"Women have no other choice but to fight against militarism and imperialism“

Interview with Donna Denina, Secretary General of the International Women’s Alliance

The International Women's Alliance (IWA) was founded in 2010 as an anti-imperialist global alliance of militant grassroots-based women’s organizations, institutions, alliances, networks and individuals committed to advancing national and social liberation and gender equality. Organized around the world, IWA strives to intensify local struggles and campaigns against imperialism and capitalism, strengthen international solidarity, and contribute to the people’s struggle for national liberation, sovereignty, and self-determination.

In the following, we interview Donna Denina, Secretary General of IWA.

Please present yourself and your involvement with the International Women’s Alliance.

My name is Donna Denina, and I am the Secretary General of the International Women’s Alliance (IWA). I have been a part of GABRIELA, the leading women’s alliance in the Philippines that has been leading the mass movement of women fighting for national democracy and liberation in the Philippines.  It has mass organizations in many countries around the world, including in the US. I am a founding member of Gabriela in Seattle, Washington (USA), where I am based, which was founded in 2006. GABRIELA is a member organization of IWA, and I have been serving as IWA’s Secretary General since 2019. 

Your organization is called International Women’s Alliance.  Why do you think women should organize together internationally? What is it that women have in common worldwide?

In many countries around the world, particularly in the Global South, women face many barriers to exercising political power and having a voice to address their issues.  This is due to the oppressive and exploitative nature of the capitalist system that thrives off of exploiting the labor of the toiling masses of people and plundering lands for natural resources. Underlying these systems, are the patriarchal cultures and behaviors that further suppress the voices of women.  In this regard, building international solidarity among women who share common struggles and issues, amplifies their voices and strengthens their resolve to address the root of their oppression and exploitation.  IWA, as a global campaigns center, creates a platform for women’s organizations and institutions to cooperate with each other to advance their struggles for systematic change.

IWA was founded in 2010. Since the creation of your organization, how have you built alliances?  What were the difficulties you encountered in this process, and what were your achievements?

Since the founding there were a number of organizations who agreed to support the building of IWA as an independent alliance of progressive grassroots women aimed at addressing the issues of war and militarism.  This was IWA’s main campaign issue at the time of its founding.  Since then, IWA has expanded its campaign platform to include the issue of economic exploitation given the current crisis under capitalism. Women bear the brunt of this crisis, carrying multiple burdens of caring for their family while also enduring the hardships of exploitation and oppression. Addressing these main concerns of the toiling masses of women has enabled the alliance to grow in numbers and in strength. As a campaigns center, IWA is able to mobilize women to confront their main enemies in the face of fascist repression and violence. Through various initiatives and activities, IWA is able to hold educational forums and discussions, political conferences, participate in demonstrations which allow new contacts to learn about IWA and its work and recruit more to join the alliance. 

Some difficulties in building IWA as a broad alliance of women are related to building political unity where there are some clear differences. For example on the issue of war and militarism, some women’s groups advocate for peaceful and non-violent means to address issues of war and militarism, while some other women’s groups uphold the right to self-determination through revolutionary armed resistance. In either case, IWA tries to hold a platform for debate and struggle and aims to foster unity through education and dialogue while respecting the views of both organizations. 

Other challenges in alliance-building include some organizations going inactive or in some cases dissolving altogether. In either case, IWA strives to continue to reach out to and expand its reach to build connections with new women’s organizations, particularly in Africa, West Asia and Latin America. Our aim is to build a global militant women’s movement that does not just discuss about their issues but takes militant action to address the root causes and make systematic change. 

One of your main campaigns focuses on anti-militarism.  Why do you think women should especially organize against militarism and imperialism?

Women must organize against militarism and imperialism because of the direct impacts women face. Under the current crisis due to imperialist domination through militarism and wars of aggression, women suffer the worst consequences. War destroys any opportunities for economic livelihood, yet the women are left behind to take care of their families to seek livelihood while the men in the communities are driven out of the homes to fight in these wars. Women and their communities are driven out of their homes and ancestral lands to clear the path for corporate projects largely protected by state sanctioned militarism. Systemic sexual violence is also used as a war tactic to destabilize and terrorize communities. Each year, the rise of conflict related sexual violence among women increases. In the face of militarization and occupation among those who resist and fight back, they are met with violence, repression, arrest and even killings. It is for these reasons that women have no other choice but to fight against militarism and imperialism.

You have mobilized for protests against the NATO summit in Den Hague in July last year (2025). In your slogans you call to “reject NATO’s Women, Peace and Security Facade”.  How do you analyze the way women are being used for the militarist agenda of hegemonic powers?

NATO claims to protect women through its Women, Peace and Security framework, using the idea of empowering women to take political leadership for the promotion of peace and security. This is done by placing women in positions of leadership in parliament, recruitment of women in the military, to serve as the “face” for peace and security in many countries and regions that have adopted this framework. However, WPS only serves the interest of the ruling elite, whose only real objective is to protect their own economic and political interests.  Projecting the safety and security of women in conflict related areas, it provides further justification for more foreign intervention and militarization, except now women become the face of this military aggression. It is therefore our analysis as IWA that WPS does not serve the genuine interests of women, but serves the interests of the imperialists, therefore is only a facade. Real peace for women means joining the broader anti-war and peace movements calling for an end to imperialism and wars of aggression, dismantling military alliances like NATO, AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States), JAPHUS (Japan-Philippines-US) and other forms of these alliances that only further exacerbate international insecurity, causing further destabilization creating conditions  for more war. To achieve a just peace, we must end wars of aggression, uphold the rights of the people to assert their national sovereignty and promote the national liberation of all countries and nations fighting back against imperialist aggression and colonization.

What chapter of women’s history is especially inspiring to you and gives you strength for the resistance today?

Our main strength is drawn from the unwavering resolve of the Palestinian people’s relentless fight to end the genocide in Gaza. Their fight has shifted the political consciousness of the people of the world to expose the evils of imperialism, Zionism, and justify the right to resist, in all its forms.  This current political climate is an important time in our history to acknowledge this new face of fascism driven by the need to amass more wealth through colonialism, plundering of wealth, backed by the financial oligarchs who are clinging on desperately to maintain hegemony.  But the people’s will to fight back, especially the women in Palestine who have undergone the most egregious of war crimes, have been an inspiration for all who are actively fighting for their sovereignty.  The people of the world, including IWA, continue to draw strength from this, reaffirming that only with the people’s will and determination to fight can a new world be achieved.