THE WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM works to
create an environment of political, economic social and psychological freedom for all
members of the human community, so that true peace can be enjoyed by all. It was the
wisdom of our founding mothers in 1915 that peace is not rooted only in treaties between
great powers or a turning away from weapons alone, but can only flourish when it- is
planted in the soil of justice, freedom, non-violence, opportunity and equality for all.
They understood that the problems that lead citizens to domestic violence and countries
to intra-and inter-national war are all connected and all need to be solved in order to
achieve sustainable peace. This remarkable vision still guides WILPF as we face the
challenges of our world today. The WILPF network includes sections in 42 countries,
United Nations NGO offices in Geneva, Switzerland and New York City, 100 local
branches in the United States and a national office in Philadelphia, PA.
U.S. WILPF’s program work has four main priorities: disarmament, ending U.S. global
intervention, racial justice, and women’s rights. The 1997 2000 program cycle continues this
broad vision with campaigns designed to change conditions and consciousness in these four
areas.
# Nuclear Abolition Sisters: Getting Off the Nuclear Cycle
# Disarming the U.S. Federal Budget-Living Wage Jobs for All Campaign
# U.S. Drug Policy = Oppression at Home and Abroad:
# Exposing the arms and drugs connection
# Stop the Blockade of Cuba
# Truth and Reconciliation hearings
# No Hate Speech campaign
# Women’s Memorial Day vigils
# The Women’s Budget project
Nuclear Abolition Sisters
WILPF’s long-standing commitment to end the scourge of all things nuclear continues in this
program cycle. The closing years of this century hold great promise of actually succeeding in
this great and urgent endeavor. With the World Court ruling on the illegality of nuclear
weapons, the negotiation of both the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Canberra Commission findings just behind us,
momentum is building for taking the final step away from the brink of nuclear annihilation.
The U.S. Section, along with the International office of WILPF and the 42 other national
sections will sponsor a three-year campaign for nuclear disarmament on the road to general
and complete disarmament. Abolition Sisters: Getting Off the Nuclear Cycle will take WILPF
and other co-sponsoring groups through the steps from the
Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in April 1997, to taking nuclear weapons off
alert, a Fissile Materials Ban, removing warheads from their delivery systems, ending the
deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons, ending all stockpile stewardship and computer
testing, all the way to a nuclear weapons convention by the year 2000.
The U.S. Section of WILPF will take special responsibility for getting the U.S. to ratify the
Chemical Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, stop computer
simulation tests of nuclear weapons and to stop the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe.
The Abolition Sisters campaign will include organizing against uranium mining, irresponsible
transport and underground storage of nuclear waste.
Disarming Our National Budget
WILPF wants everyone to understand that unnecessary and dangerous military spending
causes the drain in resources away from our vital social safety net. Our country suffers from
a budget deficit caused by landmark military spending during the 1980s. Our government
continues to bankroll the post-Cold War military at Cold War levels, and creates a climate
that will ensure future bloated levels of military spending.
WILPF approaches the need to disarm from the perspective of the need to create jobs and
economic justice. We seek to expose how militarism has always been the vehicle for
economic inequities that victimize people of color, the poor, women and children.
As the budget knife cuts more and more of the population, WILPF is reaching out with
concrete alternatives to the military-drive-in budget. Our program calls for allocating
resources in a way that will increase people’s real security, rather than making our lives more
precarious with each new weapons system bought and sold.
WILPF will educate and agitate for the Living Wage Jobs for All legislation sponsored by
Congressman Ron Dellums. This bill calls on Congress and the President to make an
unswerving commitment to develop a federal budget that will lead to a full employment
economy, and puts forward the idea that a job and an adequate income are human rights.
Carrying forward our Women’s Peace and Justice Treaty of the Americas, for the next three
years WILPF will focus on two areas:
U.S. War On Drugs=Oppression At Home & Abroad
Together with WILPF sections in Latin America, we will investigate the impact of alleged
transfers of arms for drugs. We will send fact finding delegations to Colombia and then host
a tour of testimony about the effects of U.S. drug policy, north and south, to publicize how the
U.S. government uses its "war on drugs" to make war on poor people, people of color and
pro-democracy activists around the world. We will propose and seek support for a more
sensible, humane and effective drug policy. Part of the policy proposal process will be a mini-
conference in Washington D.C. designed for maximum media exposure
Truth and Reconciliation
During the next three-year program cycle, WILPF will explore and promote the concept of
racial equity. This concept leads us to take action to defend affirmative action, but also to
reach beyond that to strategies such as reparations. Our goal is to create a society with
equality of access to resources and opportunities for all, regardless of race, and a just
distribution of the rewards that society has to offer. Along the way we, as a nation, must
acknowledge and repent for our history of racism, so that we can move forward together as a
multi-racial society.
We look to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa as a model for hearings
that WILPF will host to expose the effects of racist behaviors and institutions, put forward the
concept of equity, propose actions that will move us towards equity, and provide for the
implementation of these actions These hearings will be held in coalition with individuals and
organizations lead by people of color.
Stop the Blockade of Cuba
WILPF will continue, as part of the Sister to Sister campaign, to press for legislation that will
make for a more rational U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba. We will sponsor delegations to
Cuba, work through our UN connections to bring international pressure to bear on the U.S. to
change its laws, and to educate U.S. citizens about the promise and challenge that Cuba
offers. We will co-sponsor an effort to bring together women from all over the hemisphere to
craft strategies for normalizing relations with Cuba. U.S. WILPF and our sister organizations
in Latin America will put forward an international call for the U.S. and Cuba to come to the
negotiating table.
No Hate Spoken Here
WILPF recognizes that struggling against racism happens at both the institutional and
individual level. WILPF members will continue the work of unlearning racism as individuals
as well as providing resources and encouragement to others in the same struggle.
To help with this effort, WILPF is putting forward a "No Hate Speech’ campaign. We provide
a kit with "No Hate Spoken Here" stickers and suggestions for how to use these materials
oneself and how to spread the word to others. Included are resources explaining the danger
and injury of hate speech and strategies for how to interrupt this ongoing impediment to racial
equity. A special version of the packet will be offered for young children. The
accompanying material dramatizes the connection between hate speech based on racism,
sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.
Women’s Budget Project
WILPF’s work to foster women’s rights will take place in the context of the ongoing Women’s
Budget Project. We understand that a budget centered around the economic wellbeing of
women and children will not only redress the impoverishment of women, but will result in a
society that provides economic justice for all.
To this end, WILPF is sponsoring The Women’s Budget Project, a partnership project with
more than 20 other women’s and economic justice organizations, to create a real line-item,
alternative budget that addresses both how federal income is generated as well as how it is
spent. This budget will be generated through a process of grassroots research and policy
development. The Women’s Budget will he used as an important tool for both empowering
economic literacy programs for women and for organizing around the presidential and
congressional elections in the year 2000.
Women’s Memorial Day
WILPF’s work to end violence against women will expose the relationship between the
violence of militarism and violence against women. Just as we seek to end "wars" that
happen primarily between men, we must also strive to end the war against women, both as
part of men’s official wars, and as part of the unseen and undeclared war that women live
through in our daily lives.
To make this connection clear and to change our national consciousness about violence
against women, WILPF will hold "Women’s Memorial Day" actions.
We will create "Women’s Memorial Walls" to honor those women who were killed in the wars
against women, and "Women’s Wisdom Walls" to put forward our wisdom that world peace
begins at home.