The InterDependent

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, Michelle Bachelet, the executive director of UN Women, went to Liberia. The setting was perfect for the messages she wanted to deliver.

Liberian women -- who played a central role in ending their country’s horrific civil war and then rallied behind Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to make her the first woman in Africa to be elected president of her country – still have much work to do. When the Liberian wars among ruthless armed groups competing for power and spoils stopped, the abuse of women didn’t. Domestic violence and rape are on the rise.

Bachelet spoke about the positive and negative sides of the Liberian experience, shared by other women around the world where conflict and other disruptions of normal life do not end when the trouble is over.

Stuart Ramson/Insider Images for the UN Foundation

Michelle Bachelet, the head of UN Women, receives a ceremonial wrap at a market in Liberia. Bachelet, an ex-president of Chile, visited the West African nation to celebrate International Women's Day and to recognize how Liberian women helped end the country's civil war.

In a telephone news conference from Monrovia, the Liberian capital, on March 8, Bachelet spoke of the strength of woman and their skills in negotiating peace and rebuilding – “Bringing parties together to find areas of agreement,” in her words. She noted how, universally, women put whatever resources they can find into their families and, by extension, into societies that need healing. She praised the ability of women to find practical ways to find areas of compromise in the task of building peace.

But she had a characteristically blunt warning: women have to press harder to stay in the forefront of conflict resolution and its aftermath. She said that women who fought as combatants or were left as widows, and expected to be assisted when peace came, were often told to wait their turn as other issues took priority. Where women waited, she said, “They are still waiting.”

Bachelet, a former president of Chile, reiterated her priorities as head of UN Women, which include putting women on all post-conflict negotiating teams as well as in national governments and positions of corporate responsibility. She emphasized the importance of girls’ education and said that she would be working closely with Irina Bokova, director-general of Unesco, and foundations outside the UN to support such programs for girls.
When girls do not go to school or finish their education, she said, they are vulnerable to early marriage, unwanted pregnancy and diseases such as HIV-AIDS. [Read “The Importance of Helping the World’s Adolescents” in The ID.]

In the United States, the United Nations Foundation has created an online “club” called Girl Up, which links young females in this country with their counterparts in the developing world. [www.girlup.org]

“No matter where they live in the world, girls are bright, talented, and full of dreams,” the Girl Up Web site says. “But too many girls growing up in developing countries aren't able to fulfill those dreams because their chances to go to school, stay healthy, and live free from violence are out of reach.”

Stuart Ramson/Insider Images for the UN Foundation

Participants in International Women's Day at a Girl Up rally in Monrovia, Liberia.

In all her efforts, Bachelet said, she was looking for the support of grassroots organizations and the media to tell the stories of women that are often not heard. She acknowledged that voluntary donations from government may be slow in arriving at UN Women, but she added that she expected more pledges and was doing the task finding support with “hope, energy and commitment.” UN Women has been slow in mounting an online presence, and its Web site is barely developed, making its impact less than what it might be.

Her visit to Liberia, Bachelet said, was “short but very intense.” But she had time to meet the famous market women who propelled the movement that ended a war and elected a president of their choosing. That story is told dramatically in the documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” made by the American filmmaker Abigail Disney.

The Liberian market women, an economic force is a country with much of the formal economy still in disarray and a model for other poor nations, will be supported by a $3 million loan from a UN trust fund.