Water campaign on International Women’s Day. There’s no question water is a women’s issue.” The program will educate and organize communities to address the scarcity, misuse and rapid “marketization” of water with corporations taking private control of this vital resource around the world.

The second campaign “Women Challenge U.S. Policy: Building Peace on Justice in the Middle East” will educate wider audiences to speak out against United States’ policies promoting war and violence in the region rather than peaceful solutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It’s very important that more women get involved in foreign policy,” declared Odile Hugonot-Haber, chairperson of WILPF’s new campaign focused on the Middle East. “We hope to affect the lives of women in the Mideast – that would be success, if we could see a difference in the lives of the people there,” she concluded.

WILPF members chose these priorities for work in the next three years. This was a first-time ever, nationwide vote. Noting the link between the two campaigns, Mary Day Kent, WILPF’s Executive Director, said “Control and access to water is as fundamental to the conflicts and violence in the Middle East as control of oil, and more fundamental to sustaining life on this earth. Water is a human right. All people must have equal access to it on a not-for-profit basis.”

Since 1915, WILPF has worked to achieve through peaceful means: world disarmament, full rights for women, racial and economic justice, an end to all forms of violence, and to establish those political, social and psychological conditions which can assure peace, freedom, and justice for all.

For more information, see www.wilpf.org

News issued by: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

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Original Story ID: (149) :: 2005-03-0307-005

Original Keywords: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, WILPF, PHILADELPHIA, Middle East Peace, International Women’s Day 2005, Women Challenge U.S. Policy: Building Peace on Justice in the Middle East, Gillian Gilhool Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

NEWS SOURCE: Womens International League for Peace and Freedom | Published: 2005-03-07 18:27:00


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