Women at the Heart of Peace
Photo courtesy of Global Communities
During a recent discussion with members of the Islamic community in Mawanella, an elderly Muslim woman shared a thought that captured the essence of Sri Lanka’s long struggle toward reconciliation. “Women have a leading role to play in peace and in reducing violence,” she said. “Peace is not only for men. Maybe war is men’s work but peace is for all.” Her words, shaped by decades of witnessing conflict and coexistence, remind us that women have always carried the weight of both war and peace even when their contributions remained unrecognised.
Sri Lankan history and the history of conflict across the world shows us that while women suffer deeply in war, they also rise as powerful agents of peace. Their influence moves quietly within families and boldly within communities, shaping values, attitudes and hope.
Women’s leadership in peacebuilding is not a modern discovery. The story of the Trojan women in ancient Greece illustrates how women intervened to save their communities by negotiating, persuading leaders and protecting families. They understood that while men may fight wars, women often preserve societies. This historical memory echoes today in places like Gaza where women endure unimaginable suffering from losing homes, children and stability yet continue to hold their families together. Despite the destruction around them, they organise care networks, manage shelters and appeal to international communities for humanitarian access and peace. Their resilience keeps communities alive when institutions collapse.
Sri Lankan women, too, know this story all too well. During the three decades of civil war, women from all ethnic and religious communities carried burdens that rarely made headlines. Tamil mothers searched tirelessly for missing sons. Muslim women displaced from the North rebuilt their lives with determination and dignity. Sinhalese women in border villages lived under constant threat yet shared food, shelter and comfort with neighbours in need. They stood in long queues for essentials, navigated checkpoints and protected family members while holding on to hope.
The moral power of women’s voices became especially visible through the work of Manorani Saravanamuttu, one of Sri Lanka’s most respected human rights activists. After the abduction and killing of her son, journalist Richard de Zoysa, Manorani transformed her personal grief into a public force for justice. She once explained that her activism came “less from courage than from desperation,” yet this desperation became a seed of national awakening. She believed that Sri Lanka needed “a peaceful force” a movement that rejected violence and demanded accountability through non-violent means. Through the Mothers’ Front, she helped mobilise thousands of women who had suffered in silence. These women, she said, were “going mad with grief at home alone,” and by coming together, they found not only comfort but strength. Manorani insisted that justice must come through democratic processes, not revenge, reminding the nation that true peace requires truth, fairness and collective healing.
Her philosophy reveals something profound: women do not enter the peace process merely as victims but as leaders whose moral authority can guide a wounded nation toward reconciliation. Their grief, when shared and organised, becomes not a cry for retaliation but a demand for dignity and justice.
The elderly Muslim woman’s message during the recent community discussion reflects this same spirit. Women shape peace within their families long before political negotiations take place. As mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and friends, they influence conversations at home, resolve tensions and encourage compassion. They notice early signs of radicalisation or distress and their guidance can prevent violence from taking root. Within households, they nurture values of coexistence; within communities, they build bridges across religious and ethnic divides.
Yet despite their proven capacity, women remain underrepresented in formal reconciliation efforts. If Sri Lanka is to move forward, women must be recognised not as symbolic participants but as central figures in policymaking, mediation, truth seeking, and community rebuilding. Their experiences offer insights that no political report or institutional framework can replicate.
War may have been shaped predominantly by men but peace demands the collective strength of all. The voices of women including Sri Lankan women, Palestinian women, legendary Trojan women and countless others remind us that peace is not merely the absence of conflict; it is the presence of justice, empathy and shared responsibility. As mothers, daughters, sisters and wives, women possess innate qualities of patience, empathy, intuition and emotional intelligence skills that can prevent violence long before it erupts. Sri Lanka’s journey toward lasting reconciliation will succeed only when women stand not at the margins but at the heart of the process, carrying forward the legacy of figures like Manorani Saravanamuttu and the countless unnamed women who have kept hope alive in the darkest of times.
