[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S2642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page S2642]]



                   NORTHERN IRELAND WOMEN'S COALITION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier this week, I met with Monica 
McWilliams of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. She and Pearl 
Sagar were the only two women participating in the Northern Ireland 
peace talks, so ably chaired by our former Senate colleague George 
Mitchell, when they began last June.
  The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition is composed of Unionist and 
Nationalist women who have united in common cause for peace and for an 
end to religious discrimination in Northern Ireland. The Coalition 
serves as an eloquent voice of civility in an often uncivil climate. It 
is especially important that women's voices continue to be heard in the 
search for an end to the violence and a peaceful future for Northern 
Ireland.
  Monica McWilliams talks frankly and effectively about her commitment 
to inclusive peace talks and an end to the violence in Northern 
Ireland. Speaking about the intransigence of some in the talks, she has 
said, ``We're naming them, we're blaming them, and we're shaming 
them.'' She has called on the IRA to restore its cease-fire, and called 
on the British Government to admit Sinn Fein to the peace talks when 
the cease-fire is restored.
  Monica McWilliams and her colleagues in the Coalition have shown a 
great deal of courage in their involvement in the political process. 
Ms. McWilliams recently had her car vandalized, but as she bravely 
stated, ``That's okay, as long as there's peace.''
  Mr. President, the Women's Coalition offers real hope for a better 
future for Northern Ireland. I ask unanimous consent that a recent 
article about the Coalition which appeared in the Manchester Guardian 
in England be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From the Guardian, Feb. 17, 1997]

  Women All Together Now--If the Political Talks in Northern Ireland 
             Collapse, Will the Women's Coalition Survive?

                          (By David Sharrock)

       In its corridors of power, the political brokers of 
     Northern Ireland's future have weighty issues on their minds. 
     Here comes Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition, being 
     tackled by one of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists 
     lieutenants. Constitutional reform? Bill of Rights? Cross-
     border bodies? Well no, actually. It's about the trouser suit 
     she's wearing. Doesn't she realise that ladies ought to wear 
     skirts? It's not easy being a woman politician in Ulster. All 
     the main parties have them, but as the DUP's Iris Robinson 
     opined just three years ago, their role has been that of the 
     ``ordinary housewife'', more often in the kitchen brewing the 
     tea than in the conference hall making policy.
       Not any more. When John Major called an election for May 30 
     last year, a group of women got together and decided to enter 
     the fray. But if the political talks at Stormont collapse 
     under the weight of a renewed terrorist onslaught while 
     everyone awaits a new Government in Westminster, will the 
     Women's Coalition survive? It has been a rocky nine months 
     since the Stormont talks and the Separate Forum meetings 
     began, in many respects a baptism of fire for these women 
     with little experience of life at the political coalface. 
     Perhaps for that reason, the Women's Coalition seems nowhere 
     near as depressed as the other parties by the lack of 
     progress.
       A sense of humour helps. Monica McWilliams, a senior 
     lecturer in social policy at the University of Ulster, and 
     Pearl Sagar, an east Belfast community worker, need thick 
     skins to survive the bearpit that is the forum, a body 
     boycotted by Sinn Fein and the SDLP. Ten days ago, for 
     instance, the DUP MP Rev. William McCrea told the Forum in 
     his best Old Testament delivery: ``As long as I live, I'll 
     have a mission, which is to teach those two women to stand 
     behind the loyal men of Ulster.'' So Sagar and McWilliams 
     burst out singing Stand By Your Man. ``He was raging,'' 
     McWilliams laughs, adding: ``You can be shocked by the abuse 
     you get. I had to ask the chair to call order three times. At 
     one stage, Ian Paisley Junior started mooing.'' May Blood 
     knows why they are treated like this. ``It's because we're 
     making inroads, they're threatened by us. The strange thing 
     is, I would know the DUP quite well, living and working on 
     the Shankill. Now outside they're one thing, but I can meet 
     them inside the talks and it's as if I didn't even exist. I 
     can understand where they're coming from, but you can't be 
     thinking like that now. They've got to realise that women 
     have as much part to play here and I think this is what 
     really bugs men.'' But it's not just the way they are treated 
     by their political equals that irks the Women's Coalition. 
     The media, they claim, aren't prepared to take them seriously 
     either. Last month, Blood, McWilliams and Sagar were invited 
     to Number Ten for talks with the prime minister. A half-hour 
     meeting ran on for an hour and a quarter. But neither the BBC 
     nor UTV in Northern Ireland covered the event. The Belfast 
     Telegraph gave it 300 words.
       ``If it had been any of the other parties, they would have 
     been all over them,'' says Kate Fearon, a 27-year-old think 
     tank assistant director. ``The problem is, we tend to get 
     into the press only when we are being badly treated by the 
     other parties and it's easy to reel off such stories.'' They 
     are all frustrated at the lack of recognition they have 
     received for the behind-the-scenes work going on at the 
     talks. The confirmation of former US Senate leader George 
     Mitchell as chairman, for example, in a marathon session 
     running into the early hours of the morning.
       The drafting of an ``Order in Council'' which could 
     immediately enact the North report's proposals on regulating 
     parades was another coup. Labour's Mo Mowlam commented: ``If 
     the Women's Coalition can produce draft legislation with such 
     speed and with very little administrative back-up, why can't 
     the Government?'' Blood thinks a major spin-off from their 
     party has been the promotion of women into public roles by 
     the other parties. Brid Rodgers of the SDLP has a much higher 
     profile now than 12 months ago, while women in Sinn Fein have 
     always been active but rarely received the recognition they 
     deserved. The loyalist Progressive Unionist Party even has 
     its own women's executive.
       ``Iris Robinson's not saying `I'm only a housewife' now. 
     She regards and presents herself as a credible representative 
     of her party. And she's good in the debates. You'll find a 
     lot of women in the parties who may not admit it publicly but 
     they are saying privately, thank God the coalition came into 
     being.'' The greatest good women can bring to the political 
     talks, Fearon believes, is the ability to ``Untaint the 
     concept of compromise, because we have always had to 
     compromise. It's a dirty word to men.'' Compromise may be a 
     long way down the road, but there's one thing the men in the 
     other parties could do straight away to show they are 
     reformable. ``They've only recently been able to start 
     calling us the Women's Coalition, before that it was always 
     the Ladies' Coalition. They couldn't get their heads around 
     it. The only time they use women was when they prefixed it 
     with whingeing or whining.''

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