They say truth is the first casualty of war. But sexual violence follows in its dust. And they so often travel together.

In South Sudan, amidst civil war, women walking to collect water and firewood have been brutally attacked at horrific rates – a dreadful tally often left unrecognised in counting the costs of war.

In the teeth of this crisis, Nonviolent Peaceforce members simply walk with the women as they go about their tasks. Unarmed, talking amongst themselves, often foreigners, sometimes even local men, they accompany groups of women as they fetch their water and wood.

This approach works. It stops sexual violence in the areas where it is effectively implemented. Literally, completely stops it.

Dr Felicity Gray worked on this project, both as a staff member of Nonviolent Peaceforce and as part of her PhD research. She talks about it as fundamentally a relational process, civilian to civilian, focussed on de-escalation, negotiation, and collective agency.

Crucially, for her, nonviolence is active. It’s about communities choosing to self-mobilise in response to violence, choosing actions that don’t create harm but create the possibility of a better way, choosing to act without violence against violence.

On Thursday evening you can join us to hear from Felicity, now Global Head of Policy and Advocacy for Nonviolent Peaceforce in Washington DC as well as her colleague Sunday Stephen Nhial Thiang, at the second webinar in our The Missing Peace series: The Power of Nonviolence – experiences in war and revolution.

Flick and Sunday will be joining Vesna Cerroni, veteran of the nonviolent student movement which overthrew Serbian dictator Slobodan MIlosevic.

This is a conversation not to be missed!

Register here to join us tonight.

See you then!
Tim

PS: Don’t forget our third webinar, Nonviolence, Consensus, and Politics Coming Together Across Difference, featuring the fabulous Janet Rice and Giz Watson, is coming up on October 2, and Decolonising and Nonviolence, with Mary Graham, Yin Paradies and Nidala Barker is on November 6. You can register for those already, too – and don’t forget you can ask for a bursary if you need one.