INTERNATIONAAL
Women's Rights Worldwide
IAW Board Meeting 2008 - The Netherlands
Symposium Human Rights Education
Introduction by Lyda Verstegen
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As an introduction I realise that I first have to introduce the International Alliance of Women to those present, who are no
t members of Vrouwenbelangen or IAW.
The big issue for women at the end of the 19th century was suffrage. In many countries suffrage movements started. In the Netherlands it started in 1894, with Vrouwenbelangen as its successor.
In 1904 the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance was formed as an umbrella of suffrage movements. Vrouwenbelangen was a cofounder, with Aletta Jacobs as its president.
The first time the new international organisation came to the Netherlands was in 1908. It held its second congress in Amsterdam in the Concertgebouw, raising great interest for the suffrage movement in the Netherlands.
In 1949, now as International Alliance of Women, IAW came here again.
This time the theme was The Declaration of Human Rights, that had just been accepted by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
In 1993 IAW was instrumental in getting 'Women’s rights recognised as human rights'.
The main purpose of the IAW is as always: involving women in decision making on all levels and in all fields of society: political, economical, social and in the family.
That way we hope to promote human rights also at all levels and in all fields of society. 
And in that spirit we also work for peace.
I am very pleased that Vrouwenbelangen may host this symposium today, in 2008.
The first of the human rights that brought our Dutch provinces together in 1579 was the freedom of religion.
Actually our founding fathers proclaimed that if every province or city would leave their own main religion to others, it would take away the main bone of contention and install further peace.
Human rights, like the freedom of expression, the freedom of publishing and whatever one wanted without prior consent of authorities and without the risk of prosecution, has brought prosperity and intellectual development to the Netherlands. Descartes and Voltaire published works here and Spinoza even lived here in the Hague. 
Our first constitution as a unified country in 1798 contained the civil and political rights that are still in our constitution and that are the base of the human rights treaties in force today.
First of all the Civil and Political rights and the Economic and Cultural Rights. First for men, later for women too.
Very important to us women today: the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
More recently we got the Rights of the Child. Long before these treaties were agreed upon, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) made important treaties to protect the rights of workers. All these treaties have their own mechanisms to promote their implementatio
n.
In Europe we have our human rights treaty and the rules of the European Union. It is a vast field but I can not escape the idea that it is all summed up in the rules for good citizenship in the constitution of 1798:
‘Don’t do to someone else what you don’t want to be done to you and do unto others always such good as you in similar circumstances would wish to receive from the 
others’.
So basically, human rights guaranteed by governments, are rules for every authority and every citizen.
What do we hope for as an outcome of today: inspiration and plans to make human rights work for every one, in a spirit of cooperation between women’s organisations and other NGO’s with humanitarian purposes, like the Red Cross and Amnesty International, and pressing our governments to comply with the obligations they took upon th
emselves.
Human Rights Education
We agreed on the theme of human rights education at IAW’s Congress in New Delhi last year.
Listening to the reports of our member organisations we discovered that they were working on this issue in different ways and at different levels.
We hope to learn from each other now that we have a whole day to discuss this theme with our representatives and the excellent speakers we have invited for the afternoon.
We planned quite some time for questions and discussion, so if every one sticks to their allotted time, there is a great chance for cross fertilisation and real plans.
To give a good example I’ll stop now, wishing you an enjoyable and fruitful symposium.
Lyda Verstegen, president Vrouwenbelangen
IAW PROGRAMME 4 - 8 October 2008
4.10 Arrival / Dinner at Lyda's address
5-10 Board Meeting
6-10 Board Meeting; Reception City Hall of the Hague
7-10 Symposium: Human Rights Education in the Peace Palace; Reception in the House of Representatives with its president Gerdi Verbeet; Mineke Bosch introduces Aletta Jacobs
8-10 Visit to the IIAV in Amsterdam with a visit to the Archive and an introduction on Rosa Manus; workshop Fund Raising with Ingrid Verver, staff member of Mama Cash.
THE PEACE PALACE
The Peace Palace in The Hague is home to a number of international judicial institutions, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the renowned Peace Palace Library, as well as the Hague Academy of International Law, which attracts law students from all over the world every summer.
The Palace, the premises on which it stands and the Library are the property of the Carnegie Foundation. The Foundation encourages the organisation of seminars and other initiatives to foster the peace ideal and is part of the international philantropic network of Carnegie Institutions.
The IAW Seminar on Human Rights Education is to be held in the Old Library.
Peace Palace, the building
All the countries that participated in the Hague Peace conferences contributed in some way to the embellishment of the Peace Palace. Many other countries have since donated precious objects, pieces of art or raw material that were used for the construction or decoration of the Palace, like this part of the fountain in the garden, a gift from Denmark.
Peace Palace, first years
Austrian writer and activist Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914) became a leading figure in peace activism at the turn of the twentieth century with the publication of her anti-war novel, "Lay Down Your Arms".
She continued her efforts as a public speaker and played a key role in the formation of the first Hague Peace Conference and the Nobel Peace Prize. For her efforts in the peace movement, she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905. 
Another important figure in the peace and suffrage movement was Aletta Jacobs, (1854-1929), a prominent IAW member and activist in the Netherlands.
In 1915, a year after the outbreak of World War I, she organised with others the Hague Congress. It was a remarkable wartime gathering of women from the neutral and belligerent countries.
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has been surrected then and there!
In 1918 Aletta paid a visit to President Wilson of the USA, together with her collegue and friend Carry Chapman Catt to 'demand' a League of Nations.
In 1922 the international court of the League of Nations was established, the Permanent Court of International Justice.
The court was located in the Peace Palace in the Hague. Its activity was halted by the German occupation of the Netherlands of 1940, although the court was officially disbanded only in 1946.
It was replaced in 1946 by the International Court of Justice when the United Nations was organised.
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