Circa ED5F001300 BCE, Egypt: two Hebrew midwives refuse Pharaoh’s order to kill all newborn male Hebrew babies. The women hide a baby boy in reeds by a river bank, as recorded in the Bible (Exodus, chapters 1 and 2). They find an ally in an Egyptian princess, who adopts the baby and calls him Moses. It was the first documented case of civil disobedience.

Circa 420 BCE, Greece: dramatist Aristophanes (c. 447-385 BCE) writes the comedy Lysistrata, about women who end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex until their warrior husbands agree to peace. In 2003, women against the war in Iraq organized The Lysistrata Project which saw 1,029 readings of the play all over the world. The group developed a study guide for young people on the play, in order to encourage thinking about peace.

1789, France: working class women march from Paris to the king’s palace in Versailles to demand bread for their hungry families.

1807, UK: after a mass petition and public awareness campaign, the British slave trade is outlawed. The abolition movement begins a campaign to gradually free 800,000 already enslaved Africans working on West Indian sugar cane plantations. By the 1830s women like Elizabeth Heyrick set up their own anti-slavery groups, organize a door-to-door campaign that launches a successful sugar boycott, and pressure the largest abolition organization to push for immediate, not gradual, freedom for slaves. In 1831 in Jamaica 20,000 slaves rise up, demanding wages for their work, and are brutally suppressed.

1870s, Japan: Kusunose Kita refuses to pay taxes because she cannot also vote, and so sparks the women’s suffrage movement in Japan.

1871, France: women of Paris encircle different military units, cut the harnesses of soldiers’ horses and cover canons with their bodies in order to prevent bloodshed between the Parisian National Guard and government troops from Versailles.

1905, India: Bengali Muslim feminist Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein publishes Sultana’s Dream and Selections from The Secluded Ones. The book denounces purdah by portraying a world where men are confined to home and women dominate public life. Hossein works throughout her life to promote education for women and girls, explaining that Islam promotes women’s education.

1923, China: 20,000 Shanghai women silk workers strike, demanding a ten-hour work day.

“I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it.” Abdul Ghaffar Khan

1930s, North-West Frontier (Afghanistan): Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a close associate of Gandhi, forms a 100,000 strong peace army called Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God). Sworn to nonviolence (and rejecting the Pathan traditional of revenge and blood feuds), the peace army builds schools, institute village development projects, and oppose British colonialism. The Khudai Khidmatgar includes many women, inspired by Khan’s espousal of women’s rights and his condemnation of purdah.

1940s, France: while the country is under occupation by Hitler’s troops, the villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon shelter escaping Jews, sharing food, forging identity documents and smuggling people to safety. Leadership is provided by Pastor André Trocmé and his wife Magda, who said most of the resistance was organized around kitchen tables. The villagers are credited with saving the lives of 5,000 refugees, including 3,500 Jews.

1943, UK: all British women up to 51 years old are required by law to work in war-related services or industry. 214 women conscientious objectors are jailed for refusing to do civilian work to support the UK war effort.

1943, Germany: Jewish men married to non-Jewish women are rounded up and imprisoned in Berlin. 24 women gather in Rosenstrasse street in front of the Gestapo headquarters to demand their husbands’ release. It is the first public defiance inside Germany and Nazi officials do not know how to respond. The crowd grows to 1,000 women. On the third day SS troops are told to train their guns on the crowd. The women refuse to give up. After six days all 1,500 men are released.

1951, Egypt: founder of the Daughters of the Nile Union (1948), Doria Shafik, organizes an invasion of Parliament by women to demand their rights.

1957, Cuba: 40 women, mothers of sons murdered by the Batista regime, march silently from church to city hall in Santiago under the banner Cesen los asesinatos de nuestros hijos (Stop the murder of our sons). As they march they are joined by over 900 other women. The silent march sparks the successful public effort to oust the Batista dictatorship.

1977, Argentina: 14 women demonstrate illegally in the square of the presidential palace waving photographs of their children and demanding to know their fate. The dictatorship has kidnapped and killed over 10,000 people. More and more women return every week. When the leaders are killed, the women meet in secret in church pews and begin the weekly demonstrations again. Ridiculed as ‘the crazy mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’ they persist in denouncing the tortures and disappearances, and help bring down the military dictatorship.

1981, England: a handful of women march from Cardiff to Greenham Common airbase to protest the decision to store nuclear weapons there. From then until 2000 (when the US airforce leaves), women maintain a peace camp outside the base, using blockades and other creative means to raise public awareness of the dangers of nuclear war. In December 1982, 50,000 women join hands to encircle the base. Parts of the fence are brought down and hundreds are arrested.

1984, UK: fashion designer Katherine Hamnett meets with then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wearing a dress with the message ’58 % Don’t Want Pershing’, as a protest against the deployment of US Pershing II nuclear weapons in Western Europe.

1988, Palestine: during the first intifada the town of Beit Sahour (some 10,000 people) decides to nonviolently resist the occupation by refusing to pay taxes to Israel. Soldiers cut off telephone lines, refuse to allow food in, impose a curfew, imprison resisters and begin to confiscate commercial and private property. The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People is set up to organize dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. The townspeople persist in tax resistance until 1995 when the Palestinian Authority assumes control.

1988, Israel: Israeli women, dressed in black as a sign of mourning, line busy streets, holding signs protesting the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They call their network Women in Black. The idea spreads until there are Women in Black vigils and peace groups in over a dozen countries.

1989, Uganda: the Ugandan Fellowship of Reconciliation set up a vocational training centre in war torn Gulu region to equip former child combatants with skills to return to civilian life. Peacemaking is included in the curriculum in addition to teaching sewing and carpentry.

1990, Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma’s democratic movement wins an overwhelming election victory although she is under house arrest. The Burmese military dictatorship refuses to transfer power and keeps her under house arrest for seven years, during which she is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1991) and continues to speak out for democracy and human rights in Burma.

1993, Burundi: a Tutsi mob arrives in Ijenda, hunting Hutus in order to kill them. The Tutsi woman Rebecca Hatungimana hides 41 Hutu neighbors in her home, defending them when mobs arrive armed with spears and machetes. Her husband risks his life to protect the neighbors’ homes and cattle; her children lead the neighbors to their fields at night so they can cultivate them, and then back to Rebecca’s for safety.

“I did this because I am convinced that human life is sacred, and that no one would have benefited from the death of my neighbors. I did not protect them because I am a Tutsi or a Hutu. I did it because morality obligated me to act. We are created by the same God.”
Rebecca Hatungimana

1994, India: Indigenous Naga women face violence from Indian security forces and from different factions among the Naga armed movement for self-determination. Factional fighting terrorizes villagers and leaves unclaimed corpses in the bazaars. Women organize the ‘Shed No More Bloodshed’ campaign, beginning with a Day of Mourning for all those killed. The women’s nonpartisan Peace Team organizes public rallies, prayer days, denounce rapes by security forces and later facilitate face-to-face dialogue between faction leaders.

1995, Italy: Women workers at Valsella Meccanotechnoca, a company which produces landmines, successfully campaign for economic conversion—to replace making landmines with the production of useful civilian goods. They send a solidarity statement to Cambodian women during the seminar “Voice of Cambodian Women against Landmines” in Phnom Penh.

1996, Colombia: Movimiento de los Niños por La Paz (Children’s Movement for Peace) organize a national peace referendum for children. 2.7 million children vote for peace, and media coverage of the children’s desire for peace moves the nation. 500 trained adolescent volunteers travel the country with rag dolls, puppets and toys to provide trauma counseling to younger children affected by the war. A year later 10 million adults vote ‘yes’ for a Citizen’s Mandate for Peace, Life and Freedom.

1997, Colombia: 2,000 inhabitants of the poor rural community San José de Apartadó, tired of violence, tell the army, leftist guerillas and right-wing paramilitaries to leave. Declaring their community a gun-free zone, they vow not to sell food or give information to any armed group. 50 other communities, aided by international human rights groups and churches, have since become peace communities. Over 100 members have been assassinated but the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó persists in building a culture of peace.

1998, Colombia: the mayor of Bogota declares three Nights for Women. Men are urged to stay at home to care for the children and to reflect on women’s roles in society. Some 700,000 women come out the first night, to enjoy strolling down roads temporarily converted into pedestrian zones and free open-air concerts. In some neighborhoods, women applaud when they see a man holding a baby.

2000, Serbia: Youth form the pro-democracy movement Otpor (‘Resistance’ in Serbian) in 1998 in response to oppressive university and media laws. After NATO air strikes, Otpor begins a creative nonviolent campaign against Yugoslav president Milosevic, using, among other tactics, rock concerts, demonstrations in front of jails holding imprisoned members, and humorous television advertisements. Despite arrests and beatings, the youth movement helps to defeat Milosevic in the 2000 election.

“At this point in history we have learned a great deal about nonviolent resistance to evil and bringing down oppressors. We still have far to go in knowing how to take the next steps in fostering the democratic evolution of society that includes justice and peace, freedom and order. Democracy is the institutionalization of nonviolent problem-solving in society.” Richard Deats

2001, Kashmir: Muslim, Hindu and Sikh women form the Athwaas Initiative, to travel throughout Kashmir villages and migrant camps listening to women whose lives have been shattered by the violence, collecting their testimonies and dreams for peace.

2002, USA: Western Shoshone grandmothers Carrie and Mary Dann lead the struggle to preserve indigenous cultural and land rights. Mining and nuclear interests try to illegally buy Western Shoshone land for 15 cents an acre and dispossess the people. The land is the third largest gold producing area in the world and home to Yucca Mountain, a proposed US nuclear waste repository. Government raids seize Shoshone cattle and horses, but the Dann sisters continue to speak out.

“The elders before us stood up for life…our Indian children are over in Iraq fighting for their country. What are they fighting for? If the war on terrorism is about protecting this country then why is our own government trying to take away our homelands?” Mary McCloud, Western Shoshone elder

2002, Philippines: Bernie Eliseo steps between an angry mob of Christians preparing to shot a group of Muslims in revenge, in the troubled area of Mindanao. “If you insist on killing our Muslim neighbors, you are going to have to kill me, too,” he says. His act prevents any killing.

2003, Zimbabwe: Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) give valentines and roses to passers by as they march on Valentine’s Day in different cities under the banner “Yes to love, No to violence”. In Harare, when ordered to disperse by riot police, they sit on the pavement and sing the national anthem. In Bulawayo marchers beat empty pots with cooking spoons to draw attention to food shortages. 15 women are arrested. Released the next day, they step out on to a pavement strewn with roses by supporters. WOZA is back on Mother’s Day, sweeping the steps of the Parliament building, chanting “It’s time to sweep away the violence!”

2004, France: Thousands of immigrant women join the demonstration the movement Ni Putes, Ni Soumises (NPNS--Neither Whores, Nor Submissive) organizes in Paris on March 8 International Women’s Day, to break the silence about gang rapes in housing projects and violence against migrant women.

2005, the Netherlands: Teun van de Keuken uses public interest in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to raise awareness about the use of slave labor on chocolate plantations in Cote d’Ivoire. He produces a documentary Tony and the Chocolate Factory, tries to sue himself in Dutch courts for benefiting from slave labor by buying chocolate, and calls on the chocolate industry to certify that their candies are made from slave-free labor.

2005, Pakistan: to celebrate International Women’s Day (March 8), Amnesty International/Pakistan organizes a Stop Violence Against Women football match in Karachi, inviting sports celebrities, journalists, students and others to speak out against violence against women.

2005, Burma: A local military commander tries to imprison Mon ethnic minority leader Nai Sein Aye without evidence. The commander brings Nai to court, where judge Daw Win Win Htay releases him. Military officials order her three times to try Nai. She refuses each time. After threats and a fourth attempt by the military to try Nai, she resigns her job rather than imprison an innocent man.

2005, Tonga: Hundreds of women civil servants walk off their jobs to demand a living wage. They strike with their children outside the Prime Ministers office in Pangai si’i. By the strike’s fifth week, hundreds of civil servants, church leaders and public supporters join them to urge the government to begin negotiations.