​​

Dear friends,

​

​The Women’s Regional Network has spanned almost 15 years across conflicted borders and in some of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman. As the network sunsets in 2024, we want to take stock of our key achievements and identify what was left undone.

​

This is our collective letter to the new generation of young feminists who want to boldly take up the women, peace and security agenda in South Asia, East Africa and beyond.

​

This memoir serves as both a reflection of the past as well as strategy for movement-building in the future. It draws on a number of internal reports including a 2014 report which documented how the WRN could be a model for other networks and a 2017 report on the WRN as a model used for the launch of the East Africa Chapter of the WRN. These reports also served to inform a 5-day symposium held in Guatemala with feminist leaders from seven Latin American countries to explore the viability of their own regional network. These reports are the result of dozens of interviews with founding members, members, global advisors, staff, and WRN supporters.

​

The WRN family members have been vital to the development of the vision, the implementation of the mission and ultimately the survival of the network through a global pandemic, numerous crises affecting South Asia and of one of the most tragic of all—the fall of Afghanistan in August of 2021.

​

Since 2021, Taliban authorities have enacted over 100 edicts and orders that virtually confine women to their homes and prevent them from accessing education, employment, or participation in public life. Under these restrictions, Afghan women and girls face deteriorating mental and physical health, increasing domestic violence, and the pervasive threat of violence and arrest for allegedly violating edicts. Floggings of women in urban areas has increased making the conditions for women and girls the worst in the world.

​

WRN has remained a flexible and adaptive platform to document rights violations against women and amplify their voices to advocate for policy changes.

​

The sunset of the network comes at a time of unprecedented crises in the world. Catastrophic climate disruptions, deepening inequalities within and among countries, the growth of authoritarianism and the attack on the basic rights of women, transgender people, minorities and indigenous people, has left us despairing if we made any progress in our vision for a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.

​

The Network’s focus on documenting the voices of the most marginalized women in conflict regions across South Asia, has shown that sustaining peace requires addressing both the inequities and the marginalizations that fester and lead to armed conflict. Peacemaking and peace building must address domestic violence and structural inequalities between men and women.

​

As we prepare for unprecedented intersecting crises, we will need the talents of all of our citizens, men and women together, to work on humanitarian disasters and displacement on a scale never witnessed before. Our focus must be on the threat to all humanity. The removal of inequities and prejudice will be essential if we are to be successful in surviving what the 21st Century has in store for us. The Women’s Regional Network is one model among many of how working together in harmony across borders can and will be the only way to address crises beyond our control.

​

We couldn’t close out 2024 without thanking our members, partners and collaborators. Thank you for trusting us.

​

Wishing you a peaceful New Year! 

 

Patricia Cooper

Founder/Convener

​

December 2024