Section report 2002

General situation in the country

After the general election November 2001 the political situation in Denmark has changed from a social/democratic government to a liberal/conservative government supported by the extreme right Danish Folkeparti. This has meant great changes especially concerned the legislation about emigrants and refugees. There have been so many tightenings that we in the rest of Europe have the reputation of being one of the most racist countries in EU.

At the same time the new government has cut development aid with two and a million Danish Kroner, an act which e.g. Mary Robinson pointed out to be a very bad signal to the international community, especially now that the Danish Prime Minister as chairman for the European Union has spoken warmly about developing aid during the UN world conference in Johannesburg. Formerly Denmark was in the front, spending 1% of BNP for developing aid.

Organizational status

In the Danish section of WILPF we look a bit more optimistic at the future than last year. At our annual meeting/congress we elected a president, Annelise Ebbe (she has held the post before), and now we have a board of 9 members, only lacking a vice-president and a secretary, the last due to financial problems. The number of members in the Danish section has also increased with a few new active members and the total number of members is 165 members.

The board meets four times a year, and according to our new structure the different working groups give reports about activities and plan new activities. The number of branches is unfortunately going down.

Activities

We still have two groups working with the former Yugoslavia . One group is collecting clothes, hospital equipment, medicine etc. and in June two WILPF women joined the convoy to Beograd and Lescovac, making contacts and distributing the equipment. The other group “Women to Women” has e.g. supported a woman’s centre in Velika Plana.

“Women in Black” has become a more integrated part of our work, and we have almost a monthly demonstration in Copenhagen protesting against war, militarism and terrorism. The demonstrations have focused on the Israel/Palestine conflict. After the attack on Afghanistan , WILPF was very active together with other organisations in demonstrations, a conference, protests lists etc. and our president’s contact with the media gave us useful PR.

We had three members attending the UN world conference about racism in Durban . And later the three members have written articles and given lectures about racism and the results (or rather lack of results) from the conference. One of our branches is continuing its work with racism, refugees and emigrants.

Together with other peace-organisations WILPF has arranged a hearing about the militarization of EU, and the presentations were later published in “Peace and Freedom” and in a separate publication. One of our branches has worked with EU, Nato an OSCE for a year in a study group.

We continue to work with other woman’s organizations, which enables us to have more activities. This is due to the lack of active WILPF members, the average age of our members is disturbingly high.

Challenges for 2003

We feel very close to the Nordic sections and try to define common projects. The main theme at the February-meeting was UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and it was decided to carry out a joint Nordic project. In the Danish section we have formed a 1325 working group and keep contact with the Nordic sections.

We are planning a seminar about Women in Conflict-prevention and Conflict-solution, Peace- and Democracy-building in December during the EU-summit in Copenhagen .

Our president has been appointed a member of the official Danish government delegation to attend the European Council conference in Scopje about “Democratisation, Conflict-prevention and Peace-building: women’s role and perspectives”. During this conference she will continue the work of getting contacts for the planned WILPF peace conference in Macedonia .

In connection with the ASEM summit in Copenhagen we participate in a panel discussion in the NGO forum.

We have tried our very best to implement parts of the programme proposed at the extended IEC in Geneva 2001. And we have worked continuously with:

1. Racism

2. A culture of Peace

3. Demilitarization

all from a feminist point of view, and as mentioned we have formed a group working with Resolution 1325.

To conclude

We look at the future for the Danish section with a fragile optimism.