About WILPF

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is an international nongovernmental organization with sections in 37 countries, covering all continents. WILPF's International Secretariat is based in Geneva and has a United Nations office in New York. The U.S. section is based in Philadelphia and has 80 branches, including the Minnesota Metro Branch. WILPF has consultative status with a number of United Nations agencies.

WILPF works through peaceful means at the local, national and international level for global disarmament, full rights for women, racial and economic justice, and an end to all forms of violence. WILPF seeks to establish the political, social and psychological conditions that can assure peace, freedom and justice for all. Further, WILPF seeks to establish an international economic order founded on meeting the needs of people rather than profit or privilege. WILPF's aims and principles are:

WILPF Press Conference, Washington DC, March 28, 1968. L-R: Kay Camp, Dorothy Hutchinson, Coretta Scott King.

• to bring together women of different political beliefs and philosophies who are united in their determination to study, make known, and help abolish the causes and the legitimization of war;
• to work toward world peace, total and universal disarmament, and the abolition of violence and coercion in the settlement of conflict and its replacement in every case by negotiation and conciliation;
• to support civil society to democratize the United Nations system;
• to support the continuous development and implementation of international and humanitarian law;
• to promote political and social equality and economic equity;
• to contribute towards co-operation among all people;
• to enhance environmentally sustainable development.

WILPF participates in ongoing international debates on peace and security, human rights, conflict prevention and resolution, and elimination of all forms of discrimination. WILPF contributes analyses on these issues, and educates, informs and mobilizes women everywhere to action.   WILPF holds a triennial Congress for members and in interim years an International Executive Committee meeting is convened. These events are hosted by a different national section each year. The 2004 Congress was held in Gothenburg, Sweden.   Excerpted from WILPF and WILPF US

WILPF's Minnesota Metro Branch is based in the Twin Cities. It sponsors events, including the popular Coffee With program, and educates its members and others on critical peace-related issues including water, democracy, corporate personhood, human rights, violence, justice, women's rights and more.

Our Action Committees include:

• Peace and Environment Committee. This committee's present focus is water, from international to local, in cooperation with WILPF's national Save the Water Campaign. It offers study groups, education, and outreach opportunities.

• Corporations v. Democracy Committee. This committee participates in the Challenging Corporate Power campaign of US WILPF. It opposes subversion of democracy by corporations and especially their illegitimate claim of "personhood rights."

• Arts Committee. This committee presents peace, justice, and women's rights issues through creative arts. Exhibits and workshops include painting, puppetry, poetry, story-telling, dance, quilting, and video.

• Women in Black. WILPF supports the local Women in Black group, which holds vigils in solidarity with worldwide movement to protest all violence, especially against women in armed conflicts. It promotes networking among women for a rightful place in nonviolent societies. More about the global Women in Black network.

• We also have nuts-and-bolts committees that keep the organization thriving: Program, Media and Publicity, Membership, and Newsletter.

All are welcome to participate in our important and rewarding work. To join WILPF, click here.

WILPF History

WILPF is the oldest women's peace organization in the world. It was founded in April 1915 in the Hague, Netherlands, by a unique group of women who came together at an international women's congress to suggest ways to end World War I, then raging in Europe, and to prevent war in the future. The organizers of the congress were prominent women in the International Suffrage Alliance. They saw the connection between their struggle for equal rights and the struggle for peace. They rejected the theory that war was inevitable and defied all obstacles to their plan to meet together in wartime. Out of this meeting WILPF was born. WILPF's first president was Jane Addams, the first U.S. woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The Minnesota Metro Branch of WILPF was established in 1922.

More WILPF history can be found here. A historical timeline can be found here.

Photos

Disarmament Petition Campaign, 1932: Women on Sidewalk Waiting to Enter the League of Nations, Geneva

Demonstration Against Chemical Weapons, ca. 1960s, Germantown, Pennsylvania, Branch of WILPF

Washington DC march against American involvement in Vietnam, 1969

Lillian Crane of the WILPF Santa Cruz Branch at news conference, 1984

All photos: Swarthmore College Peace Collection