By Mairead Maguire
BELFAST, Jul 13 2015 (IPS)

The year 2015 marked the 62^nd anniversary of the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War. The temporary ceasefire has never been replaced with a peace treaty and the demilitarised zone (DMZ) continues to divide the country.

The DMZ with its barbed wire, armed soldiers on both sides, and littered with thousands of explosive landmines, is the most militarised border in the world.

Mairead Maguire

Seventy years ago, as the Cold War was brewing,  the United States unilaterally drew the line across the 38^th parallel – with the former Soviet Union’s agreement – dividing an ancient country that had just suffered 35 years of Japanese colonial occupation.

Koreans had no desire to be divided, or decision-making power to stop their country from being divided; now, seven decades later, the conflict on the Korean peninsula threatens peace in the Asia-Pacific region and throughout our world.

One of the greatest tragedies arising out of man-made ‘Cold War’ politics and isolation is the tearing apart of Korean families and their physical separation from each other. In Korean culture, family relations are deeply important and many families have been painfully separated for 70 years.

Although there was a period of reconciliation during the Sunshine Policy years (1998-2007) between the two Korean governments, when some families had the joy of reunion, this has stopped due to a souring of relationships between North and South Korea.

Through sanctions and isolationist policies put in place by the International community, the North Korean people and their economy have also continued to suffer.

While North Korea has come a long way from the 1990s when up to one million died from famine, many people are poor, and feel isolated and marginalised from South Korea and the outside world.“I must admit that before this visit, my first to the North, I never realised how deeply passionate North Koreans are for reunification with the South and how much they want to open the borders so they can welcome their South Korea families to visit and normalise relationships”

As members of the one human family, and in order to show human solidarity and empathise  with our North Korean family, to bring global attention to the ‘forgotten’ Korean war, and to call for an engagement with North Korea and a peace treaty,  a group of international women came together to visit North/South Korea and walk across the DMZ.

On May 22, 2015, International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament, thirty women peacemakers from 15 countries made a historic crossing of the two-mile-wide DMZ from North to South Korea.

The delegation included feminist author/activist Gloria Steinem, two Nobel peace laureates,  Leymah Gbowee and myself, coordinator Christine Ahn (whose dream it was  to cross the DMZ) and  long-time peace activists, human rights defenders, spiritual leaders and Korean experts.

During our four-day  visit to North Korea, before crossing the DMZ on May 24, we had the privilege and joy of meeting many North Korean women.

At a peace symposium in Pyongyang, we listened as North Korean women spoke of their horrific experiences of war and division, and listened as some of our delegation shared how they had mobilised to end conflict and build peace in their communities.

We also participated in huge peace walks in Pyongyang and Kaesong, with the participation of many thousands of North Korean women in beautiful traditional Korean costumes. The women carried banners calling for the reunification of families and of Korea, a peace treaty and no war.

The walks were deeply moving, especially in Kaesong where families came out onto their balconies to wave as we passed.

I must admit that before this visit, my first to the North, I never realised how deeply passionate North Koreans are for reunification with the South and how much they want to open the borders so they can welcome their South Korea families to visit and normalise relationships.

North Koreans told us that Korean people are one people. Though they have different political ideologies, they speak the same language, have the same culture, and share a painful history of war and division.

Policies of isolation have not solved any problems and our delegates believe that a new approach of engagement and a peace treaty is necessary.  

Our walk brought renewed attention to the importance of world solidarity in ending the Korean conflict, particularly since the 1953 armistice agreement was signed by North Korea, (South Korea did not sign) China and the United States on behalf of the U.N. Command that included sixteen countries.

It helped highlight the responsibility of the international community, whose governments were complicit in the division of Korea 70 years ago, to support Korea’s peaceful reconciliation and reunification.

The challenges of overcoming Korea’s division became apparent in the complex negotiations over our DMZ crossing between North and South Korea, as well as with the U.N. Command, which has formal jurisdiction over the DMZ.

Although we had hoped to cross at Panmunjom, the ‘Truce Village’ where the armistice was signed, we decided, after both South Korea and the U.N. Command had denied our crossing, that we would take the route agreed by all parties in the spirit of compromise lest our actions further strain already tense North-South relations.

In Seoul, we met with some opposition. Although we did not meet with any heads of state or endorse any political or economic system, maintaining a neutral stance throughout, it was apparent that divisions within South Korea itself were manifested in some of the ideologically divided forms of reception and reactions that we witnessed.

We recognise that our international women’s peace walk is only a beginning and we will continue our focus on increasing civilian exchanges and women’s leadership, highlighting the obligation of all parties involved to decrease militarisation and move towards a peace treaty.

We therefore urge increased engagement at every level – civil, economic, cultural, academic and governmental – and especially citizen-to-citizen diplomacy in peacebuilding, as an alternative to full military conflict, which is not an option. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

The village of rape survivor Angeline Mwarusena in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to be threatened by militia. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Leymah Gbowee and Jody Williams
DOHA, Qatar, Apr 10 2013 (Al Jazeera)

In a London boardroom today – on Apr. 10 – a new era in the longstanding fight to stop gender violence in conflict will be ushered in. Eight Foreign Ministers from the wealthiest countries around the world, the G8, will discuss conflict-related sexual violence and – if all goes according to plan – will emerge with a clear set of commitments to help end the global scourge.

For the countless individuals and organisations around the world that have tirelessly and courageously devoted themselves to going after the perpetrators of sexual violence and helping survivors, including all of us at the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, this is a sweet day.

It is also a bittersweet. Since the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda in the 1990s -when the world learned that thousands of women were brutally raped – the international community finally decided that rape in conflict is a serious threat to peace and security.

The result was a few important U.N. Security Resolutions, and a rough international framework for addressing sexual violence. While all positive, progress is slow. And as debates go on in the hallowed halls of power, more conflicts have been – and are being – waged over women’s bodies, including in Myanmar, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Libya and Syria.

Yet, those toiling behind-the-scenes – from doctors running clinics to stitch the mutilated genitals of women raped in war to human rights defenders challenging national governments to prosecute those who commit mass rape – have had their work cut out for them convincing the world’s most powerful leaders that sexual violence in conflict is indeed a crisis. One they have the power to help bring to an end. Now, it seems, finally some of these leaders are listening.

Leading this charge is the United Kingdom’s own Foreign Secretary William Hague. He has made ending sexual violence in conflict a foreign policy priority for both his own country, with the newly established Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI), and as the UK takes up presidency of the G8 this year. With patience and determination, he has succeeded in placing it high on the global agenda of the world’s most powerful nations.

Grassroots women and organisations working to stop rape have knocked for decades on the iron door of the international “all boys club”, and today Secretary Hague is helping us all break open that door.

We hope that the door stays open – for all of our sake.

Rape in conflict is not an issue that only touches women and their families in faraway countries. Rape in conflict is part of a continuum of gender violence that manifests itself in every corner of this globe. The face of gender violence is your sister, your mother, your daughter – and sometimes even your father, your brother, or your son. It tears apart the fabric of society and is one of the reasons women and their families leave their homes as refugees or immigrants to build new lives on shattered foundations.

Gender violence also continues to be the face of the future, as climate change becomes a more present reality and helps fuel conflicts resulting from desertification and lack of water, and countless natural disasters.

As our Foreign Ministers place ending gender violence on their agenda, we wish to remind them that this is going to be a long-standing item and is not going to be solved in the near future. While the UK has admirably taken this issue and made it a priority for the G8, it must remain a commitment for our leaders with concrete actions to prevent rape, protect survivors and provide justice. This is not a crisis we will solve in one year.

When looking at regions where rape and other forms of gender violence have been ongoing for years, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, we need to provide comprehensive, long-term strategies to end the violence. This means not only providing greater support and reparations to survivors, but bringing impunity to an end by focusing on the prosecution of those committing these heinous crimes.

Equally important, we need to ensure that as conflicts come to an end, women are at the peace table to keep negotiations focused on gender equality and justice reform.

Women’s voices must be heard.

The G8 Foreign Ministers today have set an admirable precedent for other leaders around the world, who can be sure that women will keep knocking on the door. And for those meeting in London, we, more than 700 organisations of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, will hold you to what you pledge.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Leymah Gbowee is a peace activist, trained social worker, and women’s rights advocate who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Her leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace is chronicled in her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and the documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Follow her on Twitter @LeymahRGbowee

Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban antipersonnel landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) who shared the prize with her that year. Her life of activism has been chronicled in a newly released memoir, My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Follow her on Twitter @JodyWilliams97

Williams and Gbowee are co-chairs of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.