Sustaining Peace, Supporting Refugees and Building Back Better:
Women Peace Activists Offering Governments a Helping Hand

 From our WASL partners, the success stories of two women, one from Uganda and one from Syria, prove that with persistence and resilience, obstacles can be removed.

By Aya Nader

In the struggle for gender equality and women’s rights, research shows that women’s organizations and social movements are the key driver of change and progress. But for their activism to have lasting impact, the politically powerful – those in government and the legislature – must support their cause. Often that cooperation is not forthcoming and as the rising trend towards closing civil space indicates, often governments are the primary obstacle. From Egypt to Iran and Turkey, the state is attacking and shutting down civil society organizations (CSOs).

Despite these difficulties, in many countries women’s peace and rights advocates have devised strategies to draw attention to the women, peace, and security agenda and offer a framework of mutual interest and collaboration for state actors. They are working with officials from across the spectrum and levels of governance to support the agenda.

In Uganda, a number of national and local women’s CSOs got together to form a Task Force and began by identifying allies from among different political parties. Head of the Coalition For Action (COACT), Robinah Rubimbwa, who is a long-time peace activist, poet and feminist, headed  the CEWIGO at the time and was among them. “As time progressed, however, it was mainly parliamentarians from opposition parties that proved to be genuinely interested in working with CSOs on this agenda,” Rubimbwa said. 

Rubimbwa and the Task Force worked with parliamentarians to increase government funding for the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda (PRDP) and later to extend its life. The Ugandan PRDP plan was designed to reduce poverty, stabilize and facilitate the recovery of Northern Uganda as it emerged from 20 years of conflict. The Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army had agreed on conditions for peace which became the Peace Agreement, the product of the Juba Peace Talks in 2006. The government designed the PRDP as a framework for peace building and designing development programs. The government and international organizations such as the UN and the World Bank had agreed on a framework under which reconstruction and recovery programs were designed. But in the initial phases they had left women out of the discussions and planning. The women’s Task Force lobbied policy makers and worked with the MPs to ensure women’s involvement in planning and monitoring, and to integrate peace building, psychosocial support and livelihoods in the third phase of the PRDP. They organized by creating a National Women’s Task Force for a Gender Responsive PRDP spearheaded by Isis-WICCE.

The task force first worked with women parliamentarians through the Uganda Parliamentary Women’s Association (UWOPA). The leaders of UWOPA helped convene small meetings with chairpersons of key standing committees of parliament and followed by workshops of groups of 30-50 MPs.

“We were able to really help them understand how superficial the design of PRDP was; we shared findings of research projects we had done with grassroots women, internally displaced women (IDP), and women leaders of community-based organizations (CBOs) to enable parliamentarians to ‘hear’ women’s voices and appreciate their needs,” said Rubimbwa.

Launch of Local Action Plan to address Conflicts and GBV in Amuria District

This was during the localization of UNSCR 1325 that Rubimbwa initiated, whereby local governments developed local action plans to address conflict, gender-based violence and inequality at family and community level. In addition, local governments that implemented the localization program passed sets of local legislation known as ordinances to address drivers of conflict and GBV such as alcohol abuse. They restricted opening hours for local bars to afternoons and early evenings only. Others passed local legislation to support implementation of the National Children’s Statute by putting in place punitive measures for parents who let or forced their young daughters to get out of school. All the local governments involved in the localization program also instituted multi sector District Gender Committees to oversee implementation of the local action plan and cascaded the committees to the lower local government levels.

“Later we would select a few MPs to join us for meetings at community level and encouraged them to educate communities on new peace-centered legislation and policies.  By doing this, they became partners in peace building,” she recalled.

Initially government had contracted a consultant who developed the PRDP without input from women or attention to the specific concerns and experiences of women. “Our involvement led to integration of women in the national PRDP Steering Committee where we were invited each month to make a presentation,” Rubimbwa stated. “We were able to influence the structure of PRDP progress reports to include actual outcomes and the role women were playing in its implementation”.

The women transformed the PRDP from being about hardware, building structures only, to addressing the ‘software’ that were women’s concerns such as post conflict rape and defilement, addressing the needs of women and girls returning from captivity, and those of most vulnerable groups returning from IDPs.

Parliament supported this work further by increasing funding from government for the program, and extending it for an additional five years.

Furthermore, women were able to establish district based Women’s PRDP Task Forces that became part of the District PRDP technical committee. “Our advocacy ensured women’s representation in each PRDP related committee formed at any level. And thus, PRDP funds started to benefit women. In addition, many women learnt to negotiate with government officials and to influence priorities and budgets,” said Rubimbwa.

The working group’s main challenge was that while many MPs initially showed interest, only a few remained committed and engaged. Others expected allowances from women’s organizations and when these were not forthcoming, they dropped out. But those who stayed committed were enough to help achieve the objective: a gender responsive PRDP from design, and implementation to monitoring and evaluation.

This is tough enough for citizens of a country, but it seems almost impossible for refugees, yet after being displaced from Syria in 2012, Najlaa Sheekh became the first Syrian woman to engage and work directly with the Turkish authorities on the issues affecting Syrian women.

“I was sick of what I had seen in Syria from war, killing, destruction and displacement. I found women in the street asking for food and basic necessities,” recalled Sheekh. “It pained me to see the women in such a state.” Beginning with a simple wool knitting workshop in her own home, Sheekh’s first interaction with government came when she went to Suliman Tabsis, then governor of Kielce, to ask for permission for women to sell their products in exhibitions. Tabsis was the first to attend, and he invited numerous officials along.

Sheekh built trust with the Turkish government, and within a year the governor asked her to provide a psycho-social support program for refugees in two camps in Kielce. The program lasted a whole year, with a weekly meeting for women in each camp.

As more women flooded in, Sheekh’s house was no longer able to accommodate them all. She reached out to the government again, this time seeking the help of the Mayor Hasan Karaa. “I wanted the project to continue. He told me not to fear, ‘the government supports you and your amazing work’”. Karaa offered a space for the project, paid for electricity and water bills, and provided all supplies needed for the work to go on.

The center was the first in Turkey to provide services for economic empowerment, psychological support and legal awareness, as well as a child care section so their mothers could take time to learn new skills. The Turkish government then asked Sheekh to license the organization, which she had named Kareemat, meaning dignified women. The government wanted it to be an officially registered NGO, and Karaa stepped in again to help  Sheekh with procedures.

Kareemat also built a positive relationship with the Turkish people. They organized sessions where they invited Turkish officials to talk to the Syrian women about Turkish customs and traditions to avoid conflict among communities. The mayor attended one of these sessions, discussing pivotal coexistence points for a peaceful society.

In 2015, the Turkish government decided to form a committee for the Syrian community. Sheekh was appointed head of the committee.

After two years of cooperation between Kareemat and the Turkish government, Karaa decided to transfer the experience and set up similar centers for the empowerment of both Turkish and Syrians. Sheekh had a role there too; she gave Karaa all the meticulous details that led to the success of her organization. Within a month, the mayor established 11 centers, all cooperating with Kareemat. In addition, Sheekh started attending ministerial meetings in Ankara when they revolved around Syrian issues, and thus conveyed any problems the community faced.

Sheekh’s journey was not without bumps, the main difficulty being the language barrier. But once she learnt to speak Turkish, her efforts became smoother.

Another challenge was the local community. “The sudden emergence of our activities as helpless refugees made some Turkish women upset, thinking we replaced them, but after the opening of the other centers the crisis was overcome,” said Sheekh.

Sheekh recounted how troublesome it was for civil society to work with the Syrian government, and how different her experience was with the Turkish government. “Of course, some officials support our cause merely for appearances and their own interests, especially those belonging to the Justice and Development Party, which supports the Syrian refugee issue. However, some do help because they truly want to,” Sheekh stated.

“The strength of a government is in its humanity,” she said.