WELCOME MESSAGE
New Secretary General Madeleine Rees

Thank you for having me!

When people start a new job the first thing that they say is: “it is an honour for me to be here”. At the risk of being totally conformist I will say it too……and it is, it really is! For all of us who care about women, security and justice in its broadest sense, WILPF is an icon. What we say today, in our attempts to get the United Nations to define security in a way which is meaningful to women, paying attention to the impact of arms expenditure on social and economic rights, the illegality and immorality of nuclear arms, the need to network and cooperate and hold accountable….these were being articulated by WILPF 95 years ago! The context has changed, the mechanism we can use to address them have changed, but these fundamental issues remain and it is now my privilege to work with you to develop our vision, our strategies towards realisation, and to do so in a way which holds the values of WILPF at the forefront of what we do.

I am a feminist and have been since I was two! It was feminism which gave me a fundamental belief in the need for equality and ultimately, to the law as one way of seeking to achieve that. It was women from Nicaragua who told me to become a lawyer and I obeyed. It turned out to be sage advice and after qualifying I became known as a discrimination lawyer, but ultimately one who was frustrated. Cases I was doing, though important, were dwarfed by the horrors of Rwanda and of Bosnia and by our lack of action. And so I went to Bosnia to see what use lawyers could be, found the brilliant women in the NGO’s and couldn’t leave. I ultimately stayed in the capacity as head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with the privilege of doing so when Mary Robinson was that High Commissioner.

In Latin America, but specifically in Bosnia I learnt that we needed to re think the concept of law so that it could accurately describe women’s experience and effect fundamental change in social, economic and cultural structures and hence in politics and governance. I learnt too how violence in conflict does not just stop when the peace treaty is signed; that trafficking, sexual exploitation, and the militarization of society continues and unless recognised and addressed militates against participation of women in governance and justice mechanisms. We did some good things by using the law, but on its own it is not enough; training, education, capacity building, campaigning and activism are vital. Whilst head of the Women’s rights and gender Unit at OHCHR in Geneva, I tried to develop this thinking into concrete ways in which rights can be realised in practical ways and in real places…..There is still much to be done!

Before I accepted the position of SG, the WILPF presidents told me that WILPF is not really an NGO; it’s more of a social movement. Is there such a thing as a Secretary General of a social movement?  Probably not, but,  I am here to be part of it, to build on it and strengthen it, and to do whatever it is we have to do to make those who got it right in 1915, be proud of us.

Madeleine Rees can be reached via email on mrees(at)wilpf.ch.

To read more about her background, please click HERE.