Women and Peace-Building: The Case of Mabedlane Women

Citation:

Moola, Sarifa. 2006. "Women and Peace-Building: The Case of Mabedlane Women.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 69 (21): 124-33.

Author: Sarifa Moola

Abstract:

This focus discusses the concept of peace-building and how women contribute to a culture of positive peace-building, contributions that have largely gone unnoticed and are generally undermined, compromised or destroyed by the culture of valuing money and greed. This culture is informed by the negative impacts of economic and cultural globalisation and by our government's economic policies which perpetuate poverty amongst women and children, particularly in rural areas. This focus will draw on a case study of a project in the Mabedlane community based in rural KwaZulu-Natal. The idea is to show how top-down peace-building programmes flounder because they fail to address unequal gender relations and power dynamics that exist in communities. As its methodology, this focus employed literature review, observation and personal interview.

Keywords: peacebuilding, bottom-up approach, women

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, NGOs, Peacebuilding, Race, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2006