Highlights from WILPF's History

On 28 April 1915, a unique group of women met in an International Congress in The Hague, the Netherlands, to protest against the war then raging in Europe, and to suggest ways to end it and prevent war in the future. The organizers of the Congress were prominent women in the International Suffrage Alliance who saw the connection between their struggle for equal rights and the struggle for peace. They rejected the theory that war was inevitable and defied all obstacles to their plan to meet together in wartime. They assembled more than 1,000 women from belligerent and neutral countries to work out principles on the basis of which they believed the war could be stopped and a permanent peace constructed.

The Congress established an International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace which four years later became the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

1915 The Hague Congress: women demand an end to the war

1919 The Zurich Congress: WILPF denounces the Treaty of Versailles as creating the conditions for a future war

1922 Conference for a New Peace held at The Hague, calls for the convening of a World Congress to draw up a new agreement for a genuine peace

1924 Campaign to mobilize scientists to refuse to engage in research for war purposes

1925 WILPF presses its demand for total and universal disarmament

1926 WILPF mission to Haiti to investigate the effects of occupation by the U.S. Marines

1927 Mission to Indochina and China to establish and strengthen links with women

1931 Jane Addams, WILPF's International President, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

1932 WILPF collects six million signatures to the World Disarmament Petition delivered to the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva

1940 to 1945 WILPF aids victims of fascism. In 1945, WILPF attends the first U.N. Conference at San Francisco with the message of a new concept of security not based on military power and prestige.

1946 Emily Greene Balch, WILPF's first International Secretary, receives the Nobel Peace Prize

1958 WILPF sends missions to the Middle East

1961 First WILPF conference of Soviet and American women to help break down cold war barriers

1963 Partakes in the peace campaign to urge the U.S. to end the war in Vietnam

1967 WILPF mission to the Middle East

1969 Conference in London on chemical and biological warfare

1970 Inter-American Women's Conference in Bogota, Colombia

1971 Mission to North and South Vietnam 1973 * Mission to Chile to investigate human rights violations

1974 Mission to Northern Ireland to investigate the situation there

1975 Convenes "Women's Disarmament Conference" at the U.N. in New York

1981 WILPF initiates its International Internship Programme for Young Women

1982 WILPF launches a signature campaign to Stop The Arms Race (STAR)

1983 Mass rally on 8 March in Brussels demanding that NATO cancel the decision to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe

1984 Relaunches worldwide campaign for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

1985 WILPF participates in the U.N. "Women's Decade Conference" in Nairobi, Kenya: initiates the Nairobi Peace Tent

1988 Missions to Central America and the Middle East

1991 Campaign to prevent and halt the Gulf War

1992 25th International Congress, Bolivia

1994 WILPF sends mission to observe the elections in South Africa

1995 26th International Congress, Helsinki "Building a Secure and Sustainable World Society". WILPF's Peace Train from Helsinki to Beijing discussing Peace and Justice issues with Eastern Europe/Central Asian women. To order the DVD of the Peace Train, please click HERE. WILPF participation in the World Conference on Women, China.

1996 WILPF begins a campaign to democratize the UN Security Council

1997 WILPF supported a campaign entitled Women Insist on Nuclear Disarmament (WIND) launched at the UN headquarters in New York

1998 WILPF sent a delegation to the People's Republic of China

2002 WILPF sent a delegation to Israel, Palestine and Iraq (See Middle East Report 2002 and WILPF statements on Iraq)