Women in Black (WIB) is an international grassroots movement of women united in our commitment to peace, restorative justice, human rights and nonviolence. The unifying aesthetic of WIB groups around the world is to stand in silent vigil, dressed in black as a symbol of mourning all violence. Women in Black use a shared perspective to build bridges across barriers: borders, nationalities, and racial, religious, ethnic and social backgrounds. We work from across the political spectrum and often from opposing sides of a conflict.

We have seen that violence takes many forms, from the physical and psychological violence of war, to death and suffering from economic inequality, from neglect, from lack of medical care and degradation of the environment. The violence we mourn transcends any single political point of view. We mourn what happens to people because of racism, greed, and the denial of individual potential. We mourn domestic violence, intolerance and crime. We mourn war and terror. We share a particular concern for worldwide violence against women and children. And we share an understanding that there will never be peace on earth while there is political, social and economic acceptance of this violence against more than half the world’s population.

Our shared perspective seeks to invoke those qualities and values that cultures tend to label as “feminine”, but which need to be cultivated and expressed in each woman and man, in our families, societies and governments around the world. These are qualities of care and concern for each other, for actively nurturing peace, life, hope, understanding and human potential. We believe that we ignore these qualities at our peril, personally and as the human species.

The WIB movement has empowered women and men in many countries to take action for peace, and has provided a support system for victims of oppression, exposing injustices to the light and pressure of world opinion.