Browse Cases

In dire economic crisis under the leadership of President Robert Mugabe, many Zimbabwean citizens and human rights activists felt that Zimbabwe was a “dictatorship under another name.” Political violence was common, especially in the months leading up to the general election of March 2008, and the government used police to violently suppress any voices that opposed the current leadership. The organization Women of Zimbabwe Arise (“WOZA”, a Ndebele word meaning “come forward”) was formed in 2003 to give women a voice against injustice and violence.

The ‘Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia’(CSM) was formed in 1989 as an organized response to the mistreatment of Russian soldiers during times of war and forced military service for young men who were still in school. Early activity of the CSM’s led to the return of 17,600 men a year earlier than expected from military service. Their organization, led by Maria Kirbasova, continues to oppose war and fight for better treatment of soldiers even today. Their most notable actions were taken in the earlier half of the first Chechen War, namely the “March of Parental Compassion.”

In early September 2006, a group of Colombian women, the partners of local gangsters, declared a sex strike.  Their demand was that gang members turn in their weapons to the municipal government and agree to begin a vocational training program.  The strike began during a meeting in which twenty-five women from different neighborhoods came together to oppose the violence of their partners or spouses.  Said Julio Cesar Gomez, the security official in the city of Pereira's local government, “this is about changing the cultural parameters: Some women thought that men wearing fati

The Panties for Peace campaign began in 2007 in the country of Burma. It quickly found legs as a strategic campaign launched by Burmese women aimed against the extreme brutalities performed by Burma’s military regime. These included systematic and extensive sexual, physical and emotional violence against Burma’s women. The campaign strategically played on the weaknesses of their opponents by exploiting the belief held by many in the military Junta that female undergarments would drain power from the military regime by cursing their soldiers.

In 2000, Liberia’s second civil war broke out.  Liberian President Charles Taylor and his military forces, who had taken over Liberia in 1989 during the first civil war, experienced attacks from the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).  LURD consisted of various anti-Taylor militant groups led by warlords who were not given a role in Taylor's government.

During the 1600’s the Iroquois Indian Nations, a group of several indigenous tribes in North America, engaged in warfare with many other tribes. The men controlled when and against whom they declared a war.

Tribal Iroquois women decided that they wanted to stop unregulated warfare, and thought of a way to convince the Iroquois men to give them more power in deciding issues of war and peace.