Summary

Edwina Cooper, Liberian Women's Initiative, tells the story of how she became involved in women's peacebuilding activism in response to a 23-year civil war, and her personal story of growing up in Liberia. Cooper talks about a successful campaign to pass a bill asserting the supremacy of statutory law over "hinterland law" or traditional law, where women have almost no rights and are essentially treated as property. She also discusses the difficulties her organization faced because of an internal conflict between different economic constituencies, and how those difficulties were overcome through dialogue and negotiation.

This interview was conducted shortly after the Africa Regional Learning Institute for Women's Leadership and Training of Trainers (TOT), which was convened by Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) and WLP Nigeria/BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights in Calabar, Nigeria on February 21-25, 2005. 

Runtime: [00:18:11]

TERMS OF USE: While WLP encourages visitors to our website to explore and share the resources in our Learning Center, we do not permit the publication or exhibition of any of the materials provided by WLP or generated by WLP, in part or in their entirety, in articles, books, digests, documentaries, magazines, movies, newsletters, reports, websites, whitepapers, or other print or digital document or platform, or audio or audio-visual recording, or audio or audio-visual broadcast or podcast, without our written permission. To learn more about how to request permission, please consult our full Terms of Use.