Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Dates
- Existence: 1915-present
Biography
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a membership-based, non-profit, non-governmental feminist peacebuilding organisation that acts to make known the causes of war and work for permanent peace.
Founded in 1915, WILPF was established following the International Women's Congress against World War One, a meeting of 1,136 suffragists from 12 countries who met in The Hague to discuss the root causes of conflict and an end to the war. The name WILPF was not chosen until 1919. By 1921, WILPF had grown to include 25 Sections worldwide.
WILPF's work spans many campaigns and advocacy on a range of issues. In the 1930s, WILPF organised a petition demanding global disarmament, which was delivered to the 1933 World Disarmament Conference in Geneva. During the Second World War, WILPF members and leaders coordinated efforts to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazi regime. Throughout the 1950s-1970s WILPF sections campaigned against the Korean War, the Vietnam War, South African Apartheid and other threats to local and global peace.
WILPF's campaigning activities are largely focussed on nuclear disarmament, social and economic justice and the protection of individual human rights. In the UK, their 1980s campaign Stop the Arms Race (STAR) and the Reaching Critical Will (RCW) project of the 1990s increased civil society participation in international disarmament. The UK section was also active in Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. In 2000, WILPF led a coalition of organisations that convinced the UN Security Council to unanimously adopt Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.
The organisation now has member Sections and Groups in over 40 countries across the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa.