The Millennium Peace Prize for Women

March 8 is International Women's Day and in 2001, it was marked by the awarding of The Millennium Peace Prize for Women. There are a number of selection guidelines for this prize, and one of them is the promotion of the human rights of women in war and conflict situations.

What kind of women abuse is committed in war? Women are raped, sexually assaulted and even abducted and forced into sexual slavery by enemy troops. These women and girls do not only suffer the trauma of being raped, they often have also to bear and raise the babies of men who are at war with them and their kin.

Rape also exposes women to sexually transmitted diseases and they are often infected with the deadly HIV/AIDS virus. The rape of women and girls as part of conflict, is usually condoned as legitimate war practice; it is sometimes actively endorsed as a tactic of war. The perpetrators are rarely, if ever, caught or punished.

Cases have also been cited in which United Nations peacekeeping forces have sexually assaulted the women of the country in which they were stationed to provide protection Women may flee war-torn areas. To escape they need protection, safe passage, and food. How are they forced to pay for this? With their bodies, with sex for their 'saviours'.

When women are accommodated in refugee camps, their special needs are often ignored too. Products for the management of menstruation are rarely supplied and how many refugee camps are equipped to treat pregnant women, to assist those who give birth, and to care for new mothers?

Yet another abuse of the human rights of women occurs when warring peoples at last sit down to negotiate peace. Their womenfolk are completely excluded from such talks, and their grievances, their experiences, their solutions are ignored.

The Millennium Peace Prize for Women was created to recognise the role and contributions women make to world peace, whether on a regional or a global scale. It was awarded this year, to six women or women's organisations. Five of them are based in each of Colombia, Kosovo, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda. The sixth, Women in Black, is a global network of women who resist war and its politics.

The Millennium Peace Prize for Women was sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and International Alert.

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