Yemeni civil society organisation the Sister’s Arab Forum for Human Rights completed their workshop on Women and Peace in Yemen and Strategic Planning  in Alexandria today. The four-day workshop was organized by the Arab Sisters Forum for Human Rights in cooperation with the Swedish Institute in Cairo and Karama.

The workshop aimed to continue the dialogue that began in July 2017 on the participation of women and their impact on the peace, security and reconciliation process in Yemen.

The twenty-five participants included academics, politicians, artists, journalists, human rights activists and representatives of civil society. The conflict in Yemen has taken a particular toll on women, and the workshop looked into the issues relating to women, peace, and security agenda. Topics included “the situation in Yemen and its specificity in the international, regional and national context”. Peace, Peace Preservation – Lessons Learned and a New Approach “and “Humanitarian Challenges – International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights”.

In his opening remarks, Peter Wiederrod, Director of the Swedish Institute in Alexandria, stressed the importance of dialogue. “To stop the war, we have to better understand the root causes. We need to understand why Yemen has become very important to regional actors and a proxy war. The proxy war is very different from the civil war.”

Amal Basha, president of the Sisters Arab Forum, said “we do not know whether we are coming back to our country soon or not … so we have to think together how to stop the bloodshed in Yemen and be a voice for peace.”

The workshop was divided into two parts, one dealing with peace-building, and the last two days of strategic planning to transfer the knowledge of the first two days to a plan of action.

بالتعاون مع المعهد السويدي وكرامة .. الشقائق ينفذ ورشة عمل عن “المرأة وبناء السلام والتخطيط الاستراتيجي”