Women PeaceMakers Program

Made possible by a grant from the Fred J. Hansen Foundation

2004 Women PeaceMakers Biographical Abstracts

Luz Mendez from Guatemala

Luz Méndez is the coordinator of the Women Agents for Change Consortium (Consorcio Actoras de Cambio), which has set in motion a political process for psychosocial healing and empowerment of women survivors of sexual violence during the armed conflict in Guatemala. The consortium seeks justice and reparations for those survivors so they can become protagonists, defining and directing their own life projects. Méndez is also president of the Advisory Board of the National Union of Guatemalan Women (UNAMG), a women's association working for women's human rights, gender equality and social justice. She led the reconstruction of UNAMG, one of the oldest Guatemalan women's organizations, which was forced into exile during the 1980s due to political repression. As the former general coordinator of UNAMG, Méndez worked to strengthen the women's movement and was a leader of the Political Equity Instance, a coalition seeking electoral law gender quotas. Méndez and UNAMG won the Gruber Foundation’s Women’s Rights Prize in 2006.

In the 1990s, Méndez was involved in the Guatemalan peace processes and actively participated in the negotiations as part of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity's (URNG) delegation. Being the only woman at the peace table for several years, she dedicated special attention to the incorporation of gender equality commitments into the peace accords. Since the signing of the agreements in 1996, Méndez was a member of the Follow-up Commission for the Implementation of the Agreements.

Working now to assist and strengthen women advocating peace processes in other countries and regions, Méndez has worked with Hutu and Tutsi women in Burundi, women civil society leaders in Colombia, and Israeli and Palestinian women leaders, among others. She was a speaker at the first meeting that the U.N. Security Council held with women's organizations leading up to the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and she was also vice-chairperson of the U.N. Expert Group Meeting on Enhancing Women's Participation in Electoral Processes in Post-Conflict Countries.

Back in Guatemala, Méndez has been active in the fight to eradicate violence against women. With the significant rise of threats to humanitarian aid and nongovernmental workers defending human and women’s rights, Méndez has called for the unification of national and international organizations, government and media to combat these threats and ensure the safety and protection of all Guatemalan citizens and the defense of their rights.

Click here for Narrative.

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Zarina Salamat from Pakistan

Zarina Salamat was for several years the chairperson of the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) in Islamabad and a leader in the Citizens’ Peace Committee. She says that Pakistan came late to the peace movement, as did she. For most of her life, Salamat had been a social scientist researcher; it was not until the passing of her husband in 1994 that her peace activities began to take center stage. After she joined PIPFPD, India and then Pakistan exploded nuclear devices in May 1998. Salamat organized protests against both, in the midst of great hostility from extremist groups.

By the end of 1998, Salamat was engaged with the Hiroshima Citizens Group for the Promotion of Peace and traveled to the Japanese city with a peace advocate from India to witness the effects of atomic bombs. Upon their return home, joint efforts for peace on the subcontinent commenced. In her efforts to ban nuclear weapons, Salamat hosted a number of peace missions from Japan to raise awareness in the Pakistani public of the reality and dangers of nuclear weapons. She hosted the visit by the mayor of Hiroshima as part of his worldwide campaign for "Mayors of Peace" and enrolled local mayors to join the movement. With the active assistance of the mayor of Hiroshima, Salamat convinced the government of Pakistan to set up a peace institute and university faculties to introduce peace studies as part of their curricula.

Salamat’s efforts to create forums for parliamentarians, activists and intellectuals from Pakistan and India to meet are credited with setting the environment for the 2004 visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan, the first visit in over a decade. Salamat has also arranged for women from India and Pakistan to work together, and for youth between the ages of 15 to 17 to visit Hiroshima so they can witness for themselves the irrevocable impact of nuclear weapons.

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Shreen Abdul Saroor from Sri Lanka

Shreen Abdul Saroor is one of the founders of Mannar Women’s Development Federation (MWDF) and Mannar Women for Human Rights and Democracy (MWfHRD) in Sri Lanka. Saroor’s work grew out of her experience of being forcibly displaced, along with all of her family, in 1990 by the militant group fighting for a separate Tamil state. Saroor helped establish MWDF on the understanding that through microcredit and educational programs, Tamil and Muslim women could find common ground to resurrect the past peace in their communities. She assisted in the implementation of the Shakti gender equality program sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency, which aimed to engage both government and nonprofit organizations in development and influence gender-sensitive economic, political and legal policies.

With the descent into deeper violent conflict in Sri Lanka, disappearances and the loss of civilian lives increase on a daily basis. As a result, Saroor has focused most of her recent work on highlighting human rights violations of the Tamil and Muslim minority communities at the regional and international levels. Organization of protests and petitions has become an integral part of her work.

As an Echoing Green Fellow, Saroor has been working for the establishment of a Model Resettlement Village, which brings together Hindu, Catholic and Muslim women who have become heads of households due to the conflict. With support from MWDF, these women have come together in the building of a new settlement where they can live and demonstrate reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. As children witness their mothers working and living together, they are ingrained with practices which allow for formerly divided communities to live in harmony with one another. The project has also focused on efforts to create community and social cohesion through the collection of stories that express individual and common experiences of living amidst violent conflict and imbue the element of truth-telling into the process. As the war escalates, Saroor and the community are still working toward the creation of the village, although progress has been drastically slowed.

Read Echo Green's recent interview with Shreen.
Click here for Narrative.

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Christiana Thorpe from Sierra Leone

Christiana Thorpe is the chief electoral commissioner for the National Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone. She is the founding chair and former chief executive officer of the Sierra Leone branch of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE-SL). A former nun, Thorpe left convent life to devote herself to the protection and education of girls. She was appointed deputy minister of education in late 1993 – the only woman in a cabinet of 19 members. After establishing FAWE-SL in 1995, the group created Emergency Camp Schools in the capital, Freetown, for children displaced by the civil war. Unrest in the country forced her into exile in Guinea, where FAWE-SL developed non-formal education programs for children. The organization later counseled and rehabilitated women and girls who had been raped by the fighting forces, particularly those victimized during the rebel attack on Freetown in 1999.

Through her duties as chief electoral commissioner, Thorpe restructured electoral processes within Sierra Leone for the nation’s second post-conflict presidential and parliamentary elections. Thorpe was responsible for registering political parties and citizen voters and organizing and monitoring the voting process. In addition, she ensured the involvement of all stakeholders including civil society and security forces in the election planning process. She conducted a series of civic education trainings with women’s and youth groups to educate them on election processes. With the successful training of over 8,000 youth, Thorpe employed them to monitor the elections. In a final effort to minimize election-inspired violence, she conducted trainings of peaceful conflict resolution with village chiefs. Thorpe is also a member of the National Security Council, which elevated her capacity to institute free and fair elections within the country.

Thorpe received the 2006 Voices of Courage Award from the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Special Token of Appreciation for Remarkable Services Award of Sierra Leone for her service to humanity.

Click here for Narrative.

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Contact Information:
Erika Lopez, MA
Women PeaceMakers Program
Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
USA
Fax: 1.619.260.7570
* Alternative fax number: 1.619.260.7809
E-mail: erika.lopez@sandiego.edu