The 10th December is Human Rights Day and the culmination of the 16 days of activism, the theme of which this year has been militarism and the link to violence against women.

WILPF has been making these links since its foundation in 1915 and our critique is sadly as relevant now as it was then, it's just that the context and the tools to address the issues are different. This year will hardly be recalled as the year when great strides were made to address militarism, violence against women and the absolute necessity of upholding human rights, on the contrary. From the attack on a humanitarian flotilla, through the gendered horrors of the DRC, to the exposures made by WikiLeaks and the disgraceful and possibly illegal responses from the leading democracies, 2010 will not be a great year in the annals of human rights protections.

Since May, WILPF has made public statements and analysis to draw the threads of these issues together, not just to criticize but to give attention to the legal frameworks which exist to try to make sure that we move away from violent conflict as a pretext for security, and to give support to ways in which that quantum shift can be made.

To learn more, read the rest of WILPF's statement here.