March is Women's History Month, and we should use this occasion to demand peace and security for women and girls around the world. And we should recognize the many women who have blazed the trail before us.
As we enter the 21st century, war and military conflicts continue to devastate and traumatize women and girls. Rape and other sexual violence, harassment, hunger and displacement disproportionately afflict women.
Globally, women and children represent 80 percent of refugees, according to a recently released report from Amnesty International. It says that women and girls "bear the brunt of armed conflict" as "direct targets" and "collateral damage." The organization also found that communities often shun or ridicule women who have suffered rape. Even in refugee camps, women suffer sexual exploitation and violence.
Attitudes that rape is a "natural" part of war often mean that these crimes are not fully investigated or prosecuted. At the end of wars, women are often excluded in the peace-making and reconstruction process because of unfounded beliefs that women are not strong political leaders.
This mentality must change.
Women, who make up more than half of the world's population, must play an equal role if we are to make sustained progress toward real peace. Fortunately, women today are at the forefront of human rights and anti-war activities.
In Argentina, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have met weekly since 1977, seeking information on the tens of thousands of disappeared during the "dirty war" of the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, the Argentine government secretly kidnapped, tortured and killed 20,000 to 30,000 women and men in the name of national security. Almost 30 years later, the mothers continue to march, wearing white bandanas around their heads that have become their symbol. They no longer believe that their sons and daughters are alive, but they maintain hope that those responsible for the crimes will one day be brought to justice.
Grandmothers for Peace was founded in 1982 after grandmother Barbara Wiedner was arrested for an act of nonviolence while protesting against nuclear weapons at Mather Air Force Base in California during the Cold War. The group now has members around the world.
Women in Black (WIB), an international peace network, began in Israel in 1988 to protest Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Since then WIB chapters have spread across the world. According to the group, wearing black turns "women's traditional passive mourning for the dead in war into a powerful refusal of the logic of war."
In 2002, a group of women created Code Pink, which seeks social justice and peace, and engages in protest against the war in Iraq. The group responds to the U.S. government's use of color codes to signal homeland security by using the color pink. The group has sent delegates to Iraq to meet with Iraqi women, and in 2003, it organized a march on Washington that drew 10,000 people.
We cannot allow the war on terrorism to mask the dangerous rise of injustice, violence and war that are devastating our world -- and the women and girls who suffer the most. And we cannot allow ourselves to be marginalized as "idealists" for questioning these atrocities.
This Women's History Month, take time to acknowledge those women in our midst who are seeking peace -- and those who will continue to blaze the trail for generations to come.
Yolanda Chvez Leyva is a historian specializing in Mexican American and border history. She lives in Texas.
This column was produced for the Progressive Media Project, which is run by The Progressive magazine, and distributed by the Tribune News Service.