Transcript: A New World Order

NARRATOR: From Northern Ireland… to the Mothers of La Plaza de Mayo in Argentina… to Fiji, Nepal and Guatemala… women’s organizations are challenging the accepted convention that only those who are the key actors in war should be the key actors in peace.

CYNTHIA ENLOE: Thinking about how do you create peace-- it's never been easy. It's never been just signing a peace accord between the major players. There have always been many more actors with stakes in continuing the war or continuing it in a new form than we ever imagine. But one of the biggest changes is that we have the United Nations. Now we have a major international agency that tries to be an honest broker in these wars.

NARRATOR: In October 2000, as a result of pressure from women’s rights activists, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1325, mandating that women must be taken into account in all phases of peace negotiations, and all national reconstruction after wars. 1325 was the first U.N. Security Council resolution specifically devoted to women.

ROBERTA COHEN: In reconstructing a society, you have to bring in women. Will they have access to land and inheritance and property? Will they have access to education? Will they be protected? All of this is beginning to go into these agreements, and this is something that is very new. Even the Dayton Accords, that ended the Balkans Wars -- in which so many women had been raped -- the women were not at the table.

NARRATOR: To date, women still represent fewer than ten percent of those taking part in formal peace negotiations.

HILLARY CLINTON SOT: Here in Kabul we are following Afghanistan’s lead.

NARRATOR: Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been arguing in Afghanistan that women need to be included at the peace table:

HILLARY CLINTON SOT: And I speak from my own experience when I say that the work of Afghan women and civil society groups will be essential to this country’s success.

HILLARY CLINTON: I have said from the very beginning that it’s going to be one of my highest priorities to argue for and ensure that we do nothing which sets back the rights and the security of women. I’ve told that to Afghan women, I’ve told that to Afghan leaders, I’ve told that to my own government and international officials as well. I feel that it is part of my responsibility to do all that I can to ensure that whatever the United States is part of in trying to resolve this conflict, we do nothing that undermines the gains that have been made for women.

HILLARY CLINTON SOT: But if they are silenced and pushed to the margins of Afghan society, the prospects for peace and justice will be subverted.

NARRATOR: But peace-building can be dangerous.

NARRATOR: Ivory Coast, March 2011: a group of women in the city of Abidjan staged a protest against strongman Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo had refused to relinquish power after losing the presidential election.

NARRATOR: Soldiers loyal to Gbagbo opened fire on the all-women group of peaceful protesters. Seven women were killed.

NARRATOR: Abuja, Nigeria – three weeks later: in response to the killings of the women protesters, Leymah Gbowee’s and other women’s groups in West Africa organized what they called a “Thousand Women March in Solidarity with the Women of Cote D’Ivoire.”

LEYMAH GBOWEE: The morning we went to protest was interesting. Always when women gather, men get afraid. Especially powerful men.

NARRATION: They converged at a summit meeting in Abuja of the Economic Community of West African states, demanding an urgent response to the democratic crisis in Ivory Coast that threatened to spread throughout the region, with many nations facing upcoming elections.

ROSEMARY SOT: We want to tell all women to stand on their feet, all African leaders to take serious actions because we don’t want to see another election violence, we don’t want to see political violence—because when it comes, it is the women and the children who are affected.

ADJAH SOT: Women says (raise arm up and starts to chant) Stop violence, Stop violence, stop violence, stop violence!

NARRATOR: The women forced their way onto the meeting’s agenda. A woman from Ivory Coast spoke to the gathered leaders passionately about the worsening violence in her country. “The casualties are rising and the stakes are high,” she said, overcome with emotion.

LEYMAH GBOWEE: You know, when we went to Abuja, we went primarily to make a statement to every president in the region, "If you think that whatever you intend to do will just be taken by a group of people laying back, think twice. Because, today, we're coming together as women for Ivory Coast. Tomorrow, as gun is made of steel, we will come after you if it is another country."

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Ultimately it is going to take reconciliation among people in order to get societies that function. That is what this century is going to be about, is trying to figure out how to get reconciliation among peoples, so that human security can take place, so that women are treated with respect, and we are somehow capable of recognizing each others differences and respecting them.

HILLARY CLINTON: Women themselves have to empower themselves. ///… It has to come from within, and it has in so many different settings. It’s not only because it’s the right thing to have women’s voices, minority voices, et cetera, in the room; it’s no longer going to be possible to keep them out of the process. There may not be a physical presence inside the room, but there will be Facebook and Twitter and all other kinds of communication going on. And I think that is a mind change that is only slowly dawning on a lot of the leaders around the world, predominantly men, who make these decisions.

SARTAH DEMPSTER (LIBERIA) SOT: When one women cries in Guinea, she cries in Liberia, she cries in Ghana, and she cries in Niger. One African woman cries, we cry all over, okay? That’s why we gather everybody. We are all speaking with one voice.