Women in Black (WIB) is an international grassroots movement of women united in our commitment to peace, restorative justice, human rights and nonviolence. The unifying aesthetic of WIB groups around the world is to stand in silent vigil, dressed in black as a symbol of mourning all violence. Women in Black use a shared perspective to build bridges across barriers: borders, nationalities, and racial, religious, ethnic and social backgrounds. We work from across the political spectrum and often from opposing sides of a conflict.

We have seen that violence takes many forms, from the physical and psychological violence of war, to death and suffering from economic inequality, from neglect, from lack of medical care and degradation of the environment. The violence we mourn transcends any single political point of view. We mourn what happens to people because of racism, greed, and the denial of individual potential. We mourn domestic violence, intolerance and crime. We mourn war and terror. We share a particular concern for worldwide violence against women and children. And we share an understanding that there will never be peace on earth while there is political, social and economic acceptance of this violence against more than half the world’s population.

Our shared perspective seeks to invoke those qualities and values that cultures tend to label as “feminine”, but which need to be cultivated and expressed in each woman and man, in our families, societies and governments around the world. These are qualities of care and concern for each other, for actively nurturing peace, life, hope, understanding and human potential. We believe that we ignore these qualities at our peril, personally and as the human species.

The WIB movement has empowered women and men in many countries to take action for peace, and has provided a support system for victims of oppression, exposing injustices to the light and pressure of world opinion.

Women in Black India

Beginnings

WIB vigils began in January 1988 in Israel, when a small group of Israeli women, protesting the escalating cycle of violence, dressed in black and stood in silent vigil with signs stating, “Stop the Occupation.” They were inspired by the action of the "Mothers of the Plaza the Mayo" in Argentina and "Black Sash" in South Africa.

One of the Israeli founders is Nourid Peled, who lost her fourteen-year old daughter Smadar in a Palestinian terrorist attack. She has refused to be ruled by hate, and believes Women in Black gives hope for a just and peaceful solution, which will in turn prevent other parents from experiencing such a tragedy.

Thus began the now 18-year history of the WIB movement, as it spread spontaneously from country to country, wherever women sought to speak out against violence and injustice in their own part of the world. The vigils are a public statement that violence and oppression, under any label are unacceptable.

WIB today

There are now more than 240 WIB vigils in 40 countries and in 38 US states. WIB groups take many forms, but all hold in common an uncompromising commitment to nonviolence. We stand in solidarity with each other’s efforts for local as well as international concerns. In Italy one vigil stands against the Mafia, in Germany against racism, nuclear weapons and xenophobia encouraged by neo-Nazis.

In Columbia women stand in defiance of narco-terrorism. Hundreds of Columbian women have walked together across the country to make visible that nation’s epidemic of violence against women. In Mexico WIB walked several hundred miles in procession carrying crosses for the unsolved murders of more than 380 young women in Juarez and other border towns. In Seattle, WA a group of homeless women hold WIB vigils every time a homeless person dies on the streets. They pass out flyers about the person, often their only memorial, so that passersby know that a real person has just died of neglect.

In India vigils are held to support women oppressed by religious fundamentalists. And during the Balkan-war Serbian, Croatian and Muslim women stood together with the motto: “we will not become each other's enemies.” For many people from former Yugoslavia, the vigils were an important and hopeful counterforce to the ethnic violence.

WIB, represented by the Israeli and Belgrade groups, has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2001 and 2003. In 2001 WIB was awarded the Millennium Peace Prize for Women by the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Women in Black Belgrade, May 24 & 28, 2005

International Day of Women's Action for Peace and Disarmament

http://www.womenandlife.org/WLOE-en/information/peace/peace-fs.html