March 2017 Update

Happy International Women’s Month!
 
Like you, we are deeply concerned at Women Cross DMZ about the prospects for peace on the Korean Peninsula. So much is up in the air, from which direction the Trump administration will take on North Korea, to who will lead in South Korea. Yet we find comfort knowing that whatever the outcome, women must persist to advocate for diplomacy towards peace and reconciliation. 
 
Thanks to your support, we are advancing our vision to mobilize women worldwide for peace in Korea. This month, we have a series of events in the New York Metropolitan area including a Women and Peacemaking conference at Rutgers University featuring several leading feminist scholar activists from Women Cross DMZ, including Suzy Kim, Gwyn Kirk, Brinton Lykes and Cora Weiss. At Columbia University, I’ll be sharing my reflections on crossing the DMZ in 2015 and transnational women’s peacebuilding. And during the UN Commission on the Status of Women conference, several of us will address the high economic costs of Korea’s ongoing war and division and the effects on women’s security in the region.
 
As tensions mount on the Korean Peninsula, Korean women are leading the way to challenge and resist greater militarization of their lives, as I recently wrote about in The Nation. This International Women’s Day, Women Cross DMZ is joining South Korean women to protest the installation of the THAAD missile defense system, which will only further embroil the Korean Peninsula in a regional conflict between the U.S. and China.
 

 
With gratitude and in peace,


Christine Ahn
International Coord

P.S. In case you missed it- view our 2016 Annual Report online!